How to dig into local history

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Learn about the past to understand the present.

All the history buffs I know love to travel, but you don’t have to be into history to enjoy learning about local history when you travel. I love experiencing the culture of places I visit, especially culture in the form of food, music, dance, and art. So, I always want to know the roots, and therefore history, of that culture.

Here’s my top three ways to dig into local history.

1. Start with museums

The most obvious, and often easiest, place to start is museums. Most museums these days have audio tours you can listen to on your phone with Bluetooth, or audio guides, in multiple languages. I’ve found English either on printed panels or in audio form in museums around the world, from Vietnam and Nepal to Brazil and Argentina. History museums are great, but so are art museums, which also have a lot of history about where a country’s art comes from. 

2. Go to concerts and performances

The Balet Folclorico da Bahía is a modern dance company with strong historical representation in all their dances. I was very surprised and impressed with how much I learned about the history of Bahía, Brazil from watching their dance performances.

3. Hire a local guide

Tour guides from another place may know a lot about history, but they won’t have the same personal connection to it as somebody who grew up in the place you’re visiting. I’ve learned a lot about Peruvian history but I never lived through the Fujimori years and my family wasn’t impacted by the agrarian reform of 1969. Local guides have family history that they can recount alongside the national or regional history they teach you. It makes the history come alive to hear a guide tell you how historical events affected their parents or grandparents.

Guides who live in Cusco also have access to events, trainings and professional development like the posters above. They’re all from events for guides that teach new historic findings about the Qorikancha, the history of the dances at the Virgin of Carmen festival and new information on Hiram Bingham’s arrival at Machu Picchu in 1911.

How do you like to dig into history when you travel? Leave me a comment below!

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