If you consider yourself a first-class traveler, you might not be aware that as you delve further down the budget scale, the more you’ll encounter travel noise. It’s an unavoidable consequence of being surrounded by numerous other people, and in some cultures, noise is as ubiquitous as exhaust fumes and bureaucracy, something accepted as inevitable. This phenomenon also applies to airports, trains, and buses, where inconsiderate individuals believe everyone is interested in their conversations and videos.
How do you handle noise? How soundly do you sleep?
If you’re gearing up for a budget backpacking trip around the globe, it’s crucial to become adept at tuning out noise. Alternatively, you should prepare a bag of solutions. Brace yourself for nighttime sounds unlike anything you’ve encountered before, even if you hail from New York City.
## Sources of Travel Noise Around the Globe
I’m reminded of this truth every time I return to my home base in Mexico. In the otherwise charming city of Guanajuato where I reside, a genuinely quiet night is a rarity. There are at least five barking dogs on the rooftops of houses on every block, and since this city is nestled among hills, I hear most of them at some point during the night, particularly if there’s a chain reaction and they all start barking when one does.
At least I’m not in the center. There, if a soccer/football match is underway and the bars are buzzing, the noise won’t subside until the early hours, with booming bass that few windows can block out. Street performers sing and shout beneath those windows, and there may just be fireworks in the mix.
Throughout Latin America, the noise continues with church bells, gas vendors, junk collection trucks, and intoxicated individuals singing in the streets. It’s not unusual for bars to vie for patrons by each trying to blast their music louder than the others. If you’re indoors, you’ll struggle to hear each other; if you’re outside, you’re subjected to competing stereos playing different tracks.
In countries where people live in close quarters and have cultivated a “live and let live” mentality as a result, you don’t voice complaints; you endure and cope. It’s often culturally unheard of to complain about the mariachi band next door at 2:00 a.m. or the morning firecrackers that sound like cannons at dawn on a Sunday to kick off a saints’ festival.
In Asia, you will witness people napping on the subway, on buses, on benches, and even on delivery carts. It’s no surprise: you can’t truly rest at night with all the roosters crowing and everyone rising hours before dawn to get their businesses underway before the heat sets in. You haven’t truly lived the backpacker experience until you’ve slept through a cat in heat, two rival roosters, and an individual who begins noisily cleaning the stairs outside your bamboo hut at 5 a.m.
“Oh my god, the roosters!” You’ll hear this frequently from fellow budget travelers globally. Your previous urban assumption that roosters only crow at dawn gets shattered quickly. When exactly do roosters crow? Whenever they please. Which turns out to be quite frequently, both in light and in darkness.
In the Middle East, the call to prayer is a constant presence five times daily, at least once during hours when no rational person should be awake. If you’re fortunate enough to be in one of these nations during Ramadan, you’ll also experience the peculiar tradition of someone parading through the streets banging a drum to wake everyone up so the faithful can eat before sunrise. (And you’re even expected to tip this person for their efforts at the end.)
In certain countries, drivers have one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn at all times. In Egypt, they might drive with their lights off at night under the false assumption that it conserves battery life, but that doesn’t stop them from honking—regardless of whether there’s anything in sight.
If you’re staying in a fancy hotel, you can largely avoid all this. I don’t recall hearing even one barking dog during my stay at the [Villa Maria Cristina hotel](http://www.luxurylatinamerica.com/mexico/villa_maria.html) in Guanajuato while on a writing assignment on my initial visit, and I’ve enjoyed blissfully quiet nights behind the triple-paned windows at Hiltons and Hyatts. The Four Seasons in Mexico City will make you believe there’s no traffic on that bustling thoroughfare in front of the hotel, and the Oberoi in Calcutta truly deserves the title “oasis” if any hotel ever did. Money serves as an excellent sound barrier.
Stay at the $8 hostel a few blocks away, though, and it’s an entirely different narrative. You