Travel is best when you have a mission, however unlikely. It might be the need to buy a present for a friend obsessed with chihuahuas. It may be your own passion for opera. Or a mania for pigeon racing. The point is: you need something to take you off the conventional route.

In a lifetime of travel, I’ve had plenty of times treading the road most travelled. You have your copy of Lonely Planet or Let’s Go or – to go back a bit – Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and you tick off the attractions.

I remember my first trip to Italy, at age 28, thinking: “If I see one more Madonna and child, I will surely die.” Then, courtesy of the guidebook, endured a few hundred more.

Playful but stinky. (Also pictured: the snow monkeys of the Jigokudani Monkey Park)

The tourist trail, here’s the problem, is full of tourists. And of locals who are sick of the tourists. The tourists go to the same places and ask the same questions. The locals give them their rehearsed responses.

Which brings us back to chihuahuas. Oh, for a friend with some niche interest and a birthday in the offing, thus allowing you to see the world via a lens marked “chihuahua”.

Suddenly, the guidebook is dumped and you find yourself in outer suburbs or........

© Brisbane Times