Major foreign trips- read in advance?

For major foreign vacation trips to areas where it's culturally /historically very different from your area, do you read abit about the area in advance?


Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. For instance, I've barely read much about Czech history..just tiny bits about Prague. I know more about Germany in general, but not much more and will be relying heavily on dearie's knowledge, since he has personal knowledge for certain parts of southern Germany, whatever I know about Germany post WW II, differences in baroque, renaissance influence there vs. in France, Italy in art, architecture and music.

And Danish history is even more remote to me. Actually all of the Scandinavian countries. Am reading bits about Copenhagen, etc.

There are certain parts of the world where I've had an interest to read over a very long time period because the areas are just interesting to me. Hawai'i is one area where I began reading bits about the history, culture...ie. 25 yrs. ago, but didn't go on lst trip until 8 yrs. ago.

I consider Hawai'i "foreign" enough because its cultural history and original people are significantly different from mainland US.

goodness yes! I even did that when I went to kansas. For a while my job was to monitor noise exposure in Boeing plants, so we went to several states doing just that. When I found out I was going to boring Kansas, I decided there had to be more... and since I had weekends free for adventure, I did research and ended up going to the Flint Hills one weekend, and on another, I met up with people who had collected arrowheads (and bought some)
you get a lot more out of a place if you know what to look for.

I always research new areas before going there.

Doesn't have to be major or foreign. I'm going to look at a hawk's nest this afternoon in another part of Manhattan and I read a bit about the history of the area last night.

On my lst trip to Europe which was 3 wks, in Greece (primarily Athens and a few Greek islands), I read abit about certain sites. But not enough about Greek history, particularily ancient Greece. I only knew the core mythological figures and Greek myths back from high school. I viewed Greek history like Chinese history....really ancient, long (3,000 years) and complicated to learn. (Takes time to memorize those basic dynasties!)

However I have read more about Chinese culture/history ..at least 1700's onward..whereas the older, more ancient stuff just seems so complicated and so MUCH to learn. Yet it is the stuff where the great art, artifacts and architecture that tourists see, in addition to modern stuff. Some countries have a long, long, long history to learn compared to Canada and U.S. when they each became independent political entities. But I know very little about Tawain because I haven't taken time to learn.

Then China, like Canada and U.S. is a huge country with different regional histories. Still I probably could go to China and not be a completely historically /culturally ignorant. (I am North American.)

I'm not going to kid myself..I read enough about culture and history but it's not impressive and patchy. I think I know more about parts (not all) about U.S. than some Americans know about Canada at all.

On 2nd trip to Europe, we went through 10 countries. I only relied heavily on my natural love of art, literature, music and architecture where I already did some reading over the years. Some countries I only have specific knowledge of history/culture for certain years/centuries for a particular country.

I don't like passing through areas where my understanding is zero. At the very least I do gravitate naturally to see a local area's museum,art gallery, church/place of worship and some unique local natural land formation/flora/fauna. Sometimes just dropping by a local bookstore gives me a clue of locally published material.

It terms of local foods...if there is a local farmers' market, we will go there, to get food and I like to learn more about the local area through that mechanism. ie. we went to local farmers' markets in Hawai'i which one learns WAY more than at an air-conditioned shopping mall where there may be more globalized merchandise.

So dearie, really wants to go the local farmer's markets if we have time in Germany, France, Prague and Denmark. He's also hoping that white asparagus will still be in season over there..for me to experience the freshest stuff in meals.

I read a little, to get a "feel" for the place. I find it overwhelming to read too much, though.