Welcome to Trapper's World!

Version 1.0, Hit 

Hygiene

• If you don't like your towel being totally wet and heavy after having a shower, soon starting to stink in your backpack, wring out your washcloth first and dry yourself with that. It's wet anyway, but after wringing it out you're wetter. You won't get totally dry with that, but your towel will get less wet.
• If you want to wash your clothing in a washbasin, you've got to leakproof it first. I heard that bikers sometimes bring along rubber plugs. That's ok, but they won't fit all times. Today's modern trapper just puts a plastic bag in the basin and does his washing in the bag. Make sure you cut the edges of the detergent tube (ref. Packing).

To distinguish between clean and dirty clothing in your bagpack, just tie a knot into the clean stuff.

Health

• A Mosquito or other evil insects can transfer illnesses even more evil. Besides the usual preventives as there are mosquito nets, repellents and light off watch this:

If you sleep in a room and think you're able to kill all evil mosquitos, first jam all gaps of windows and doors e.g. with crumpled plastic bags. If you can't find the evil insects any more, lie down face up on the floor, this way you're most likely to spot the mossies in contrast to a white ceiling.
It may be useful to pull your socks over your trousers.
• You're already familiar with the closed-bottle-no-ice stuff concerning contaminated water. But even salad may be dangerous when washed with contaminated water. If you get a glass in a cafe, dry it with e.g. your sleeve or a handkerchief.
• If you suffer of motion sickness in a room (of a boat...) it may be because your brain gets different information from your eyes and from your ears (where the gravity sensors are located). Try to focus on a fix point (horizon, stars), this way your sense of gravity will also know that you're moving. This trick might not always help.
• Don't take your tongue between your teeth.
• If you don't have a fat stick for your lips, use butter.

Fotos

• If you buy films during your trip, always check the age. Don't buy the films out of a showcase which sees 16 hours of sun every day, films (especially slide films) are heat-sensitiv (you can freeze them for longer storages).
• To avoid blured pictures, especially with zoom cameras with long focal distances and less sensitiv films (ISO 100), lean against a tree or even better make the camera touch a fixed pole/tree/wall. Or bring along a tripod, which you can also use as a tent pole, hiking stick or cooking tripod.
• Films are valuables.

Safety

• If you leave your bagpack at a baggage room, tie a knot into the string which only you know and check afterwards if it's still the same knot. That's not as good as a padlock, but it's not as heavy either.
• If you need information, ask anybody. Don't get information from people speaking to you, this way the chance to get information from hasslers is smaller.

You should also try to look as if you'd know where to go.
Don't give information to people which is none of their business!
If someone asks you "How long are you in the country for?" or if it's the first time, he wants to know whether he can take the mickey out of you. He won't ask this directly, he'll go more like "How much did you pay for this T-shirt?" or "Where else have you been in the country?" Don't hesitate to lie some times! If someone wants to know what's your job or where you come from, he wants to know how much money you have. If in doubt, tell him you're a student from Tabaluga.
• It is useful to carry some coins in your pockets. This way you can tip people or hand out alms or pay for a coke without showing anyone in the crowded street where you keep your wallet and which credit cards you use.
• Our fellow trapper Charles Bukowski (+ 1994) makes his main character in his last novel "Pulp" keep his wallet in his left back pocket to cheat pickpockets. I do the same.
• A person doesn't need to be one of the good guys just because he's from your home country. In my worst experiences always westeners were involved.
• If someone tells you about his friends/relatives in your home country, that's a bad sign. Even worse, if he shows you photographs of them.
• Not every policeman is a good guy everywhere.
• Most trappers get suspicious, when an offer sounds to good. But if it promises really huge profits, they get greedy and fall for it. Don't make that mistake.

Hiking (in cities or wilderness)

• Every 20 steps you make, look back. This will help you on your way back.
• If you're not sure wether it's the right way and you ask someone saying yes, he maybe didn't understand you quite good and wants to welcome you with nodding and laughing or finds it impolite to say "no". Better ask for anything else to check wether he understood.
• If the legs of your shoes are to low and the legs of your trousers are to short lots of sand and little stones might fall into your shoes, especially when walking downhill.
• learn to pronounce place names right.
• If your shoes don't fit, stick plaster or Leukoplast to the endangered spots before you get blisters!
• If your boots aren't waterproof anymore and you don't have shoe fat, use butter.

Comfort

• Ear plugs are the most important invention of the last century. When you travel in groups, they avoid tensions between trappers, and an trapper who got a good night's sleep is a satisfied trapper. I'm talking about these synthetic plugs you can squeeze which expand inside the ear, forget about the other stuff.
• If you have a traveller's guide with city maps etc, it's useful to stick a string or two (with different colours) to it to use it as a bookmark (e.g. with Leukoplast). If you did so, you don't need to hang around at the station and search your guide until everyone noticed that you don't have a clue and tries to bring you to the hotel/restaurant/shop of his brother in law. Paper clips are ok as well.
• A towel takes in a huge potential. If you have a long towel, you can tie a knot into both ends and put it behind your neck e.g. in a bus (watch this foto (30 KB) for better understanding). The thick knots prevent your head from falling to the side. You can as well use a towel to protect you from sun, as a shoping bag, prayer carpet, mattress, blanket or even to dry yourself up.
• If it's pretty cold, just fill your water bottle with hot water and put it into your sleeping bag. Don't forget to pull a sock over it, otherwise you might burn your feet.

Camping

• If your tent istn't 100% waterproof, a syringe might be useful. You can pump puddles with it, and it's only a few grams...
• If your tent's floor isn't very strong and you camp on gravel, why don't you put your camping matress between the ground and the tent instead of between the tent and you?

Packing

• If you check in your backpack you might get trouble e.g when flying, when straps catch in conveyor belts. Wrap the side with the carrying system of your backpack with your backpack-raincoat, tighten two straps around the pack and tie a knot into the two ends of the straps to build a grip. Looks quite silly, but's cool!
• If you take tubes with you (tooth paste, detergent), the edges at the joint can be quite sharp and destroy your bag or your hands when rummage in it. There's no reason why not to cut off the edges e.g. with a nail clipper.

Traveller's guides

• Use Bookmarks (ref. Comfort).
• Don't try to save the 20 $ a traveller's guide would cost, it's going to be more expensive in the end.
• Good guides are the lonely planets or for eastern Europe the "In your Pocket" guides (can be bought in the respective places).
• Traue Deinem Reiseführer nicht zu sehr, manchmal sind Stadtpläne nicht ganz richtig oder die Information einfach veraltet.

Other

• For hitchhiking in Germany the booklet "Tanken und Rasten", which you can pick up at several roadhouses for free, is quite useful. There's a map in it with all the motorways, fuel stations and roadhouses.
• If you don't want to ask anyone for information, just sit down anywhere and watch how the others (locals) are doing it. Don't watch the crowd, watch single persons.
• If you don't negotiate prices or give to much money to begging kids in third world countries, the contry becomes dependent on tourism and your fellow trappers coming after you will have to pay higher prices.
• Try to smile and look cool.
• When asking other trappers for information, don't trust them to much. Do you know weather they're real trappers, if the know what's a good deal and what they mean is an interesting site or a good place to stay? And maybe they don't know anything and just don't want to admit.
• Many people think a lead pencil is for weicheis and loosers, but a trapper knows: There aren't many situations in which a lead pencil won't write.
• If your envelopes became wet in the misty climate of the Amazonas, write your letter onto a piece of A4-Paper or bigger and fold it following these instructions (12 KB).