We had the opportunity to meet real people.

G

GP44

Member
Our youngest son was working in Alaska in 2017 so we took the opportunity to fly up there and rent a car and see Alaska.
We stayed a few days with him in Anchorage and then drove up to Fairbanks where we took the river tour and panned for gold.
We drove up the highway that follows the river one day and drove off onto the little side roads that went towards the river.
We got to the river just as a man and his wife and were taking their canoe out.
They had a big husky dog with them.
We offered them a ride up river to get their truck where they had put the canoe in.
The guy told his wife to stay with the dog and the canoe and got in our car.
He told us that they took the dog on the canoe trip to help train him to be a lead dog.
It was great to listen to a real Alaskan talk.
After we let him off at his truck we drove on up along river and found a place where we could drive out on the gravel and sand.
We played around there for a little while and drove back.
We stopped at a little backwoods store on the way back and grabbed a couple of ice cream bars out of the cooler and went to pay for them.
We heard a voice say I’ll pay for the ice cream.
Turned around and it was that guy and his wife.
Getting to meet real Alaskans was one of the highlights of our trip and a great memory.
 

GP44 said:
Our youngest son was working in Alaska in 2017 so we took the opportunity to fly up there and rent a car and see Alaska.
We stayed a few days with him in Anchorage and then drove up to Fairbanks where we took the river tour and panned for gold.
We drove up the highway that follows the river one day and drove off onto the little side roads that went towards the river.
We got to the river just as a man and his wife and were taking their canoe out.
They had a big husky dog with them.
We offered them a ride up river to get their truck where they had put the canoe in.
The guy told his wife to stay with the dog and the canoe and got in our car.
He told us that they took the dog on the canoe trip to help train him to be a lead dog.
It was great to listen to a real Alaskan talk.
After we let him off at his truck we drove on up along river and found a place where we could drive out on the gravel and sand.
We played around there for a little while and drove back.
We stopped at a little backwoods store on the way back and grabbed a couple of ice cream bars out of the cooler and went to pay for them.
We heard a voice say I’ll pay for the ice cream.
Turned around and it was that guy and his wife.
Getting to meet real Alaskans was one of the highlights of our trip and a great memory.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing that.

I traveled quite a few places in USA when young, but not as tourist vacationing. I worked Office Temps for much of my first decade out of high school which allowed me spend more time in communities and interact with more regular ('real') people.

Long before i watched Anthony Bourdain on tv i had a similar approach to his way: Find out what the locals do for relaxation and entertainment, where they go out to eat when they want local food. (Generally it turns out to be small family owned restaurants in working class neighborhoods.)

I'd ask questions and actually be attentive to the answers, if another language was commonly used as well as English (Spanish in Southwest; Hawaiian, Japanese and Chinese in Honolulu i learned niceties like greetings, excuse me, please and thank you in those language. While my pronunciation was usually pretty good they could tell English my first language and would converse in it, but they appreciated the attempt as an acknowledgment i was on their turf.

One can learn a great deal in casual conversation.
 
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