Pretend you're house hunting

"We might be moving here in a couple of months," I lied to the estate agent showing my husband and me round a swanky show home in Tokyo. "And we wanted to look at a few places." More lies. "My company's relocating me," fibbed my partner in crime.

We were not being relocated to Japan, or anywhere else for that matter – we were on holiday and fancied a nose around some kit houses to see how Japanese families live. Very comfortably, if these earthquake-proof prefab homes were anything to go by. Designed to offer maximum space on their modest plots, they were all sliding doors and hidden gadgets, and yet even among all the hi-tech toys each home still had a traditional tatami room. Fascinating.

When you're on a short trip, it's easy to get a feel for a place's history and culture by sampling the museums, galleries, religious buildings and ruins; buy the guidebook and off you go. And, yes, Tokyo's Shinto temples are fascinating, but what about glimpsing a genuine slice of life, seeing how ordinary people live?

We spent some of our allotted temple time exploring a quiet suburb instead, wandering down streets of little houses with bay windows and net curtains, and Wedgwood trinkets proudly displayed. We perused pet shops crammed with designer doggy coats and jewelled kitty collars, and made a point of ducking into the most unlikely-looking places.

The least promising of all delivered most: a striped tent redolent of the sort used by road workers was, we were delighted to discover, a bar. Things that at home might seem mundane reach uncharted levels of intrigue when you're away.

I often hold off getting my hair cut until I'm in another country and have had an interesting experience each time (and interesting results, it must be said). One time I had a trim in a tiny room at a community building in a Portuguese village, serenaded by singing and dance classes on all sides. At a hair salone in Singapore, they started washing my hair while I was just sitting at the mirror leafing through a magazine, and nowhere near a sink.

There are many ways a stranger can get a peek behind the curtains of a place. But befriending an estate agent is a surprisingly fun way to start.
Susie Grimshaw

Ask to see behind closed doors

I'm a shy guy. My brother asked me to be his best man but for me making a speech would have been impossible. Even the thought of proposing a family toast at Christmas brings me out in a cold sweat. I've never asked a girl out on a date.

But I am shamelessly forward when I'm on holiday. I'm much happier to grab a local and ask a stupid question (Do monkeys talk with their tails? Do you eat albino children in these parts? Both legitimate questions in context, honestly) rather than tick off a sight. And if there's a chance to invite myself into someone's home …

So that's why the little doorway we found in the darkest, smelliest alley in old Delhi was irresistible. Through the open door I could see a courtyard and glimpses of half-naked bodies.

Telling my friend that it would be fine, I stooped through the entrance and into a movie set. At least it should have been a movie set. The courtyard was about the size of a squash court and was surrounded by dirty black walls three storeys high. On each floor there was a narrow balcony circling the courtyard.

Shafts of bright light pierced the crude roof and shone down, illuminating the glistening, sweating bodies of men stripped to the waist and busy preparing lunch. Huge fish were being chopped up and thrown into cauldrons of bright yellow curry.

It felt like I'd stepped back several centuries. The men saw us and looked startled but friendly. They found someone who spoke English and he explained that four or five hundred men worked, lived and ate in this building, a jewellery workshop. Many were young teenagers from impoverished villages in West Bengal who had been sent by their families to the city to earn money.

We climbed through the floors, peeking into rooms and watching amazingly intricate gold pieces being made. Smiles and handshakes greeted us at every step. Half an hour later we left, buzzing with this extraordinarily vivid experience, made all the more special for being such a surprise.

Our boldness/cheekiness had been amply rewarded. But had we been rude? You probably wouldn't barge uninvited into someone's home or workplace if you were on a day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. But I don't think we were rude. It's context again. We were as interesting to them as they were to us. Tourist and local both got an insight into each other's lives.
Richard Eilers, Guardian Travel sub-editor

Befriend locals online in advance

My greatest holiday fear is the tourist trap. I'm so petrified of falling in to one, that I have been known to tramp for miles through bleak foreign suburbs in the driving rain, searching desperately for a beer in a proper local bar. If you don't know where to go, a foreign city is like a labyrinth; it's far too easy to get lost, hit a dead end or come across a monster of a restaurant bulging with ripped-off tourists.

When I travelled to Brussels for a long weekend, I read all the guide books, articles and online reviews, but it seemed like all anyone was looking for was waffles and chocolate shops. I wanted to find out where the locals hang out.

So I got in touch with them. I thought about the sort of people that might be into similar things as me, and read blogs by artists, cartoonists, musicians and writers from the city. Most people have an email address linked to their blog, so it's easy to reach them directly. Bloggers also post flyers of events they're going to, which is a great way to discover what's coming up in smaller venues.

You must always judge a blog by its style, fonts, writing quality and overuse of exclamation marks. "Goin 2 dis awesome dance party tonite at Majestyk can't wait!!!!!!!" is not the sort of cool, insider tip you are looking for. If it's not written in your language, get a fluent friend to translate, or send the author an email – if they speak English, they'll usually get back to you. I've found that most people are delighted to be asked for advice.

We've been led to some magical places. In Brussels, a blogger pointed us to a club under the railway arches. In Lisbon, a group of illustrators invited me to a private view in an abandoned palace. In Seattle, we tucked in to revelatory eggs royale at Glo's cafe, which is huddled, unassumingly, on a side street off Capitol Hill. I doubt I'd have stumbled across it. And in Baltimore we found ourselves in a vast warehouse flat-cum-gig venue, eating homemade burritos fresh from the kitchen while a metal band thrashed around in the background. You won't like everything you find, but adventures are guaranteed.
Becky Barnicoat

Have a project

Cultural cuisine is my passion, so when I travelled to Peru I wanted to experience the culture from a foodie's perspective. Not being particularly package-tour inclined, I did a bit of old-school networking in order to get to the heart of the country's kitchens.

You only really need one good lead and the secret culinary gems start to appear. On a trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, my guide not only offered insight into the country's history, he provided a few key foodie contacts that started me on my way.

He passed on the name of an Aussie guide who had married a Cusco girl, so this couple were my first port of call on my return to the city. Together Libertad and I explored the local markets and visited a traditional cevichería, a restaurant where Peruvians eat the delicious traditional dish of fish cooked by being marinated in lime juice. Not many foreign faces are seen at these tables, and locals were excited to share their hidden gems with a curious traveller.

Although I am a food photographer, this trip was for my own enjoyment rather than any particular assignment, and this approach could have worked for anyone with an interest in food – or anything else. What I found was that if you are interested, people are always happy to share.

Over the course of my visit I was introduced to the Sunday ritual of dining on deep-fried pork and dancing to local bands at the chicharroneria – where I was the belle of the ball – and welcomed into kitchens where I learned how to cook traditional recipes and about life in Peru, and even had a private audience with Gastón Acurio, Peru's answer to Jamie Oliver.

In fact, I learned so much about the diverse and delicious Peruvian cuisine I wrote a cookery book, A Taste of Peru, which I self-published on my return to the UK.
Moe Kafer, food photographer and writer (moekafer.com, buy A Taste of Peru at tinyurl.com/6aswenl)

Visit a sporting event

My trick is to seek out sporting events wherever I go – baseball in Japan, football in Rio, takraw (kick volleyball) in Laos. The ball communicates in every language, you get to see the locals in a rare state of openness and passion, and you meet the culture in its most convivial and gregarious mode, when it is most ready to include an outsider in its rites (so long as he's wearing the right colours).

Plus, of course, the beauty of travel is that even when things go completely wrong, you end up in the right place. My first time in Japan, I took myself to a baseball game and deliberately showed up at 5pm for a game that I thought began at 7pm. I arrived to find great crowds streaming past me in the opposite direction, since the game had in fact begun at 2pm that day. But a stadium official was so heart-stricken to see me alone and walking in the wrong direction that he took me out to dinner, gave me a free ticket for the next day's game and, somehow, opened a door on the culture that would have stayed firmly closed if things had gone according to plan.
Pico Iyer, travel writer

Focus on one scene

I have a few techniques I use that are quite specific to my interests. If I'm travelling in the developed world, I tend to go immediately to the local vegetarian restaurant, or natural food store. It's not what you'd call a cutting-edge journalistic technique, but as a hardcore veggie/green type, I can get keyed in straight away to a world view that I'm in tune with, and these places always have flyers or contacts for like-minded people who begin to open up the city. I did this in San Francisco when I first went there in the 1990s and the place opened up a like a book for me. I ended up eating a meal with Zen monks at a Buddhist monastery and retreat in Marin, going to the best farmers' market I've ever seen, and made some friends I still see today …
Piers Moore Ede, travel writer

Take a taxi tour

Some of the best tour guides I've ever had have been random taxi drivers whose services cost no more than a fare and a tip. They are generally full of stories and information, and always know where to get brilliant cheap food. On my last morning in Mumbai I was determined to find the best masala dosa (a crisp, thin, pancakey bread stuffed with spiced potato) for breakfast. The taxi driver took me to a tiny cheap cafe in a faceless bit of the city that served the most delicious examples, albeit in a grotty setting.

In Jordan, a driver called Ahmed procured perfect falafel wraps from roadside cafes, while in Sri Lanka, Ranjit, a lovely, grandfatherly man, turned the eight-hour journey from Puttalam to Kandy into one of the best experiences of my trip. Frequently pulling over in rural villages to buy little paper bags of "short eats" – the favourite Sri Lankan snacks, such as spicy samosas, fish cutlets (crisp patties) and dhal vadai (balls of dhal with chilli) – he regaled me with explanations of Sri Lankan politics, history and culture, translated the Sinhalese radio and told his own fantastic stories, including his 11 near-death experiences (he'd only got to number four by the time we arrived).
Gemma Bowes, Guardian Travel editor

Read a book set in the destination

To get a feel of a place before or while I am visiting, I always try to read a piece of fiction that is set in the particular city that I'm visiting. This will often give me ideas of places to see so I can compare them with how they are described in the book.

The books can be set in modern times or in earlier periods. I'm currently reading Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones, a book set around the building of the Santa María del Mar church in Barcelona in the 14th century, ahead of a visit to the city later this summer. My holiday last year, travelling around Sweden by train, was very much influenced by the many Wallander and other Scandinavian detective books I had read during the previous year.

There have also been occasions when a book provides a map, with a route of the places mentioned in the story. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was also set in Barcelona, and when I was there last time, the route took me down many streets that I normally wouldn't have explored.

Of course there are a few drawbacks to this approach to holiday planning. One obvious one is that sometimes the places mentioned don't actually exist, and it's always disappointing when you can't find them. Then there's the danger that you don't get through the book quickly enough – I took Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities with me for a long weekend in Paris, only to discover that I was already boarding the Eurostar for my return journey when the scenes set in Paris started to appear in the book.

But generally I can recommend this as a good way of discovering interesting places – and certainly much more fun than reading a guide book.
Martyn Dore

Offer to teach people English

Finding the local university and offering my services as a volunteer teacher of conversational English worked well in Colombia. I did have to do some work for it, but it led to getting to know people I wouldn't otherwise have met, which took me far off the beaten track, to meals with families and so on. Students are generally up for a laugh and the lecturers were happy to have some native English speakers to include in class exercises (or to take classes for them). I didn't have to do anything formal, or have any qualifications – I just turned up and talked to people to see if I could help out.
Mark Crouch