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The Traveling Fool
Traveling off the tourist path. Talking about those places most tourists just don't know about because, well, nobody ever told them. Also travel tips and news about travel and tourism to make your trip a little easier, cheaper and more memorable.
The Traveling Fool
You won't find these adventures on Instagram: How to become a modern-day explorer
Ever feel like you're stuck in a tourist trap, surrounded by selfie sticks, waiting in line just to glimpse something you've already seen a thousand times on social media? There's a better way to travel, and it doesn't require visiting the Eiffel Tower or Times Square.
Drawing from personal stories that span from small-town Texas to Czech beer halls and Filipino prisons, I reveal how real travel magic happens when you ditch the guidebooks and tourist hotspots.
Through five practical tips, learn how to become a modern-day explorer: looking beyond big-name attractions, chasing local legends, talking directly with residents, hunting for quirky experiences, and embracing the back roads. Each strategy is illustrated with remarkable stories—like discovering a museum dedicated to General Patton in Pilsen, Czech Republic after a casual beer with a local, or spending the night alone in a 1747 Spanish Presidio where a famous Texas massacre occurred.
What makes this approach to travel so powerful isn't just the unique experiences it creates, but how it connects you to the authentic pulse of a place. Instead of experiencing the sanitized, gift-shop version of history, you discover the raw, unpolished stories that reveal a destination's true character. Sometimes the best adventures happen when you're gloriously lost—not GPS lost, but "I have no idea where this road goes" lost.
Ready to transform your travels from predictable sightseeing into genuine exploration? Listen now, and discover how the world opens up when you're willing to look where others don't. Share your own hidden gem stories at thetravelingfool.com—they might even feature in an upcoming episode!
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Hi and welcome to the Traveling Fool, the show where we explore the most intriguing aspects of travel, culture and history. I'm your host, Bob Bales, and today's episode is all about becoming a modern day explorer, uncovering hidden history and surprising adventures that the guidebooks won't tell you about. We're not talking Eiffel Tower selfies or Times Square hot dogs here. This is about digging deeper, finding the stuff that makes travel real. I've got tips, tales and a bit of grit to share. So grab a drink, settle in and let's explore. All right, picture this. I'm in a tiny Czech town called Pilsen Not Prague, mind you, but close by. I went there specifically to visit the Pilsen Brewery, where they invented Pilsner beer and had been brewing beer since 1842. So I'm sipping a beer at the bar at the brewery with a local who, after finding out I'm an American, tells me about a museum in town dedicated to General George S Patton. So just having a drink with someone, and I find out about a military museum I've never heard of, dedicated to a US general that's located in a foreign country. Now, that's the kind of travel I live for. Finding the hidden, the overlooked, the surprising, and today I'm going to show you how to do it too. We'll cover five tips to turn you into a modern day explorer, with some examples to help spark your next trip.
Bob Bales:Are you ready to ditch the obvious? Well, let's get started. All right, let's kick us off with tip number one. Look beyond the big names. If there's one thing I've learned, is that you don't need the Coliseum or Big Bend to find the good stuff, although I love visiting those type of sites. But history isn't just in the postcard spots. It's hiding in the cracks, in the back alleys. You know the places where the tour buses don't bother to stop and, trust me, those little cracks and hidden away places, that's where the real stories live, unpolished and worth every minute of you digging them up. See the big names like the Eiffel Towers, grand Canyons. Well, they're fine, sure, but they're loud, they're crowded and they're just polished to death. They exist for tourists You're elbowing through selfie sticks just to get a look at something you've already seen on Instagram or Facebook a thousand times. Well, that's not exploring, that's just checking off the boxes. Me, I'd just rather wander around and explore the area.
Bob Bales:Somewhere like Bandera, Texas. I've visited that cowboy town and while everyone was piling in San Antonio for the Alamo and the Riverwalk, Bandera sat there just a few miles up the road with its saloons, little museum filled with all kinds of stuff from days gone past and a frontier vibe that hits you like a good slug of bourbon. I mean, it's not screaming for attention up there and that's why it's gold. It's those places that you need to dig out. I remember driving up to Bandera one summer morning. I wasn't there for any kind of glossy tour, I just wanted to go check the place out and by the time I got there I wanted something to drink. So I found this bar called the 11th Street Cowboy Bar. It's really cool. It's all withered wood, neon signs. It's even got a hitching post outside for horses.
Bob Bales:Well, I got a Shiner Bock, which is one of our local Texas beers, and I asked what around here should I go visit that a lot of people don't know about or that the tourists often miss? And the waitress told me. She said well, if you like history, the Frontier Times Museum is right down the road. She told me it's a little funky, cool little spot with old saddles, rusty guns and tells about cattle drives and all the local history. So I drove over to check it out and there were no lines, no hype, it was just me and a window into Texas past, and the people there were real friendly and gave you a little bit more detail, with stories about the local area. Well, that's the kind of history I'm chasing, not stuff that's in a gift shop.
Bob Bales:So how do you pull this off? Well, first, ditch the must-see lists online, those little clickbait articles, the ones that are written by folks who never even leave their cubicles. You want a real deal. You got to go straight to the source. Next time you're in a new spot, find you a bartender, a gas station clerk, hell, even some old guy sitting on a bench and just casually ask him what's the coolest thing around here that I should see? That nobody knows about? And nine times out of ten they're going to spill something better than anything you're going to find on some travel app. It might be a rusted out jailhouse where some outlaw cooled his heels for a while, or a forgotten battlefield with bullet scars still in the trees. I mean, these folks live there. They know where the secrets are, that the tourist board is sometimes too busy to notice.
Bob Bales:Take Pilsen, Czech Republic. Like I said, not Prague, but Pilsen, close by. Everyone's clogging into Prague's Charles Bridge and the castle. But while visiting Prague, I took a train ride to Pilsen. So I'm sitting there drinking a beer with a guy who looks like he's been a regular at that bar forever. I ask him the same question what's something really cool around here that a lot of tourists and people that visit just don't know about? So he sends me to this museum where the only way you could find it is a sign up high on the building on the second story saying Patton Memorial Museum.
Bob Bales:Now, the museum was fantastic. It was started by a local guy who began collecting memorabilia as a kid. He told me he wanted to open up that museum because when the Czech Republic was under control of the Russians, the Russians told everybody that they had liberated the country from Hitler during World War II when it was General George Patton and the US Third Army and he wanted everyone to know that. He and I had a good conversation. In fact, when I was up there, I was the only one walking around in his museum and he found out I was American and we got to talking and come to find out I was in the army in Germany at the same time that he was in the Czech army but serving on East German side of the border and we were there at the same time, probably looking at each other every now and then. But it was a great museum.
Bob Bales:And from talking to him, I asked him the same question and he pointed me to the city's catacombs and told me where to go. At this little door, basically next to one of the shops downtown. He said if you knock on that door, there's going to be a lady answer and she'll take you down in the catacombs. Now how cool is that? You're not going to find that in the guidebooks. So here's the trick Don't overthink it. You don't need a PhD in history or some fancy guidebook, just a willingness to wander around and talk to people. Next time you're tempted by some shiny brochure, just turn the other way, hit a side street, step into some dive bar, follow that little dirt road that looks like it's going nowhere, and don't be afraid to look stupid. I've asked dumb questions plenty of times, but they've landed me in spots like the Pilsen Museum or a London pub having drinks with locals talking about Lily Langtree, known as the Jersey Lily.
Bob Bales:History's everywhere folks. You got to cut through that slick tourist gloss like it's clutter in your gear bag. It's a grind sometimes, but you know the raw stuff you uncover is what makes the trip. So that's tip number one Look beyond the big names, skip the hype, talk to locals and chase the stuff that doesn't come with a hashtag, whether it's some little cowboy town like Bandera or a museum in Pilsen. The best adventures are the ones you stumble into and not the ones everybody's already going to. You'll thank me later when you're sipping something cold in a place nobody's ever heard of.
Bob Bales:All right, let's dive into tip number two Chase local legends. Forget the sanitized plaques and overpriced audio tours. Finding the legends is a whole lot more fun than anything you'll dig up on some top 10 list, and today I'm going to show you how to do it. Here's the deal Legends outshine tourist traps every time. You don't need a museum with a velvet rope to tell you what went down. Those stories are too neat, too polished. I'm talking about the untamed stuff. You know, something like the ghost in the old mill or some outlaw who vanished into the hills, the tales that bounce around over the bar stools and when you're sitting there drinking coffee in some place. That's history with a pulse. It's tied to places where you can still walk through and feel.
Bob Bales:Chasing legends isn't just about the story, it's about the hunt, getting off the main drag and into the heart of a place. That's where the real adventure lives, and it beats standing in line for a photo with some overhyped statue any day of the week. So how do you find these places? Well, it's not complicated. First, you just get rid of the guidebooks. You're starting to see a pattern here, aren't you? They're too busy hyping the obvious to bother with things like these. You got to go straight to the folks who know the place inside and out, the locals. I told you we got a pattern going on. Find a diner or even some old guy sitting there drinking coffee and just ask him what kind of wild story has this place got? What unusual history happened here? And they'll tell you something about a haunted bridge or a stash of gold. And then just go see for yourself. That's your pass to the real deal.
Bob Bales:Sometimes a legend isn't a person but a place. I'll tell you about a time I chased a legend worth chasing. At least I thought it was. You can call it the day I went to prison. So I'm in the Philippines, on the island of Palawan.
Bob Bales:Now, palawan had a Japanese Japanese prisoner war camp that was notorious during World War II and when General MacArthur was getting ready to return to the Philippines, the Allies were flying bombing runs over the island. The Japanese made the decision to execute the prisoners before the Allies returned. So one day the guards blew the air raid sirens and they herded all the prisoners in these little makeshift bunkers. They rolled gasoline barrels onto the entrances and set them ablaze. Over the next few hours, while the prisoners were attempting to escape, the guards chased them down and killed them. The camp, now it sits on the edge of a bay, and during the carnage 139 prisoners were killed, while 11 managed to escape by swimming acreoss the bay where they were rescued by prisoners of a Philippine prison called the Prison Without Walls. The Filipinos managed to help the POWs, get back to some allied lines and once word got out about the massacre, the allies were in a rush to free other POW camps around the country, and that led to the successful liberation of the POW camp at Cabadawan, where US Army Rangers, along with Philippine scouts, liberated 489 POWs along with 33 civilians. It's considered the most successful rescue raid in US military history. Today, the site in Palawan where the POW camp was is a park.
Bob Bales:And when I heard that the prison without walls is still in operation, well, that's the kind of story that sticks with you. So I had to visit it. So I asked around to various trike taxi drivers. If you don't know what that is, it's a motorcycle with a sidecar. Basically you sit in the sidecar and he takes you around. And I was asking these guys who could take me to the prison. And I run across a guy that tells me he knows someone in the prison and can get me in. He said he knows that a former high-ranking Philippine police officer is in prison for murder. He says, yeah, I know the guy and we can go visit. So it gets better and better, doesn't it? So I get in the little trike, get in the sidecar and he takes me on this 20-minute drive at breakneck speed around the bay and he's weaving in and out of traffic, making me think that he's going to get us killed any second. Now once we arrive he tells the guard at the front gate that we need to see this police officer in this jail for murder and the guard goes no, you can't go in. And so he talks to him a little bit more and comes back to me and he says give the guy $5. So I slip him a couple of dollars and he lets us in.
Bob Bales:Now they call it the prison without walls because, except for prisoners in the maximum and medium security, the rest of the prisoners walk around on their own, and this is over several acres where they're maybe growing rice fields and everything else, and these prisoners just have the run of the place. There's nobody guarding them or anything. And why? Well, because there's really nowhere for them to go. They know they can't go to the airport and catch flight out. Most of these guys are from other islands, so they have no family there. No one ever comes to visit them there and that's why they call it the prison without walls. But once I'm in the prison, one of the guards tells me the history of the prison and the role it played in the rescue back in World War II. And I was even allowed to walk around and talk to some of the inmates in the maximum and medium security area. I had to stand there talking to them through some 10-foot-high barbed wire fence, but it was fascinating to talk to these guys and most were eager to talk to me, since they were, like I said, all from other islands and never received any visitors. So not only did I wind up getting stories about the location where a POW massacre took place in World War II because I'm a big history buff I also got stories about visiting a Filipino prison.
Bob Bales:So that's tip number two, chase your local legends. It's about skipping the obvious and hunting the wild tales still lurking in the corners Whether it's a prison in the Philippines or some outlaw hideout, nobody's bothered to pin down. These are the threads that tie you to a place. You got to cut through that tourist gloss. It's work sometimes, but that's what makes the trip. So go, track one down and come back and tell me about it. Tell me how it was when you found that legend. So that's your second tip to becoming a modern-day explorer. We've got three more tips to go and, as you notice, this is not some professionally rehearsed and edited podcast. This is just me talking to you. So it's a little raw, maybe not quite so polished, definitely not going to win any awards for being a podcast host, but hey, you get me. So here's tip number three we got a pattern going on here, so let's keep it going Talk to the locals and not the tour guides.
Bob Bales:Guides are great, but they're scripted and a lot of them are out of date. Locals, they've got the dirt. I learned this in Southeast Asia. Some fisherman took me to a beach nobody visits all because I asked him where his favorite spot was. I have gotten some of my best leads by talking to people. People I meet in bars, coffee shops, hotel workers, people in shops and markets and taxi drivers.
Bob Bales:Once, while on a trip to Georgetown, Texas, I was staying at this bed and breakfast and I got to talking with the owner and asked him about places I should visit. Well, he tells me about a town 20 miles away called Walburg, and when I visited it was this little small town, by small, I'm telling you, it had one flashing light in town. I think it's probably grown since then because it's gotten more popular and people are moving out there but it was settled by German immigrants and it had a German restaurant in town that was famous in the area because the food was pretty good, but they also had live music, so a lot of people went out to that German restaurant. They also had some old bank that was close to the restaurant. It looked like it had been refurbished or something, but it was closed. It hadn't been in business for a while and it was in Walburg that I met a fellow named Ray.
Bob Bales:Ray owned the st ation in town. Not a gas station, the gas station, there was only one, called Meekin Motors. It looked like something right out of the 60s. Google a picture of a gas station in 1960s and even the 50s. And that's kind of what this place looked like. And I struck up a conversation with Ray because when you walked in there was little areas where they sold honey and some of the local olive oil that is produced there, and so it was a combination little store, souvenir shop thing for people to buy local products and gas.
Bob Bales:So I get in there and I'm talking to Ray and he tells me about the history of the town and the people that live there. I mean, it just happened naturally. I asked the guy behind the counter. I said do you own this place? He goes no, I'm the son-in-law. The old man sitting there is the owner, and that's when Ray introduced himself and just started talking. He tells me about his three longhorn steers that he has, along with some donkeys that he has. He tells me about the old church in town and the cemetery where there was a tree where they hung a horse thief in the 1880s. He also tells me about the bank I passed. He said you know, that bank never closed during the Great Depression because no one bothered to tell us and we didn't know there was a depression until it had been going on for a while. And by that time, well, the bank didn't see any need to close.
Bob Bales:And the adventure all started by talking to the owner of a bed and breakfast that I was staying at. I got the best tour of that town by Ray. So strike up a conversation and ask, " you know where do you go to get away? It works wonders. They'll spill secrets, hidden trails, dive bars, old ruins and, who knows, you might meet a guy like Ray and that'll make your day. I'm telling you. So, three tips down, two to go. So let me ask you what's your trick for finding good places and good stuff when you're traveling? Send me a message on Facebook or email me at thetravelingfoolcom. I'd love to hear your stories.
Bob Bales:And here's tip number four. Hunt for the quirky and the odd stuff. The weirder the better. I mean, it's where the best surprises hide. You ever heard of spending the night locked in a Spanish presidio that was built in 1747? Well, I found one in Goliad, texas. And how do you track these down? Well, Google, just put in there weird, strange, unusual, any other descriptive word, and then add hotel or attraction or park in whatever location you're going to. So if you're going to Fort Worth, Texas, google strange and unusual places to visit in Fort Worth, Texas, or strange and unusual hotels or hotels that are haunted, you can put in all kinds of good stuff. And also, here we're back to that same theme. Ask some of the locals what is the strangest thing? Here You'll get stuff like abandoned theaters, roadside shrines or a bar that's in a cave. It's not on the tourist map but it's pure gold.
Bob Bales:So that Spanish Presidio I was telling you about. Well, I spent the afternoon there. I was walking around the Presidio and taking in the history. Now see, I knew about Goliad from my Texas history classes growing up in school. In 1836, colonel James Fannin and his men were headed to San Antonio to reinforce the defenders of the Alamo. When they got into a battle with the Mexican forces, Fannin and over 300 of his men were captured and taken to the La Bahia Presidio in Goliad, where Mexican General Santa Ana ordered them to be executed. What came to be known in Texas as the Goliad Massacre occurred at the Presidio, and there's a big mass grave located just outside the walls.
Bob Bales:So while I was there, I learned that you can rent the quarters where the Presidio officers lived and stay the night. The quarters have been updated and modernized, but still keeping the old charm. The quarters have two bedrooms, a living room area, a fireplace, along with a kitchen, bathroom and shower. You get after-hours access to the entire Presidio's inner courtyard through the back door. Nobody there but you. You've got an entire Spanish Presidio all night long. Now you're not going to find this on any hotel booking site and since this is a state park, you have to reserve the quarters on the Texas State Parks page. Now that's the kind of adventure I'm talking about. If you do decide to stay there, word has it because all the people that died there, you might see a ghost or two, I don't know, but you never know. So that's tip number four Look for quirky and odd things.
Bob Bales:And tip number five, follow the back roads. The highways get you there fast, but the back roads get you there deep. I've driven back roads in Texas and other states that lead to ghost towns and roadside joints with some of the best barbecue you'll ever find on Yelp. And how do you do it? Pick a small road off the main route and see where it takes you. Look for signs of life old barns, rusty bridges, random statues. It's slower travel, but it's where the real world lives.
Bob Bales:One time I took a back road in Texas and ended up in the town of Cuero, population less than 9,000. Now, at first glance it's just another small country town in South Texas that people drive through without thinking twice, that is, if they aren't traveling on the interstate or a major highway. Well, I love small towns and I decided to take a few minutes to drive around and see if I could find something interesting. Well, it didn't take long before I came upon the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum, housed in an old Knights of Pythias Hall that was built in 1903. The building itself is fabulous, but the museum was extra nice. The Chisholm Trail started in South Texas and it went north, driving cattle to the stockyards and railheads in Kansas. The museum, which I had never heard of, was fantastic. Along with the Chisholm Trail story, it told the story about the local area in the 1800s. But that wasn't all. Cuero has two other museums. The Cuero Heritage Museum, which is located in the federal building that was built in 1915, and the Pharmacy and Medical Museum of Texas, housed in an old drug store that the building was built in 1889. So that's three interesting and fairly unknown museums, all located in a town that takes about two and a half to three minutes to drive through. They also have a killer barbecue shack named Tilly's. Now Tilly's is actually a makeshift barbecue stand at a guy's house where he lives and he started selling barbecue out of it, and some of the best barbecue in South Texas, but known mostly by the locals that live there.
Bob Bales:Now that's not in a lonely planet guide book. You're never going to find this. That's just plain back road magic. So, there's your playbook to become a modern day explorer. Skip the big names, chase the legends, talk to locals, hunt the odd and make the back roads your travel companion. You got to hit those back roads. It's not about ticking off boxes and saying I saw this, I saw this, I saw this. It's about finding what's real, what's hidden, what's yours. I mean, history is not just in the museums, it's in the little dive bars and the stories that nobody's telling. So next time you travel, ditch the crowd and dig in. You'll be amazed at what you uncover.
Bob Bales:One surprise I've learned is the best adventures often come when you're lost, not GPS lost, but I've got no clue where this road goes lost. That's when you stumble into the good stuff, like a prison in the Philippines or a barbecue shack at some guy's house. Embrace the detour folks. That's your ticket to the unexpected. So that's it for today's episode. Again, I'm Bob Bales, the Traveling Fool. I'm going to go have a cigar, maybe drink a bourbon, if you like this episode, hit me up on thetravelingfool. com, drop a review wherever you're listening and tell me your hidden gem stories. I might share them next time. But until next time, safe travels and keep exploring.
