The Monte Toboggan on Portugal's Madeira Island is just one of many ways locals have created to get from one place to another, ways that we believe are a vital part of a local travel experience

This autumn, The Travel Word team has been thinking a lot about transportation. All too often, tourist transit and local transport are two separate spheres in the same destination. They just don’t intersect.

Tourists seek the comfort and convenience of flights, taxis or tourist bus services that have been developed with them in mind, while local people convey themselves using whatever resources are at hand, often the ones that have been in place for a long (and sometimes very long) time.

We believe that the different forms of local transport are unique qualities of a place that, when experienced, are a vital part of a local travel experience. To know a place is to get around it the way local people do: cramming yourself into a chicken bus in South America, throwing caution to the wind in a tuk-tuk in Southeast Asia or boarding a ferry in Africa. We dare you to give them a try! We’re sure you will find these rides to be a brilliant bonding experience with locals.

To inspire you… and in honour of our recent focus on local transport, we asked our network of local travel professionals all over the world to give us a glimpse of the best local conveyances in their destinations. Their responses are as varied as they are colourful – everything from trains and boats and buses to animal power and bicycles and three-wheeled wonders.

Continue reading this article on The Travel Word blog and check out the gallery of the best of local transport from the whl.travel network