I HAVE ALWAYS thought of that night as an allegory.

We Americans tend to harbor myths about foreign travel, especially travel in remote places. Coming from a country of ponderous size, we are by nature isolationists. We are largely monolinguists and ethnocentrists and damn good tourists, but hapless travelers. Pack us off to Paris or Puerto Vallarta and we get along swimmingly. Drop us in Yunnan or Uganda and we can get a little tense.

American myths of travel fall into two categories—true and false. The top ten:

Myth numero uno: If you don't speak the language you're in trouble.

Think about it. If you've ever had a wife or a husband or a girlfriend or a boyfriend—hell, even a dog or a cat—you know as well as I do that often language just gets in the way. If you're a human being, you can get along with another human being.

If you're worried, memorize the Jenkins nine-word primer and translate it into the local patois before departing for parts unknown. The essential words are please, thanks, hello, good-bye, yes, no, food, water, bathroom. It also helps to know the numbers one through ten. And if you really want to get philosophical, bring a pocket dictionary. Just remember how closely the pronunciations of "six" and "sex" resemble each other in our own language.

Case in point: Once in Lhasa I tried to buy a turquoise necklace off a very attractive young woman with high red cheekbones and coral beads in her plaited hair. We went through all kinds of negotiations that I did not understand in the least. Eventually she took my hand and drew me through a small door into a cave-like room where I was introduced to her father. The father and I had another long conversation of which I didn't understand one word. The father said something to the daughter and she suddenly disrobed. I'd been negotiating for a bride.

Myth deux: Remote travel is expensive.

What's expensive is a new SUV. Or a week in a hotel in New York City. Travel is cheap. Shop the Internet. You can go almost anywhere on the planet for a thousand bucks.

That sound like a lot? Try this: For three months, save the receipt for every latte, soda, snack, and restaurant meal you purchase. Add it up. Next three months live on beans and rice and ten-pound bags of potatoes. (It's good training for remote travel anyway.) Still short? Stop driving. Ride your bike to work, to school, to the grocery store. (More useful training.)

Then buy that ticket to Thailand.

But what about hotels, meals, taxis? You need another grand, which can last ten days if you're taking trains in Europe, or ten months if you're bicycling in India. The amount you spend per day is usually inversely proportionate to the number of miles you get away from "civilization." In central Sichuan you'll have a hard time spending $15 a day.

To stretch your dollars, camp out. To stretch them more, eat off the village markets rather than in restaurants. Recently I spent a month in northeastern India and spent $385, most of which went for two handwoven wool rugs.

Myth drie: It's dangerous out there.

You know where it's dangerous? Anycity, U.S.A. Despite dramatic improvement, America still has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Discounting those countries that are at war, civil or otherwise, you're more likely to get killed or maimed traveling in America than in foreign lands.

That doesn't mean you can be stupid. There are desperate places where the moment you walk into town, you're a target. You can feel it right away. Trust your gut, and watch your back. And sadly, the rules of remote travel are sometimes different for women: In many countries, it is not advisable for a woman to travel solo. I've known a lot of women who have done so, but too many have paid a high price along the way.

Myth vier: If you do get hurt, you'll never get help.

My brothers and I were once bicycling across Africa, and my younger brother Dan stepped off a cliff while taking a leak (it's a long story). He broke his tibia and fibula. His leg was put in a fine fiberglass cast by a South African doctor who kept it below the knee so we could continue cycling. Cost: $8.

Once, in India, my guts told me unmistakably that I had giardia. There was no doctor in the village, only a pharmacist. I told him what I had and asked if he carried Flagyl. Of course: 17 cents.

My wife, Sue, developed an unknown infection in Bolivia. I was off climbing in the Cordillera Real; she was pregnant and alone in La Paz. The pain got so bad that she eventually had to seek out a doctor. The taxi driver took her directly to the hospital, where the physician diagnosed her, gave her a shot of penicillin, and insisted that she return the next day for a follow-up. Total cost: $9.

The reality is that if you get a serious, complicated illness or injury, there is no better place to be than the United States. On the other hand, if all you need is a limb set or an antibiotic, most country doctors anywhere in the world can handle the job.

Myth nga: Travel in remote places is too complicated to organize on your own.

What's to organize? Friday evening, go online and buy a ticket to Tanzania. Saturday morning, put on whatever clothes you wear on Saturday, including a good pair of walking shoes. Pull your backpack out of the closet. Stuff in a light sleeping bag and a small foam pad, one T-shirt, one long-sleeve shirt, one pair of socks, one pair of underwear, shorts, long pants, fleece jacket, rain jacket, warm cap, baseball cap, journal, pen, sunglasses, toothbrush, toothpaste, camera, passport, vaccination record.

Board the plane in the afternoon.

If you're simply traveling, the last thing you want is a guide. The fun of true travel is to be itineraryless, unagendaed. Make your own mad schedule. A tour of mask-makers in Java. A study of tent types in Chad. The fun of true travel is to be utterly spontaneous. Change your mind at the last minute and take a bus in the opposite direction. The fun of true travel is freedom. Stay up all night with the locals in Siberia, sleep away the next day in the back of a truck hauling cabbage. You want to be a spectator or a participant? You want to be a dog on a choke collar or a coyote cruising the landscape?

If you happen to hunger for an adventure that requires technical skills—climbing, kayaking, scuba diving—learn the skills in your backyard from a professional instructor. Get them down perfectly, practicing in several states, and then plan your own damn trip.

Myth che¯: But I need a shower out there.

No, you don't. Americans have taken this cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness thing overboard. No other culture on earth rubs its flesh so religiously. Must be our Puritan heritage. I say give up guilt and there's nothing wrong with dirt. Dirt ain't dirty. Believe it or not, humans can go days—nay, weeks—without bathing and be no worse for wear. Nomadic cultures, from the Bedouin to the Tibetans to the Mongolians, regularly go months without bathing. My own dubious record is 75 days. Most of the world's humans are accustomed to the pungent smell of body odor. Our noses have just gotten a little too high in the air.