Recently, a friend suggested I write a book about how I travel. But I doubt I’m the only person who thinks this way, and it doesn’t really merit 200 pages of musing. And I’m happy to give away my so-called wisdom for free. These are the things I tend to do on the road. How about you?

Rule #1: Accept any FOOD you’re given.
Food is the easiest, most concrete way to make a connection with someone with whom you might not share anything but this moment when you’re both munching on pig-blood-soaked coconut and smiling at each other. It doesn’t matter whether you don’t speak the same language, or live under different political systems or whatever.

Besides, refusing food is just rude. Somebody is being hospitable in the most fundamental way they know–offering you something that will keep you alive.

Vegetarian? You can be veg when you order your own food. But when someone shares his plate with you at a restaurant, or gives you a free kabob just because you smile sweetly and say thank you in the local language–just take it. You’ll live.

So you might get sick. Big deal. You’ll get over it–and you’ll even have another good story to tell. (Celiac–fine, you get a pass.) Just smile, say thanks and eat the thing. You might even like it. (I liked that pig-blood stuff! Who knew?)

Rule #2: Go to the MARKET.
I have a thing for stacking porn. Nothing looks prettier to me than artful piles of produce. Even if you don’t have this same aesthetic fetish, markets are where you can get the pulse of a culture in a second.

You get a sense of impractical tastes (seafood overflows in inland Spain), standards of hygiene (fly whisks or no fly whisks?), the economy (in 1996, Cuban farmers markets had nothing but grapefruit). Are people outgoing, hawking their wares? Or are they quiet? Are they proud of what they’ve got, or are they pulling scams, stacking the bruised fruit behind the good stuff?

And go to the supermarket. Even in places where you’re not feeling much culture shock, a supermarket can suddenly, thrillingly show a yawning gap between you and them.

In the Netherlands, for instance, you could be lulled into thinking you’re just living in a sensible, lefty-utopian version of your normal life. And then you go to the Albert Heijn and see just how much shelf space is devoted to licorice–and you realize the Dutch are truly a different breed.

Rule #3: Take the TRAIN.
I’m nostalgic maybe to an unreasonable degree (we do have a Victrola at home), but the train is still just the nicest way to travel. And the nicest people seem to take the train. Just being in a train station makes me giddy.

The views are delightful and the rhythm is soothing. On a practical level, you’re much less likely to have someone barfing into a plastic bag next to you–or be that person barfing in the bag. It doesn’t matter if it’s cross-country or just a tram out to the suburbs–take the train, just to see where it goes and who gets on.

An important caveat: Don’t go first class, even if you can afford it. Here’s why:

Where there are no trains, at least stick to public transport. Private cars kill the vibe. You just need time to stare out the window, unencumbered, processing everything you’ve seen.

And of course, you get to meet more people–and maybe make their day. When I hopped a tiny bus in Mexico way down by the Guatemalan border, and the driver shouted, “Americana!” with such glee when I got on, I expected all the farmers with their machetes to burst into a Broadway song.

And if you have to drive, offer rides to old ladies and students.

Rule #4: Stick to the CITIES.
I’m the jerk who went to New Zealand and thought, Enh. Sure, it was beautiful, but I can get dramatic scenery right here in the United States. I’m glad we spent time in Auckland, just strolling around and drinking coffee. Because how else would I know that New Zealanders (apparently) think it’s OK to be barefoot in restaurants? Or that they make the best coffee on earth?

(Which cries out for Rule #4A: DON’T DO very much. Sit and watch. Look at the little things–etiquette at subway doors, how people pay in a coffee shop, fashion on window mannequins, how tall the curbs are. All the stuff you see on the way to the museum is usually a lot more interesting than the museum itself.)

Civilization by definition is cities. Nature is not culture–it is rarely unique to a place. Mt. Sinai–it’s cool, but it looks like Utah. Go for the pilgrims in loincloths, the Korean Baptists singing at the top and the icons in St. Catherine’s, not for the view. Some people don’t like huge cities, I understand. But at least go where people are. And learn to appreciate ugly places just as well as pretty ones.

The tour guide on the grand New Zealand nature tour we didn’t take might have told me how integral Maori culture is there. But I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw how a good chunk of the words in the newspaper were Maori. And I wouldn’t have been reading the paper if I weren’t doing nothing at a cafe in Auckland.

Rule #5: Accept any invitation into a HOME.
This is the travel holy grail, isn’t it? Hotels and restaurants can be delightful, but they are not the goal. You really feel you’ve made it into another culture when you can sit in a living room and look around at family photos, at dust gathering on plastic roses, at an incongruous princess phone.

Or you might ogle a wood fire and a collection of plastic containers carefully hung from the saplings that form the wall of the hut.

Either way, it’s in a home that you get that real, beautiful and disorienting sense of similarity and difference at the same time. It’s what you really want to know: how do these people live, compared with how I live?

Going to someone’s home is potentially awkward. As an introvert, I first have an urge to say no. I will be a burden. How will I extricate myself in the end? What am I supposed to bring? How will we communicate? What do these people want from me?

Stop fretting. These people want to show off the strange specimen they found on the street, and offer you tea, and feel good that they did right by a stranger. You’ll eventually get away, probably after being well fed and enduring some extremely long silences.

But magically, in my memory at least, all those awkward parts have dropped away–now I just remember the members of the Mexican family at their beach house lovingly touching each other with every sentence and request to pass the bread. I remember lying down after lunch to take a nap with women in Siwa, each on our own satin pillow. My only contribution to the conversation that day was to make loud, fake snoring sounds.

Yes, solo travelers, there is a risk. You may turn down invitations from sleazy men, unless their mother is going to be there. On the plus side, if you travel alone, you’re more likely to get invitations.

And how else do you get the invitation home? Work every random friend-of-friend-of-friend connection. Rent a room through airbnb.com. And follow the first four rules, of course.