Traveling offers the perfect opportunity for creative inspiration. You get to experience out-of-the-ordinary sites, sounds, tastes, people, and culture. These help stimulate out-of-the-ordinary thinking and ideas.
Below are different ways to augment your travel plans so you may go beyond being a tourist–to being an explorist.

Get the Inside Scoop
Before you leave for your destination, consult insider and underground guidebooks and websites for the places you are visiting. These guides provide more insight than tourist books, and often share the gritty aspects of local life.
While on your trip, speak with everyone you meet. Talk with shopkeepers, concierge, taxi drivers, roadside vendors, and others. Listen a lot. These locals will proudly direct you to places off the beaten path.
Choose a Theme
Select a theme for your journey and use this focus to guide your trip. Suggested themes may include:

• architecture (choose a style),

• music (pick a genre)
• famous landmarks
• green theme …. explore parks and gardens
• shop types (pens, books, fashion)

Start with the “Cheesy” Tour
Take the tours that locals “refuse” to attend… the double-decker bus, the land/water “Duck” tour, or the sightseeing van. (You know which these are… the “tourist traps” you refuse to do in your own town). These tours cover large parts of the city, highlight key landmarks, and provide a broad overview of an area. They provide a great starting point and allow you to become more familiar with the layout of a city. Use these tours to determine which parts of the city you will later explore.
(Another way to get the ‘broad overview’ is to visit the tallest landmark in town. For example, do the Space Needle when you first get to Seattle. It gives you a view of the entire town. Have someone point out the landmarks… It’s a to-scale real life city map from that height).
Hero Hometowns
Walk in the footsteps of one of your personal heroes. Visit their birthplace. See where they grew up, went to school, and visit places that inspired them. Don’t have a particular hero? Adopt one, and explore the path a great inventor, famous artist, or great leader. You’ll be surprised how what you learn will inspire your life.
These tips will not only allow you to better appreciate the place you’re visiting, but will also help gather and create new ideas of your own.

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4. Reanimate Your Brand, Frankenstein-Style
5. Why Does Big Mean Bad? And Can It Be Avoided?

Tags: explorist, holiday, idea+generation, inspiration, new+ideas, vacation