The Papua New Guinea Trick That Turns Solo Travelers Into Instant Micro-Tribes

You never find somebody who's just like you, not even twins. My guest today, Kristine Madera, has backpacked solo through China, Russia, and the Baltics during the fall of the Soviet Union, served in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea, taught English in Japan, and spent years since teaching other travelers how to belong in cultures that were never built around them.

We get into the two-minute trick a Peace Corps trainer taught women stationed in Papua New Guinea, why small talk is never actually small when you're the one traveling alone, what to do when someone comes on too strong in a culture that isn't yours, and what it means to belong

In this episode: 

• The Dali hostel, sixteen strangers, one hour
• Belonging to yourself
• The Papua New Guinea micro-tribe trick
• Small talk as the door
• Pacing yourself as an introverts
• Practicing curiosity as a skill

This episode is for you if: 

• you've walked into a room full of strangers and felt like everyone else already knew each other
• you're a solo female traveler who wants real connection, not just polite distance
• you're an introvert, or a recovering shy introvert, who assumes small talk isn't for you
• you're a woman over 40 who's curious about other cultures but isn't sure where you actually belong in them
• you've ever needed permission to say "I just need a few minutes"

For more from Kristine, see The Art of Belonging (free guide)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

You probably think connecting with strangers while traveling takes some kind of natural gift. All that some people are just wired for it and some aren't. My guest today learned a two-minute trick from a Peace Club trainer in Papua New Guinea that says otherwise. This was a great reminder for me, and even if you're not an extrovert, this will help you know exactly what to do in the first 60 seconds to start building connection with somebody else. Most women think solo travel is about being brave or fearless, but it's really about letting go of the expectations holding you in place. This show is about what changes when you stop waiting and take yourself seriously, starting with intentional travel. I'm Damian, and this is Freedom Looks Like This. Let's get started. Today I have Kristin Madero with me. Kristin is a writer and global traveler whose work explores how travel changes the stories we live by. She's the creator of the art of belonging, the etiquette, express travel guides, the ethical digital nomad destination finder GPT, and the novel God in Drag, which was inspired by her travels in India and volunteer work at Mother Teresa's home for the dying in Calcutta. Her background also includes teaching English in Japan, Peace Corps service in Papua New Guinea, and backpacking through China and Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union. Welcome to Freedom Looks Like This, Kristine. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

So I have loved travel since I learned how to read, and my first travel was through books and the World Book Encyclopedia, where I would go find a country that I was unfamiliar with, read about it, and imagine my life there. And so I've liked to travel that way and actual travel ever since. I am a writer and a longtime traveler. I've been a Peace Corps volunteer. I've taught English in Japan. I've backpacked by myself through China, Russia, and the Baltics during the fall of the Soviet Union. So all kinds of different travel sorts of experiences. And now I like to help people have more thoughtful travel experiences so that they enter into that, not from a place of wanting to create selfies and be able to document a trip as much as being able to enjoy the trip and create memories that are long-lasting and that helped to change you.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

After that beginning as a young person, what then drew you into travel? Do you remember a seminar experience?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I had grandparents who liked to travel and a great aunt who liked to travel, especially my great aunt. She never got married, and she had a travel budget. She was a teacher and a principal, and she saved money every month to travel. And she did things like a round-the-world trip where she was on the QE too and was in India and traveled a lot and would tell us stories about that. And my grandparents also really liked to travel. So after they retired, they did a lot of travel. So it was always kind of part of the conversation about what you did. It's just what people did is that they traveled. I always wanted to travel. I always wanted to get out of my own head. I wanted to see and do things that were different. So I'd have a larger understanding of myself and the world. But that background of having family members who thought travel was the thing that you were all supposed to do were very encouraged to travel by them. So that really set the stage where I was always like, okay, so where am I going to go? How am I going to get there?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Do you travel both alone and with other people?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

So I've traveled alone and I've traveled with my husband. We were in the Peace Corps together in Papua New Guinea. And we traveled through India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and met Mother Teresa. So this is back in the 1990s. But right now, he's a lot older than me. And we haven't been able to travel really outside of the area probably for a good 10 years, maybe eight years. The last thing we did was a cruise. It was fun. We got to see a few places, but it wasn't quite the same thing as going and staying there for a while. So I've been kind of hampered in how much I've been able to leave the country to be able to travel. So I've been traveling a lot through friends and through books. And also I started writing an etiquette, travel etiquette guide series so that I could travel through creating and researching these books, and also creating things like my giveaway on belonging, which helps people to find the skills that they need to feel like they can belong in any culture, and uh destination finders so that people can find alternate outside of the big hub destination. So I've been traveling in other kinds of ways, kind of chomping at the bit to be able to get back out into the world, but that hasn't really been possible for a while.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Some of the things you talk about are belonging and cross-cultural connection. And so I'm curious where did that desire for that element or travel come from? And why do you think it's so important?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Well, that really came from reading the encyclopedias, because I would read about countries and I would imagine what it would be like to live in that country as another kid. And I would make friends with my imaginary friend who lived in that culture. And we would talk to each other in my imagination, and I would learn things about them and their culture, kind of based on this idea of who they might be and what I was reading. A lot of it comes down to not just meeting people and connecting, but most people don't get outside of their own culture, outside of the cultural and family expectations that act like a mirror. So you look out into those things, they mirror back to you what you're supposed to be and do. And if you don't ever leave that, you don't really see that there are other ways of being in the world. And so when you can interact with another culture, another way of viewing the world, another way of viewing who you might be if you were living in another culture, you don't really open up to the idea that there's a larger world and more possibilities open to you than when you stay in the same place with the same level of expectation. So I've always approached travel for the fascination and meeting people and connecting and seeing new things, and also to broaden my own perspective about the world and what's possible and who I am and creating more comfort and a larger spectrum of experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, I'm really taken with the word belonging. Because I'm thinking about so many of the trips that I've done, or even places I've lived. And I don't know that I've often felt that I belong. And even more than that, I don't even know that I always wanted to belong. I do believe in respecting different cultures, understanding or aiming to understand different people's experiences and perspectives. And also there are some cultures that are very different from mine and that have sometimes felt challenged in various environments. And so when I think about belonging, it's not so easy or it's not so clear exactly where it fits in the experience for me all the time. And so I'm curious if you can talk about that a bit more in terms of the travel experience.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I don't like the word believe, but I've come to experience that the first level of belonging is really feeling like you belong to life, you belong to yourself, you belong in the world. And so far. Okay. Because so much of things tell us, I mean, marketing and all that stuff tell us, and they don't couch it in belonging, but they couch it in somehow you're not right. There's the right thing to do and be. And you're not there. But if you buy my product or you follow me on social media, I will show you, or you can purchase your way to be there. So we have this ingrained thing that we naturally don't belong. And I think that's a real problem in our culture and our world generally speaking. But I have found that the more that I feel like I belong to the world, to myself, to life, and in the world, the more I can be in places that are radically different. And not be like, well, I don't want to adopt their beliefs and their culture because truly, maybe I don't have as many rights in that culture. The culture itself can be fascinating without me feeling like I need to adopt the culture or even participate beyond the travel experience. But I can appreciate it. And I always like to look at things through the historical context. If I can understand how it developed and why it developed, I can appreciate it on that perspective, even if I'd like to see some different things. And I might not want to belong to that culture, but I can belong in the world and appreciate and experience that culture without giving up who I am or making it wrong itself. It's not right for me, but it's not wrong in and of itself necessarily. So I think there's multiple levels of belonging. And the first one is that we need to feel comfortable belonging to ourselves and to life generally.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

That resonates with me because that is something that I often say to people. Like when people say, Oh, where's home? I'm like, wherever I am. And it's because that I and I sometimes even joke and say, I'm like a toddless, I carry my shell with me. I have this groundedness or this, I guess you would call it belonging, that sense of identity, really. And I think another part of belonging is connection. It's that connection with yourself. And I'm a big proponent of that. And I also think that's not where we just stop, right? We are social beings. So, in terms of travel, whether that's solo travel or traveling with others, what makes that connection challenging? And what are some of the ways that we can start to open ourselves to it more, access more of it?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I'm not sure if it's in the area that you're in, but the idea that's in the United States and other parts of the West, I think, is that somehow we need to all believe the same thing or be the same way, or we can only be friends with or connect with people who are just like us. But you never find somebody who's just like you. Even I know twins who are not like each other. I mean, they've got a lot of commonalities, but they're not exactly like each other. And that line of where people feel comfortable or want somebody to be just like them in order to feel like they can make community or have connection, that's an impediment, I think, to require that somebody checks off a bunch of boxes for you to be open to that, diminishes your possibility of community and also it really disconnects you from making friends and being out there and finding connections. Especially when traveling, the chances are you're having a new experience and the person you're meeting, especially if you're meeting other travelers, is having a new experience. And so you have that common experience of having a new experience. You can find ways to connect within that. You can do things together, and you can learn about somebody as you're doing that. And one of the benefits of travel, I think, is that ideally for people, when you go somewhere, you don't expect it to be the same as the place that you are from. And so we can be more open to change, more open to new ideas, and more open to new people and meet those new things in a frame of mind that allows us more spaciousness than we might have at home when we're really looking for people who validate who we are or who mirror back to us what we want. I really like solo traveling for the purpose of making connections and meeting people. And that was not always the case. I am an introvert and I used to be a shy introvert. I am now not a shy introvert, but I'm still an introvert. So when I was in my early 20s, I had been teaching in Japan and I was traveling around in China and I was going to take the train from Beijing to Moscow. The first time I got there, I was doing things on my own because I was just afraid to talk with people. I was in this tourist hostel thing. So everybody there was a traveler, but they all seemed like they knew what they were doing. Here was the table that spoke Swedish, and this was the table that spoke Spanish, and this is the table that spoke French, and there was English-speaking tables, but this was the Irish English-speaking table. And there weren't really many Americans there at that point in time. I just didn't feel comfortable just walking up and saying, Hey, how are you doing? I traveled around for a little bit by myself, and then I ended up in a place called Dolly, an old town Dolly, which at the time was like a dollar a night hostels where there was 16 people, both genders, in the same room and stuff. I was in there by myself. I just got in my bed and nobody else was in there, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, what do I do now? What do I do now? What do I do now? And this guy, Adam, walks in and he's, hey, how are you doing? Did you just get here? I'm like, Yeah, he was a British. And he's like, We're all across the street. Come on and join us. I'm like, oh, great. So I walked across the street and I said, Adam told me to come over. And the group that was in that room, they were all sitting around and they were probably from five different countries, maybe even more. And they're all like, How are you doing? How did you get here? And by the end of an hour or so, I had 16 new friends and was connected with them. After that, I really developed that as a skill. I think it is a skill to be able to just talk to somebody. And it is something that as a solo traveler in particular, it's a skill worth developing because if you are afraid of doing that, you will not have as good a time and you will really not make the connections that you want to make. So it's a muscle to learn how to flex and a skill to learn to travel.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah, and I really like how you frame it as a skill to learn. I think that's important for listeners to think about. And in particular, if it is a skill that can be learned, are there specific behaviors that you've since realized travelers can actually do to be able to learn that skill? What does the practice look like?

SPEAKER_01 15:04

When I was in the Peace Corps, one of our trainers had this tip that really helped me. It was in Papua New Guinea, which was a pretty off-the-beaten track kind of place to be. It wasn't the safest place to be. I was there with my husband, but there were also plenty of single women who were teachers there. This was a woman who was our trainer, and she had all of us women together, and she said, This is what we do in Papua New Guinea, that women will develop these little microcommunities wherever they go. You make eye contact, you smile a little bit. It's really just an acknowledgement. You're here, I'm here, we have this little bit of connection. This is a specific New Guinea skill, but it still works in most other places. She said, you just start talking about obvious things, like hot here today, isn't it? Or it's a beautiful sunset. What do you think? To build these little micro trimes, microcommunities wherever you go, particularly helpful for women, because if you're traveling alone as a woman and you can make these little microcommunities, then you're never really alone. And so having that skill set of when you see somebody, you make eye contact, you smile, you talk, you greet, you say something obvious, you don't have to be brilliant at it. You can just have a little introduction. And the key thing that I've discovered over the years is that most, not all, but most people are willing to be in that connected place with you. But they also don't necessarily know how to make that connection or start that conversation. So it's a good skill to practice, like in the grocery store line. Or if you're hanging out somewhere and you happen to be near somebody and you can just start an obvious conversation. Oh, this line's taking forever. Or have you been watching the World Cup? Or whatever it happens to be, something that makes sense in that particular situation. Usually somebody will answer. And if they answer with one word, you know that's probably not your tribe member. If they answer with a little bit more, then you can extend that conversation a little bit more. And practicing in very non-threatening places like the grocery store line and stuff like that is a way to hone your skills with that. And then when you are out somewhere in a different country, different place, you can try it and create your little micro tribes everywhere you go so that if you need help, if you're feeling unsafe and you've already made a couple of connections with people, you can form a group almost instantly and have one another's backs. It's sort of an instinct that you can develop as a woman specifically, and then also as a traveler.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

In addition to having people who have your back, I think it's also great just for connecting with people, learning people's stories, getting to learn something else about the world. Because the fascinating thing about traveling and when you're staying in places like a hostel or where you could meet people from lots of different places is that you can get exposure not just to the culture that you're visiting, but to other cultures as well. So it's really an expensive thing if you allow yourself to be part of it. Now, when I talk about this with lots of women, they say, but I don't like small talk, Damien. And usually I find myself having to defend the small talk, even though I have said that same sentence many times in my life. What's your position on small talk?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I don't like small talk either in a lot of contexts. I don't like small talk for the sake of just having something to say to somebody. But I don't think when you travel that small talk is small talk. When you're traveling and you're meeting people and you're creating community, small talk is the door that you are opening for something deeper and something more. As I'm developing these books and stuff, small talk is one of the things that comes up, like my Etiquette Express books. And the kind of small talk that helps to open doors in different places. Some places talking about sports is a wonderful small talk thing. In other places, people have a lot of energy around sports teams, and maybe that's not where you want to start with your small talk. Having some ideas about what to talk about is great. But small talk is how you start those connections. It's how you start your community, it's how you show that you're not overly intense, that you're not overly intrusive, that you are open to creating this space where you can gauge one another and see how you feel as a fit, create that foundation of community so that you can go deeper. Probably not. Travel, small talk is actually part of the skill set for connecting and creating community.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, and a related question is what's the difference then between talking to make connection and then coming on too strong or maybe having the opposite effect from what you want. People will run away from you. Have you seen that kind of situation occur also?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, and that can also be a cultural thing as well. Some cultures are more standoffish or require more distance or need more time to be able to connect. And some cultures bring you in very quickly and want to be more intimate, not in a sexual sense, but in a communication and friendship sense more quickly. So some of that can just be understanding what's the culture this person's coming from and what am I coming from, and like where are we meeting here? Are we mismatching? Or are we able to find that place within? And sometimes people are just too nosy. And I can understand that. But also some people are just asked a lot of questions, or they don't have social skills. You do meet people, especially now, who don't have the same level of social skills as maybe they would benefit from in places where they are a traveler. It's happened in China in the 1990s, but also some of the Eastern Bloc countries when I was going through them, Poland in particular, in the early 1990s, people were just so interested in meeting somebody who was from America or who was from the West because they had just basically opened up from being an Eastern Bloc country. And so they want to find out everything. How do you do this? What do you mean this? All this kind of stuff that they're really interested in. Or now it can be more about like they see different countries on television and there are different shows on television, and they want to find out like what's real, what's true, on all of this stuff, and they can be pretty insistent depending on. Who they are. So you also have to know that people are people. And if somebody's coming on too strong that way, it's okay to take a step back and maybe find somebody who's not quite so intense, or to understand that they're coming from a place of real deep curiosity and that you might be the first person from outside of the area that they've ever met. And they're just hungry to know more. I think it can span a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Yeah, what I've also noticed is that sometimes people will ask questions because they might think it's okay from TV or from some other context that is different than the everyday experience in a culture or in a country. So, for example, in Vietnam, everybody wanted to know is my hair real? And what did I do to get it this way? Everybody was so curious. But I noticed in a lot of places where even in Japan, I was in Japan a few months ago. And before I used to get stared at so much, and now it was just like I was part of. So I think a lot of places have also changed with the world globalizing, with a lot of places opening up. People are more familiar with people from lots of different cultures. And that doesn't mean that you might not have an experience where somebody has the wrong expectation or a different expectation than you as an individual or even of your culture. And I think you could gently correct, you could show an example, you could laugh it off. There are lots of different ways to approach it. And I think humor is a very good one if you can practice some of that.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah, and understand how humor works in that country or in culture, so that you're not overstepping too much. Yeah. And a lot of it, I think, is if you learn, if you know yourself and what you feel comfortable with, because one of the things about travel that I've discovered too is that since you're being mirrored, something completely different, then your default settings about what you expect people to be, how you expect things to work, and what you expect throughout the day are different than what you are experiencing. So you can't rely as much on your learned expectations. And you have to rely a little bit more on your intuition and your sense of self. This feels uncomfortable for me, but is it really inappropriate discomfort? Or is it just this is just new for me and it's something I just navigate from there, or is it some dangerous thing that I need to figure out how to get away from? So I think being able to develop that skill within yourself too, so you can have a sense of what's happening since it might be a completely unfamiliar situation is one of the other benefits of travel.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

And you can really pace yourself as well. Sometimes if I'm traveling and I'm going to try something new or go to a place where I may not be completely comfortable, then I'll just give myself a time limit. I'll spend one hour and talk to two people or something like that. I think it's okay to give yourself a helping hand to get out there and do the thing that you want to do more of, but you don't have to go from zero to a hundred even.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

And I know as an intro, I can do so much, and then I gotta go chill and have a sit there somewhere quiet and have a cup of tea, and then I can go back out. And so knowing those things about yourself too, so you're not overloaded. You're not coming into a situation where you're trying to connect and create community from a place where you're already way up to here with difference and change. So coming to those situations where you want to connect from a relaxed and more open space, I think is really helpful too.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yes, definitely. For me, I'm an introvert as well. And I've had times. Sometimes I still revert to shy introverts in unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations. And I know that with a lot of people pleasing, sometimes it can feel awkward to be like, oh, I just need a few minutes or oh no, I'm not gonna join dinner today. But I would love to meet you for lunch tomorrow. I think those are all of the different boundaries and skills that we practice in our day-to-day lives. And it's perfectly fine to do it with somebody that you've just met. Like you said earlier, everybody's figuring this out. And I don't think anybody knows exactly how it's all supposed to work. So if you're struggling, somebody who's listening, don't think that the other person has it all figured out. They would likely be ecstatic for you to be part of creating a shape for what some time together could look like or feel like.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, yeah. I think so too. And I know from traveling when I was doing the backpacking thing, every time I went to a new place, you find a new little tribe to travel with. People always want to find those people that they want to do things with. So especially if you're traveling alone, being able to create different little microcommunities to go and do different things is part of what makes travel fun. And so being able to have those skills, like you said, of connecting and creating your boundaries and also being able to find the people that you want to find to be able to do things with is part of the fun.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

And if you're like me and you're hearing this and you're like, I love going to the beach by myself with my book and not having anybody go into the sun, that is also okay. I think it's basically the point is that there are lots of different approaches. And if you think that you're going to be lonely when you travel, or you think that you have to do everything alone, that's not the case. There are other people who are also interested. You can figure out where you can find those people. A lot of the cases, it's a lot easier in hostels, it's easier if you go on a tour. There are different approaches that you can take to find other people who are similar to you in the desire for connection. And so if somebody is listening and they're intrigued, what would you like them to do? What's something that a listener can do in the next few days to help them build some of the skills we've been talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 27:58

All right. So a couple of things that you can do is to find something unfamiliar culturally to connect with. There's tons of videos on YouTube. There's these kinds of things that you can just go on and search for, whether it's a history or a particular area or something that's going to give you a different perspective than what you might have for another place. That helps to open the door a little bit and make you think, huh, okay, there might be something here that would be fun and interesting to do. So find the different places that you might want to pay attention to. Maybe you go there, maybe you don't. But opening the door to what's possible can be really helpful and expansive. And then also to really try to practice maybe every day talking to somebody briefly who is new to you. Even if it's somebody new to you, if you work in an office, but you don't talk to this person over here. Maybe you take a different route through the office and you say hello to somebody different. Then you have a very short conversation. You meet somebody at the grocery store line, or in some other way, you connect and practice those little, those little connections that can build from there. Those are two things that you can do. So open the big door to the world into ways that help you to think and feel differently and see yourself in the world differently, and then connect with other people to develop that skill set of opening the door to community.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Wonderful. Thank you. Christine, where can people find you? Where can they learn more about your work? Tell us what you would like listeners to do next in terms of connecting to you.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

All right. Well, if you go to my website, which is Christine Madeira, K-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-M-A-D-E-R-A.com, everything I do is there. I'm a novelist, so I've got a novel there called God and Drag that I wrote to kind of process my experience in India and working at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying. So that was kind of interesting. An opt-in called Belonging or The Art of Belonging. You can get that there. That's 12 skills that you can learn to belong anywhere. I have an ethical digital nomad GPT, but you don't have to use it as an ethical digital nomad. You can get the next wave of destinations opening up for digital nomads if you're one of them. And if you're not, you can use the GPT to find other places to go besides the big hubs. It can ask you questions like your passport, your budget, how long you're traveling, and the kind of experience you want to have. So that you can maybe if you're going to go to Portugal, you don't necessarily go to Lisbon and the big places. Maybe you find some other places where your money can really help the community versus gentrifying the community, which is part of the issue in some of the larger places, but also where you can find connection with locals, where you can have a real experience with local people rather than always being in places with tourists and interacting with tourists. So it can really help you find those sorts of places as well. And you can connect with my Substack where I talk about all kinds of stuff and blog about travel as well. You can find everything at my website.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

And that link will be in the show notes. Is there anything I have not asked you that you want to say? Anything that you would like to leave listeners with?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

I think that curiosity is also a skill set. Oftentimes we don't exercise as much curiosity as we might. And when you're traveling and you're meeting people, to begin to become more and more curious about the world. Like curiosity just as a way of being, when you're in a new culture, when you're around new people, if you can be curious, you can open lots of doors because people want to talk about themselves, you can talk to people in new cultures, you learn things about new cultures being curious. And curiosity is something that gets stifled a lot of the time. But if you can begin to practice curiosity and become more curious, it will move you through the world and take you to places that you would not go and connect you with people that you would not meet and at depths that you might not get to if you do not choose to be curious.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

I think that's a perfect place to end. Thank you very much, Christine.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

If this conversation about belonging landed for you, go find Christine at K R I S T-I-N-E M A D E R A.com. She's got a free guide there called The Art of Belonging. 12 skills for creating connection in any culture. I'll also put that link in the show notes. And as usual, thanks for spending this time with me. If something in this episode resonated, choose one small action and try it in whatever way feels doable for you. And if you want a seamless place to start, come and join us in my school community. That's a place where you can build momentum and get support for your first or your next solo travel adventure.