I’m a terrible tourist, although not in the way you’ve come to expect when you hear the phrase. I’m not out there carving my name on the Colosseum, nor would I ever dream of shoving my camera in the face of locals who are just trying to give their morning alms. I admit, however, that I’m woeful when it comes to doing all the things that tourists are supposed to do.

I feel uncomfortable in Instagram-worthy restaurants, I think sightseeing is tremendously dull, and I’ve had more fun spending 15 minutes in a supermarket than several hours in a museum. You’re more likely to find me drinking in a park than in a famous bar, and I’d rather spend a day getting lost on a bicycle than subjecting myself to a walking tour or, worse, an organised pub crawl.

This aversion to the regular tropes of tourism means that now, when I travel, I try to travel like I live there, embracing the notion that the best way to experience a country is by blending into the tapestry of local life.

Of course, it can be hard to blend in when you’re a head taller than everyone else at that Japanese train station, but here’s what I do to look, feel and sound as if I belong, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

These tips are neither locals-only secrets, nor particularly remarkable. Some are straight-up mundane, which is a feature of this philosophy, not a flaw. By ticking fewer boxes, dodging famous places and freeing myself from the obligations of tourism, this is how I’ve gone behind the scenes in my favourite destinations to make a deeper connection with the locals.

1. Move less, see more

As a younger traveller, I moved with the urgency of a man who thought he could see everything. Then I got older, lazier and less-employable, and realised that seeing everything is just as physically and financially exhausting as it sounds.

It made me slow down when I travel. These days, I’ll happily fly halfway around the world just to spend two weeks in the same city, accepting that while I’ll never have the time, money or endurance to see everything my heart desires, there is great joy in experiencing somewhere with a fraction of the familiarity that the locals do. I’d rather move less, see more, and fall in love with one place, as opposed to breezing over 20 others on a Contiki Tour.

2. Travel on two wheels

I have no idea why, but something about rolling around a city on a bicycle makes people assume you belong there. It’s like carrying a ladder or wearing a lanyard; no one thinks to ask questions because no one quite knows where lanyards come from in the first place.

But there is more to a bicycle than just blending in. It can unlock parts of a city you would otherwise miss, and the blank spaces between the famous neighbourhoods are some of the best.

It can also inadvertently unlock whole other countries, as I found out while cycling around Maastricht. Three wrong turns, two bonjours, and one atrociously strong beer later, I realised I had accidentally cycled from the Netherlands into Belgium, which felt like the most Dutch experience of my whole trip.

3. Find your local

The first thing I do in any city is find my regular coffee shop. The coffee doesn’t even have to be particularly good, it just needs to be somewhere I can drag myself to at the same time each morning without too much effort.

This small injection of routine is a great way to acquire local knowledge. The staff will get to know you and, if they accept you as one of their regulars, they’ll be far more likely to part with delicious secrets.

This is the kind of insider trading that only people who subject themselves to the horrors of hospitality seem to know, and so many of my favourite local experiences have started with a tip from my neighbourhood caffeine dealer.

4. Don’t do anything you see on Instagram

If you’re seeing something on Instagram, chances are every other tourist lingering a little too long in that Parisian cafe will see the same thing. Content showing croissants dunked into cappuccinos has tricked them into believing this undiscovered gem is waiting just for them.

Sad to say, if the cafe wasn’t crap before you saw it on social media, it’ll certainly be crap by now.

Don’t bother standing in line with the other tourists, waiting for something no better than what you can find around the corner. Speak to locals, follow your eyes, ears and nose. If you wouldn’t pick a restaurant at home based on a few ring-lit pastry shots, don’t do it when you’re overseas.

5. Go for the view, not the attraction

Once, in Bologna, I had intended to take in the sunset view of the Madonna di San Luca. My wife, as she often does, suggested something different, and we ended up with a bottle of wine on a winding hike, climbing between backyard vineyards to the top of the hill opposite.

We had a perfect view of the sunset, the basilica – and the swarms of tourists around it. All we had around us were locals walking their dogs, another couple enjoying a picnic and one of the most persistent bees I’ve ever encountered.

It confirmed my belief that all churches, temples and grand buildings are best viewed from afar, as they tend to lose their magic up close. Where tourists go digging for the details, locals use them as the backdrop to everyday life.

6. Take the train to the end of the tracks

All too often, our well-worn tourist trails keep us trapped in the same few kilometres of a city. They’re the most sterilised parts of the city, too, ones that have been carefully curated to make us think, “Ooh, I could live here.”

That’s why I make a point of exploring further afield, using public transport as I would at home (without Sydney’s constant trackwork), searching for the city’s tourist-free parts.

To me, nowhere does this better than Bangkok, where a trip along the klongs, up the Chao Phraya River or on SkyTrain can end up at a seafood restaurant where there are no English menus, no way to adjust for spice tolerance and no way to beg for milk in a country that is nothing if not lactose intolerant.

7. Get with the timezone

The closest I’ve come to the apocalypse was arriving in Seville at three in the afternoon. It was so hot that my Havaianas were melting into the cobblestones, and the short walk to my apartment was like walking across the surface of the sun.

Not a single local was in sight. They had more sense than to be out at that ungodly hour, hiding from the heat before having their dinners at a time when I would usually be going to bed.

It took a week of fighting these hours before my body adjusted to the local way of doing things, and the riddle of the Seville started to make sense. Take your cortado at 9am, have lunch at 2pm, and siesta until 7pm, then it’s dinner at 10pm, and you’re back on this merry-go-round all over again.

8. Support the local team, visibly

For someone who’s ambivalent about sport, my wardrobe spills over with merchandise from foreign franchises. Baseball teams in Korea, football teams in Japan, an assortment of scarves, jerseys and branded T-shirts have been a small price to pay for the ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with locals, singing songs that I barely understand.

I was recently travelling around Japan during the World Cup and one of the best investments I made was my Samurai Blue T-shirt.

No matter where I wore it, random Japanese dudes ran up to me for handshakes, high-fives or confusing cries of “vamos”. They bought me breakfast beers at sushi restaurants, welcomed me to their tables in overcrowded bars, all thanks to me showing my commandeered colours.

9. Go to terrible pubs

At home in Australia, I drink at a pub that is essentially a glorified pokies room with a balcony. It is the last place I’d ever tell a tourist to go, but it’s one of my favourite watering holes, in no small part due to the $16 jugs of Tiger.

I apply the same logic to travel, as some of the worst pubs and bars you’ll go to are unironically the best. They’re the places with graffiti on the walls, sawdust on the floor, and locals who look at you sideways at the urinal, wondering, “How the hell did you end up here?”

I had more than a few of these glances in Cologne, Germany, where the worst pubs were the first ones I’d go back to. The locals were friendlier, the floors were stickier and the tiny glasses of Kolsch kept coming, whether you ordered one or not.

10. Don’t sleep on ugly beaches

One of the more worrying global trends I’ve noticed is the privatisation of public beaches. Resorts come in, walls go up and the locals are pushed out from some of the most beautiful parts of their turf.

I believe that a beach should never be a ticketed attraction, which is why I love beaches like San Juan in the Philippines. It’s a far cry from what you’d expect when you think of beaches in the Philippines, the kind with a face that only a mother could love.

But what it lacks in looks it makes up for in personality, where the locals come to learn to surf, squealing infectiously whenever they’re pushed onto a choppy wave. The joy of swimming alongside those locals makes the ash-grey sand and occasional sparkle of plastic better than any paywalled waters in the world, no matter how pristine they are.

11. Embrace the dark side

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Airbnb is a morally bankrupt product that I use religiously. But what I’ll defend to the death is the way that I use it, which is a chance to connect with locals whenever I travel.

The trick is to ignore everything you see in the listing other than the host. I’ve stayed in places that were objectively far worse than hotels, all because the reviews talk about how incredible the hosts are.

The result of this is that I’ve had experiences no hotel could ever give me. I’ve been invited over for dinner by my adopted obachan (grandmother) in Hiroshima, been the only foreigner at an awamori brewery block party in Okinawa, and joined in with the village for the annual rice harvest in rural Thailand.

For better or worse, none of these experiences would have been possible without feeding the beast that is Airbnb.

12. Hit the gym

Go to the gym? On holiday? Are you mad?

That’s exactly the kind of thing a tourist would say, which is why going to the gym can help you sweat into the fabric of local life (ew). It’s about more than staying healthy while you’re travelling, although you can thank me for that later.

It’s about hanging with locals in the most mundane of places, and I’ve often found gyms to be great for making new mates when you’re on the road.

One of my favourite places to do this was in Hanoi. The gym cost about three bucks a session, the equipment looked as if it had been stolen from a minimum-security prison, and absolutely nothing tasted better than a post-workout bun cha.

13. Learn the language

I’m not sure how many different variations of this tip I can write (five more, at least), but I will shout it from the rooftops until my throat is sore, my lungs are spent and I can shout it in multiple languages.

Hangugeo gachi baewoyo.

This odd collection of letters translates into “let’s learn Korean together”, as one of the best ways to ingratiate yourself with locals in Korea is in their own language. By learning a little more than your average tourist, you’ll be amazed at how it transforms your experience.

It could make as small a difference as ordering a glass of wine in Georgia and having the waiter tip in half a bottle, or as big as being invited out to dinner by your new Korean friends, and having what might be the best night of your life.

14. Dress the part

People like to talk about dressing appropriately at temples and mosques, but do you know where you should really dress the part?

Cocktail bars.

Nothing kills the vibe quite like a couple of tourists who rock up to a nice cocktail bar in their shorts, thongs, and singlets, whacking their matching 1.5 litre bottles of 7-Eleven-bought water on the table and ruining the effort that goes into creating an ambience.

I know it gets hot in South-East Asia, but a little bit of sweat isn’t going to hurt you, and putting on jeans or, heaven forbid, shoes, is a good way to show respect to locals who got dressed up for the occasion.

If you wouldn’t go to a cocktail bar dressed like that back at home, then don’t do it in a place where they’re too polite to turn you away.

15. Don’t forget that people are the point

Why do we travel? Is it to eat nice things, take pretty pictures, or lounge in sun-drenched deckchairs like the Roman emperors of old, draped across our towels while nursing umbrella-garnished cocktails?

Partially, yes.

But I’ve long believed that humans are the heart of the experience, the whole point of travel. Ask any traveller worth their salt, and they’ll tell you the same thing, that the best parts of their trip were always those shared with locals.

This is what makes this style of travel so rewarding. When the tourist traps, packaged tours and fancy resorts put barriers between you and the people you came to connect with, jump the fence and join them.

… And five of my guilty tourist pleasures

A beer in a European plazaAh, yes, European summer, the time to sit in plazas, drink objectively terrible beers, and see enough shirtless Englishmen to last a lifetime. Most often, these venues are awful and overpriced, but the plaza makes it worth the pain, and I’ll happily pay too much to be blinded as the sun reflects off a few dozen pasty bodies.

Private transfersThere is not much I won’t suffer through to save a few bucks when I travel. I’ll eat on the street, sleep in glorified kennels and fly on low-cost carriers. Having paid through the nose for a private transfer, nothing feels better after a long flight than seeing a sign at the airport with my name on it.

The swim-up cocktail barImagine travelling halfway around the world to an island with palm trees, white sand and beautiful beaches, then choosing to swim in a concrete rectangle instead. Alas, this tends to happen when I find a pool with a bar in it, floating my way onto an underwater stool and hoping the person next to me doesn’t pee.

PringlesContrary to popular belief, once you pop you can stop, and I stop whenever I’m back home. On holiday, however, you better believe I’m fishing Pringles out of the tube, or eating an overpriced Cornetto just because some tout on the beach with a bucket of ice brought one to me.

Irish pubsIs it wrong to go to some of the most exotic destinations in the world and end up drinking in an Irish pub? Well, if it’s wrong, then I have no interest in being right, and have turned down gorgeous wine bars, local holes-in-the-wall and craft breweries all to drink at the Irish equivalent of Starbucks.