Culturemee Dee
Your bags are packed, passport is safely stashed in a waterproof wallet and you’ve ticked off the online check-in. A well-earned rest is on the way and you’re absolutely raring to go. But wait...
What about travel plugs? Do you need to pack a few of those too? Will it be alright to wear a bikini on the beach, or does the local culture value a little more modesty? What’s the correct way to greet someone local and how do you avoid getting ripped off by a taxi driver at the airport?
There’s so much to think about and so little time to do it in. But you can find all this information in one place, for up 75 countries, with Culture Mee, a mobile app designed by Irish woman and inveterate traveller, Dee Lee.
Dee found herself confronted with many of these questions while travelling through south-east
Africa, shortly after qualifying as an accountant. Confounded by a plug, she couldn’t find the answers she needed in one easy place and, out of sheer frustration, decided to create one herself.
The result, Culture Mee (rhymes with Dee Lee!) is the world’s first app designed to help travellers manage culture shock, before they even set foot in their destination.
“You have a map to help you get to your destination, but when you get there, what do you have to understand the local people?” says Dee, who says the app has even helped to transform the way she herself travels.
“It just helps to unwrap the magic of the local culture and for us, it makes it a much more authentic and enjoyable travel experience. I’ve become even more fascinated
by cultural traditions and have a better understanding of why people do things differently from us.”
Free to download for IOS and Android systems, the award-winning app does more than simply tell you which plugs to pack, the visa, vaccines and emergency numbers you’ll need, or how to negotiate the transport system.
Thanks to Culture Mee’s partnership with Hofstede Insights, it’s also a riveting source of absolute pearls of cultural information relating to how the people in the country you’re visiting greet each other, do business, view the world, engage with a queue, play sports, pay tips, organise their meals, and much more. You can even run a direct comparative between your culture and your destination’s under headings such as power and relationships, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation.
So much of this can be key to making each holiday an infinitely more pleasurable one because it bridges the gaps between you and your hosts.
“One simple example is how we communicate,” explains Dee. “90% of our communication is non-verbal, however in many countries, such as Ireland, we focus on the 10% that comes through words. Whereas in Japan, they focus on the 90% that is non-verbal, which is why they have a saying ‘The eyes speak as much as the mouth’.”
Ireland is, of course, on the list of countries covered by Culture Mee. Dee has always had a soft spot for Connemara, wild terrain and landscape she fell in love with many years ago.
“Driving through Inagh Valley and from Leenane to Letterfrack is one of the most beautiful stretches of road I have ever had the pleasure to travel on,” says the veteran of adventures in more than 60 countries. “I’d love to spend some time living there at some point in the future.”
And what is her personal advice for visitors to Ireland? “My advice to travellers is to make Dublin a quick pit stop and go and see the rest of the country as soon as you can. We have such a beautiful country and every county has something special about it. I’m from Leitrim, which is known for all its beautiful lakes, for example.
“Go to the local pubs, enjoy the local traditional music and try to meet as many local people as you can as Irish people are known the world over for their friendliness, humour and wit.”