What is cultural immersion? And is it for you?

Most of modern travel is about sightseeing. We go to see the beauty of Lake Como, for instance, and swim in its calm waters. We then eat olive-oil-dripping pizzas and pastas and stroll through villages to admire their cobblestone streets, quirky doorways, historic fountains and ageing statues. But if we stay in a hotel or AirBnB and do all of our exploring with our family or travel group, we can spend many days in the area and not really engage with locals in meaningful ways nor experience the true culture of the Lake Como community.

Enter cultural immersion.

Cultural immersion is about seeking out travel experiences that are less touristy and more authentic. The aim is to draw closer to the people of a place as equals – to have conversations that go beyond, or deeper, than the pleasantries exchanged with service staff in hotels and restaurants. It's about making a real connection with a community to hopefully enrich everyone involved.

Cultural immersion is a broad conceptual term, and consequently it can encompass short activities as well as weeks-long stays. It's the intent that matters, really, as well as the level of engagement with local people.

Broad examples of cultural immersion experiences are booking a homestay, signing up for a traditional cooking class, attending a religious ceremony, trekking a time-honoured trail with a local guide, joining a fishing expedition or taking part in a seasonal ritual.

When you eat, work, play or sleep alongside locals, you're immersing yourself in their daily rhythms and routines, getting to know their ways of thinking, and earning a more balanced view of the place and its history. This is cultural immersion travel, and its popularity is on the rise.

Unsurprisingly, cultural immersion is a branch of sustainable tourism, since your bucks are usually directed towards small-scale experiences run by locals. So when you embark on a cultural immersion trip, your money usually benefits the local economy (rather than being directed out of the region to some billionaire's bank account in Switzerland, for instance).

Our client Brad joins locals in Rwanda harvesting tea

Here are some examples of cultural immersion activities to get you thinking about the sort of experience(s) that might be right you ...

Spending quality time in a car, on the trail, around dining tables, in the bush, in a kayak or so on with one or more locals lets you form proper relationships as there's time to get to know each other decently and have conversations that go deeper than pleasantries. You also gain insights into how locals perceive and interact with each other, with the built environment, and with nature.

Joining stilt fishermen in Sri Lanka is an example of cultural immersion

Not everyone is well suited to a holiday that's about cultural immersion, as such trips are not always easy or comfortable. Cultural immersion tends to appeal to:

All that said, a cultural immersion trip doesn't have to be a days- or weeks-long experience. You could consider simply including a half- or full-day cultural immersion activity into a larger itinerary. Test the waters, so to speak. (This could work well for the more introverted souls.)

Learning to cook a traditional recipe is a culturally immersive experience

As you would suspect, the one and only doorway to a true cultural immersion experience is locals. Occasionally you might know someone, or have a connection through someone else, and you can arrange your own cultural immersion experience, perhaps even for free.

For many of us, however, there's no personal connection to the community we'd like to visit. When this is the case, we need to seek out other avenues. This could look like organising a homestay or working farmstay, or it could take the form of volunteering at an NGO or working as an au pair.

Another option, of course, is going on an organised cultural immersion trip.

There are various tour operators offering cultural immersion trips, as well as those that include culturally immersive activities within broader itineraries. Some will even organise a private cultural immersion experience for you. Be sure to look for a tour operator with a good track record so that you can ensure they're engaging ethically and fairly with local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Finally, but very importantly, we encourage you to research local etiquette and norms to help grease the wheels of healthy and respectful conversations and interactions during your trip. For instance, you might learn that sustained eye contact with elders is actually impolite, rather than polite. There are always potential social pitfalls that you can't possibly divine without having been told, especially when you head into a culture that's very far removed from your own. You don't want to bumble into a new place with habits or customs that are confusing, disrespectful or even alarming to locals, as this would just hamstring all of your efforts.

It won't surprise you at all when we say that the more time and effort you put into your planning (like learning the language, finding a good tour operator and researching local etiquette), the more rewarding the experience is likely going to be.

Foraging with locals is such an eye-opening experience in so many ways

Cultural immersion not only requires effort in the planning phase but also active participation whilst on the trip. Passive observing leads to a sightseeing holiday, whilst real engagement leads to cultural immersion.

So here are some tips for ensuring your trip is as immersive as possible:

Remember that the goal of cultural immersion is a deeper understanding of another people group, and of hopefully forging some meaningful connections. That said, the best approach to immersive travel is arguably to have no preset idea of what you hope to gain from the experience – rather just be open to what transpires.