How I Learned The Importance of Being A Presentable Traveler

Bear with me, I promise it’s going somewhere

I set off for my first trip at the ripe age of eighteen. I had contacted a slew of friends, friends of friends, and so on, until I had a list of places I could stay for free while I traveled through Europe. With almost fifteen people all offering at least one night per couch, I felt pretty privileged to know so many people!

At the beginning, I received warm welcomes, mountains of “how are you”s and “how’s so-and-so? It’s been years since I saw them!”

As the days and weeks wore on, I started to receive a slightly cooler welcome.

Now, to an eighteen-year-old who had only ever visited his grandparents house and the occasional school friend’s house, I didn’t really have the knowledge of experience to know what to do.

Finally, when staying with one of my mom’s friends in Hamburg, the topic of where I had been and who I saw came up. Of course, I used that opportunity to ask her, “Hey, I’ve recently been getting a somewhat unenthusiastic response to people seeing me.” Though I might have not put it in those words.

“Well,” she said, thankfully sparing no tact. “You stink.”

It was one of those moments where I thought, “Wait. Is this how adults talk to each other? With blunt honesty?” (Didn’t take long for that thought to be proved wrong.)

And she was right!

Although I had been showering religiously (I’ve always disliked the feeling of being “road dirty”), my bag smelled and my shoes smelled. I also had that kind of beard that most eighteen-year-olds do, where it’s just a few pieces of long hair hanging around a mouth and no one can tell if it’s a beard or just some stray hairs I don’t realize are there. While smelling okay, this didn’t help my image.

Plus, my hair had grown past the point of “short” into “not long enough to be cute” so I just looked like I didn’t know how to take care of myself.

Which I did, but I also didn’t. At eighteen, my mother had made it clear many times over that I was expected to do chores, my own laundry, pack my own lunch for school, and generally try to contribute to the household.

But, living with other adults, I didn’t realize how much I was still being parented. Having someone say, “Hey, do you mind sticking your shoes outside? They’re starting to smell a bit.” Or “Do you want me to give you a haircut? It looks like it’s getting into your eyes.” was helpful in a way I didn’t realize at the time.

I thought people were accepting, all the time, without condition. Of course, they aren’t. They can’t be. If some friend of mine asked if their nephew could spend the night on my couch, of course I would say “yes!” If they showed up, stinking a bit, and not offering dinner (another one of my short-sighted moments), then of course I wouldn’t be too enthusiastic.

The next day, I had shaved my “beard”, found a barber to sculpt my hair into something more acceptable, and was hunting for a spare pair of shoes so I wasn’t overusing one pair. Plus, I had emptied out my bag and left it outside in the sun to deodorize and, possibly, fumigate.

I ended up finding a pair of sneakers, so I washed my old ones and left them to also dry in the sun.

Two days later, I was ready to leave. This time, I was clean-shaven, clean-smelling, and not wearing a funky bag.

I has also reached out to an old friend, someone I hadn’t seen since fifth grade, nine years earlier.

Her family had moved to the Air Force base in Wiesbaden, only a few hours away by train. When she found out I was in the same country, she told me I should come and visit.

Of course, I took her up on her offer!

I texted her the morning I left Hamburg, letting her know I would arrive to Wiesbaden by four in the afternoon. I also told her that I didn’t have service, so if there wasn’t WiFi on the train, I wouldn’t be able to answer her.

When I arrived to Wiesbaden, I started looking for her. Or her mother, who I met once.

Combing through the train station twice, I didn’t see her, or anyone who looked like her. Funnily enough, this was a fairly common occurrence by this point. People were caught in traffic, or they mixed up days, and I once arrived to the wrong train station, and they had to come find me.

Finally, I asked a student, a little younger than me, if I could borrow his phone to call her. Thankfully, this was Germany, and everyone spoke English.

“Nathaniel??” she asked. “What do you mean you’re at the train station??”

Turns out, she was in school all day. Silly me, I thought since I was out of high school, so was she. But switching from the US to German school system meant that she had to take a placement test to see, I can only imagine, if she was smart enough to be with her peers, and subsequently missed a year.

She did not get my message at all.

More surprised than her, was her mother.

My friend had a slight expectation that I would come. Her mother didn’t even know I existed. “Nathaniel? That tall young boy?” I could hear her in the background.

They turned the car around, already on their way home, to pick me up. You can’t tell me this isn’t “Parent/Good Person of the Year” Award material.

My friend’s mother was understandably suspicious when she saw me at the train station. Here I was, nine years after I might have seen her last, asking to crash on her couch for a night or two.

After a few hours, the suspicion started to fade away. I think she finally realized I wasn’t angling for anything, I was just some young guy way out of his depth.

Finally, towards the end of the night, she tells me, “You know, when I heard you were backpacking, I thought you would look way… worse.”

I laughed and explained to her that I did look way worse, my shoes and bag stunk, and I had this unkempt beard-thing.

She joked (though I don’t know how much of it was a joke) that if I had shown up like that, she’s not so sure she would have taken me in.

For the rest of the trip I tried to keep up with the basic tenets of looking presentable. I even started bringing little gifts as ways of saying “thank you,” especially if I was going from one country to another.

I found that the better I looked, the more people put up with me, and my inevitable shortcomings. And when I’m staying on someone’s couch, taking advantage of their goodwill, the least I could do is leave my shoes outside.

Nathaniel Mellor is a published short story writer and aspiring travel writer. If you’d like to see what he’s up to, you can check out his website: Only A Bag.