The Educational Tourist - why I am different

I consider myself an educated tourist.  I use airbnb for most of my travel accommodations and try to live with the locals to truly get a feel for a new city or area while traveling for business abroad.  I have been in hostels, shared rooms with families, crashed with business partners in their homes, and even found vendors at conferences with open hotel rooms because an employee had to leave early for some reason or another.

I also discovered tourists are always willing to take photos of you IF you kindly take a nice photo of them first.  I love traveling the off beaten paths of metro cities and discovering the little gems that usually only locals know about.  I tend to avoid the high traffic tourist attractions and wander down the side roads on my early morning jobs to discover the real life and breath of a city.

David Patterson in London capturing a pic with
Big Ben, Red Phone Booth, and Red Double Decker Buses