7 ms·

The Lost Art of Staying Put

96 points by kawera 9y ago

ocfnash 9y ago
My faith in the article's objectivity is called into question by the fact that it reports: "An American Airlines flight attendant bullied a tired mother of twin babies over her stroller, and then readied himself to punch a passenger who rose to her defense." Whereas the Guardian's account of what seems to be the same event is: "Another passenger comes to her defence and threatens to punch the flight attendant, who in turn challenges the passenger to hit him." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/american-airlines-says-sorry-to-woman-hit-with-buggy-by-staff-member https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/american-airli...
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  A couple weeks ago there were four people who were shot and killed in Boston that just so happened to be on the same day. NBC called is a "surge in gun violence" and you flip over to Fox and it's "four murders" Nobody writes a story in a way that maximizes conflict with their personal opinions. No editor tweaks things to make a story less in line with the organization's stakeholders. The narrative changes a lot based on who's writing the story. Whether you slant things intentionally or not or even at all is another story. I would not be surprised if the flight attendant and passenger got in a yelling match, threatened to punch each other and the people writing the articles just tilted things in favor of whichever side they favored based on their opinions and information available to them.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    >based on their opinions and information available to them. based on whether they got money from the airline ;)
- rubidium 9y ago
  I don't think the article was trying to be objective.
carlmr 9y ago
Loved the writing, am guilty myself though.
- ForRealsies 9y ago
  Really? I lost interest between a gratuitous comma and needless metaphor.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    Yes, although I did notice a stray homophone(pedal/peddle) and a non-sensical sentence, I thought the writing was funny and original.
  - ataturk 9y ago
    I quit after the needless Trump bash. Well, okay, one paragraph later where the reason for travel bans was well laid out.
- quickConclusion 9y ago
  Guilty too, but the writing was the main point to me: "I’m not saying your seat is small, but if it were a haystack, you’d find the needle"
totalperspectiv 9y ago
TL;DR: Travel today is more about scoring social points than being changed by the place you go. It's also a waste of fossil fuels and generally immoral. Solution, get more involved in a real way with the place you actually live. I think I like the overall point, but I don't think it's 100% true. There are ways to travel that do produce a meaningful experience, it's just not comfortable. But the point that many people use excuses like service projects or leisure as a reason to fly 4000 miles strikes a chord that I've never really been able to put my finger on.
- sebiol 9y ago
  Thank you for the summary. I started reading but didn't have the time to finish it.
- Banthum 9y ago
  Another mode of travel doesn't seem to be accounted for: Travel for pleasure. Not to score social points. Not for meaning. Just to relax and feel good for a week. Weather can be a big factor. In the middle of five months of winter, daily snow, not seeing the sun in weeks, and working hard in an office every day, a week relaxing in the sun somewhere warm can be very beneficial - and not just in a trite or self-indulgent way. Seasonal mood disorders and work-related stress are real problems and time far away is a real solution. Plus, if we're here to enjoy life, then self-indulgence is also one ingredient of a good life (accompanied by others). You don't have to be seeking "meaning" every moment of every day like a Terminator seeking his target.
  - totalperspectiv 9y ago
    I agree with you, live life, be happy. The point the author is making is that people aren't even doing it for the reason of pleasure. It's more a function of people fulfilling a fantasy that's been manufactured by society to make people feel as though they MUST travel, or they're boring and doing it wrong.
    - slfnflctd 9y ago
brndnmtthws 9y ago
Spot on. There's nothing quite like going to a very different place you've never been, though. I'm not sure how else to get that feeling without actually doing it.
LearnerHerzog 9y ago
Is travel not still for (almost exclusively) the wealthy? I haven't left my home state in over 10 years, due completely to lack of money.
- always_good 9y ago
  No. I think Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is a good book for people who think this, unless your idea of travel is only to go to Paris and stay in a 5-star resort the whole time. https://vagabonding.net/book/excerpt/ https://vagabonding.net/book/excerpt/ > For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need — we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory — a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture. That's just my favorite part of the excerpt, not supporting evidence for my first sentence though. :)
  - PaulRobinson 9y ago
    Quibble: there are no 5-star "resorts" in Paris, for the same reason there are no resorts in London or New York. There are hotels, though.
    - always_good 9y ago
      It was supposed to be an obnoxious idea. A resort being a compound you don't even have to leave at all, its own amusement park.
    - sammoorhouse 9y ago
      Holy mother of god, man. Get a grip.
  - LearnerHerzog 9y ago
    Thanks, I'll check that book out... I've never been out of the country.
moneytide1 9y ago
"The wealthy-and-mobile 20 percent are causing most of the environmental damage in the world." I watched "There Will Be Blood" again recently, and it is such a powerful film to me because it is all about the onset of this relatively "free" energy era. It used to take more effort to go from A to B, so we carefully calculated our reasons to go.
jameshart 9y ago
And how about that airline food, huh? What’s with that?
timlukins 9y ago
I can’t sympathise enough with the author (Ms. Ellmann's) description of my home city - where she also lives - as a destination. "Edinburgh, where I live, used to be a fine old mirthless town. Twenty-first century marketers have turned it into a fairground. Half the year the city’s few green spaces get trashed by Ferris Wheels, vomit, German Christmas markets, vomit, outdoor exhibitions and exhibitionists, vomit, coffee bars, beer tents, and ice-skating rinks.“ She captures the sentiment I’ve been mulling on recently: the city-as-theme-park. Once you take out the industry, possibly the finance (see Brexit) and nascent tech - what have you got left, apart from public sector? Is this a modern trend for our time? How many other cities around the world are increasingly dependent solely on travel and hospitality?
- stevekemp 9y ago
  I recently left Edinburgh, to relocate to Finland. Reading that made made sad, although I can also completely see what she meant. (I lived in Leith so most of the "stuff" there didn't affect me, except for all the tram-works, and the Mela/etc on Leith Links.)
- ataturk 9y ago
  A lot! Post-industrialism is a huge problem. Most of Upstate NY is one ghost town after another punctuated by art studios and phoney-baloney tourist towns with a "pedestrian mall" which is just a bricked over main street with some landscaping added. All for the benefit of the massive state workforce, I guess. Anyone who can escape has escaped. Imagine my surprise on going back to visit my elderly parents after an 8 year hiatus only to find that absolutely nothing had changed! Nothing. That's not to say all of NY is like that, but I'm astounded at how very little economy there really is in that whole region. The mega-city has killed the rest of that political boundary, killed it dead. It's sad what the US has become overall. We imagine sprawling futuristic cities and there's not a single one anywhere. Everywhere that isn't what I just described in some variation of bedroom community with endless strip malls and suburban blight and as you get closer to whatever city, then the urban blight takes over--mostly to do with trucking, warehouses, and so forth. There's little industry anywhere, just armies of people sitting behind computers while sipping coffee in climate-controlled offices. The 21st century is truly strange. What's also truly strange is that it is nearly impossible to get "off the beaten path" anywhere on the east coast. The Eastern US is unending sprawl beginning somewhere near the Maine border all the way to Miami. You can still get away in the Northwest, Montana, and the Dakotas and maybe also down the center of "Flyover Country" but that's about it. Okay, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is sufficiently remote, too.
foodislove 9y ago
The first time my mother took me to Beijing, it was a mess. There were few streetlights, few shops that sold western amenities, yet I loved it. It was different. There was no Starbucks, yet every little alleyway there were stalls that sold dumplings to deep fried dough to stinky tofu. Now, all the alleyways have been closed down. Starbucks, KFC, Macdonald's and other generic shops dot the landscape. Every major city now serves Starbucks styled over-roasted coffee along with obligatory Gucci, Toyota, and Apple shops. It takes a lot of effort to really experience something different. Perhaps the author is right that it's about brownie points these days, but I'm an old school romantic and I still love that feeling of visiting a city or town that I've only heard before in books. If I'm lucky, a place turns out to be better in real life than my dreams. No doubt there are real costs for mass travel and the impact is often negative. But that's the by product of a Nash equilibrium whereby I do want to see the world and all its wonders.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  why not want to explore and experience more? Because you are literally destroying what you supposedly cherish by visiting it.
  - foodislove 9y ago
    Completely agree. It's a Nash equilibrium. If nobody visits, the destination stays the same. If only I visit, then the destination stays the same yet I derive immense enjoyment. If everyone visits, the place goes down the drain and everyone loses.
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      Well, even the most overrun places have some kind of invisible system which keep the tourists confined, even if it's unintentional. Sort of like that one version of Sonic the Hedgehog which was completely on rails and the player was never allowed to leave the prescribed path. There's literally a moat around Waikiki. Most people visiting a place foreign to them are already extending themselves beyond their comfort zone and tend not to leave the prescribed path, even if they're "out exploring". Having lived in some of these popular tourist destinations for most of my adult life, I've found that there seems to be a fairly common heuristic for leaving these areas and getting out into "the real world": Find a bar away from the main lines of public transportation and spend a couple of hours there meeting and talking to locals. It's like fishing, and having the right attitude is the bait. I travel pretty frequently and this works almost everywhere you can find a bar. The places I end up are completely devoid of tourists. And those are the places most likely to lack a McDonalds or Starbucks in favor of a local cafe or street vendor. I guess it really depends on what anybody wants out of the experience.
cageface 9y ago
I've been living as a nomad for the last seven years and had tons of experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. But I prefer to take my time and spend at least a month in each place I visit. However I can also relate to the homogenization the article describes. Even Vietnam is starting to suffer from this generic urbanization. You can still find undiscovered places if you're willing to really get off the beaten path but a lot of these places are undiscovered for a reason.
- dfcowell 9y ago
  I've been living in Saigon for 4 years. Even within this highly touristed city, you just need to venture 5 minutes outside of the city centre to see Vietnam as it really is. I've spent time in 5-6 different cities and towns and for sure, if you stay on main street it's very generic, or sterile. Rent a bike, set out in a random direction for 20 minutes; you won't find any TripAdvisor listings but the local culture is alive and well. Most people expect to land somewhere new and have the local lifestyle at their fingertips, but that's not what the beaten track optimises for.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
It's a well written piece and very funny. I don't agree with the message though. Let's try to make travel cleaner rather than just decide to sit in one spot and not go anywhere. There's something about travelling from one place to another that humans enjoy, it's a journey. I'm back living in London, UK now for 6 years after having spent 10+ years in Canada and I do not need to own a car so I do not. However I miss cruising. It's just a joy driving and going from place to place in of itself.
vinceguidry 9y ago
I came expecting a thoughtful how-to on squeezing more juice out of routine and boring-ness, what I got was an irate classist polemic that just didn't know when to end. It segued all-too gradually from amusing and clever rant to listening to that one uncle rave incoherently for hours about racist bullshit. I daresay he got paid by the word. Now I know what a half-boiled frog feels like. I couldn't even finish it.
- ballenarosada 9y ago
  Classist?
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Unbelievably classist. Everyone who wants something different than the author does from travel must be snooty and incapable of appreciating 'real' travel.
    - mpnordland 9y ago
      I'd say she would rather one not travel at all.
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        You would think so, given the title but after all the polemic, she never seems to argue for it. Maybe it was just buried at the bottom of the rant.
  - jzymbaluk 9y ago
    Disgustingly so. These lower middle-class dolts who scrimp and save to go on vacation are RUINING cities for REAL travelers like the author. These poor idiots don't even deserve to travel! Why can't they just learn their place and stay put?
    - reureu 9y ago
allsunny 9y ago
Ahh, whatever happened to the lost art of "getting to the point." :-)
sandworm101 9y ago
Way too long. Was this author on something? This reads like the rambling manifesto of a movie protagonist. We get it. You hate tourists. But check the mirror. I bet this guy has flown more places than most. It is the standard false sense of ownership, the tourist trying to keep all the other tourists away from 'his' favorite places.
jzymbaluk 9y ago
What an unpleasant individual
marze 9y ago
Rant of the year. Epic.
cafard 9y ago
Actually the bafflement set in a couple of paragraphs down. Did anyone else find this overdone?
peterwwillis 9y ago
If you know even one person who works for an airline, you can tell from the beginning that this article is just emotional mindless trash. The author pines for the "good old days" of Edinburgh. Talk to anyone over 50 from Edinburgh. It wasn't great. It wasn't even nice. I mean, you're in Scotland. This was never the promised land. It's perhaps more plastic now, but the vomit was there already. Travel is one of the most eye-opening, empathy-instilling, educational practices a human can muster. What the author is really railing against is mindless tourism, not travel. But they're too narrow-minded and angry to think past their blunderous miswording. I am all in favor of limiting tourism, and virtually eliminating eco-tourism. But travel? Honest-to-god, mind-expanding, awe-inspiring, information-sharing, culture-trading, value-shifting travel? The world needs more of it now than ever. If I have to listen to another fucking nationalist prick talk about how their country needs to be more white and be more hostile to foreign nations and peoples, I'll puke. If you want to save the planet, curbing plane rides is not the way. Every nation's pollution has different causes and solutions. And pulling back from technology is not going to help us - it would cause the death of countless millions that would have died years ago if their health wasn't extended by modern innovations. Being smarter about how we use and regulate it would be the best benefit. For every tourist flying to Japan to see the cherry blossoms in spring, we should be instilling in them the need to get into the suburbs and have natto with a host family. Sitting there with their bowl of soy snot, silently contemplating how a city with no trash cans can be so clean, they might appreciate their own breakfast more, and begin to think that their world can change if they simply choose to. That's what travel can do.

96 points by kawera 9y ago

My faith in the article's objectivity is called into question by the fact that it reports: "An American Airlines flight attendant bullied a tired mother of twin babies over her stroller, and then readied himself to punch a passenger who rose to her defense." Whereas the Guardian's account of what seems to be the same event is: "Another passenger comes to her defence and threatens to punch the flight attendant, who in turn challenges the passenger to hit him." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/american-airlines-says-sorry-to-woman-hit-with-buggy-by-staff-member https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/american-airli...

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
A couple weeks ago there were four people who were shot and killed in Boston that just so happened to be on the same day. NBC called is a "surge in gun violence" and you flip over to Fox and it's "four murders" Nobody writes a story in a way that maximizes conflict with their personal opinions. No editor tweaks things to make a story less in line with the organization's stakeholders. The narrative changes a lot based on who's writing the story. Whether you slant things intentionally or not or even at all is another story. I would not be surprised if the flight attendant and passenger got in a yelling match, threatened to punch each other and the people writing the articles just tilted things in favor of whichever side they favored based on their opinions and information available to them.
- carlmr 9y ago
  >based on their opinions and information available to them. based on whether they got money from the airline ;)
rubidium 9y ago
I don't think the article was trying to be objective.

carlmr 9y ago

Loved the writing, am guilty myself though.

ForRealsies 9y ago
Really? I lost interest between a gratuitous comma and needless metaphor.
- carlmr 9y ago
  Yes, although I did notice a stray homophone(pedal/peddle) and a non-sensical sentence, I thought the writing was funny and original.
- ataturk 9y ago
  I quit after the needless Trump bash. Well, okay, one paragraph later where the reason for travel bans was well laid out.
quickConclusion 9y ago
Guilty too, but the writing was the main point to me: "I’m not saying your seat is small, but if it were a haystack, you’d find the needle"

totalperspectiv 9y ago

TL;DR: Travel today is more about scoring social points than being changed by the place you go. It's also a waste of fossil fuels and generally immoral. Solution, get more involved in a real way with the place you actually live. I think I like the overall point, but I don't think it's 100% true. There are ways to travel that do produce a meaningful experience, it's just not comfortable. But the point that many people use excuses like service projects or leisure as a reason to fly 4000 miles strikes a chord that I've never really been able to put my finger on.

sebiol 9y ago
Thank you for the summary. I started reading but didn't have the time to finish it.
Banthum 9y ago
Another mode of travel doesn't seem to be accounted for: Travel for pleasure. Not to score social points. Not for meaning. Just to relax and feel good for a week. Weather can be a big factor. In the middle of five months of winter, daily snow, not seeing the sun in weeks, and working hard in an office every day, a week relaxing in the sun somewhere warm can be very beneficial - and not just in a trite or self-indulgent way. Seasonal mood disorders and work-related stress are real problems and time far away is a real solution. Plus, if we're here to enjoy life, then self-indulgence is also one ingredient of a good life (accompanied by others). You don't have to be seeking "meaning" every moment of every day like a Terminator seeking his target.
- totalperspectiv 9y ago
  I agree with you, live life, be happy. The point the author is making is that people aren't even doing it for the reason of pleasure. It's more a function of people fulfilling a fantasy that's been manufactured by society to make people feel as though they MUST travel, or they're boring and doing it wrong.
  - slfnflctd 9y ago

brndnmtthws 9y ago

Spot on. There's nothing quite like going to a very different place you've never been, though. I'm not sure how else to get that feeling without actually doing it.

LearnerHerzog 9y ago

Is travel not still for (almost exclusively) the wealthy? I haven't left my home state in over 10 years, due completely to lack of money.

always_good 9y ago
No. I think Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is a good book for people who think this, unless your idea of travel is only to go to Paris and stay in a 5-star resort the whole time. https://vagabonding.net/book/excerpt/ https://vagabonding.net/book/excerpt/ > For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need — we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory — a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture. That's just my favorite part of the excerpt, not supporting evidence for my first sentence though. :)
- PaulRobinson 9y ago
  Quibble: there are no 5-star "resorts" in Paris, for the same reason there are no resorts in London or New York. There are hotels, though.
  - always_good 9y ago
    It was supposed to be an obnoxious idea. A resort being a compound you don't even have to leave at all, its own amusement park.
  - sammoorhouse 9y ago
    Holy mother of god, man. Get a grip.
- LearnerHerzog 9y ago
  Thanks, I'll check that book out... I've never been out of the country.

moneytide1 9y ago

"The wealthy-and-mobile 20 percent are causing most of the environmental damage in the world." I watched "There Will Be Blood" again recently, and it is such a powerful film to me because it is all about the onset of this relatively "free" energy era. It used to take more effort to go from A to B, so we carefully calculated our reasons to go.

jameshart 9y ago

And how about that airline food, huh? What’s with that?

timlukins 9y ago

I can’t sympathise enough with the author (Ms. Ellmann's) description of my home city - where she also lives - as a destination. "Edinburgh, where I live, used to be a fine old mirthless town. Twenty-first century marketers have turned it into a fairground. Half the year the city’s few green spaces get trashed by Ferris Wheels, vomit, German Christmas markets, vomit, outdoor exhibitions and exhibitionists, vomit, coffee bars, beer tents, and ice-skating rinks.“ She captures the sentiment I’ve been mulling on recently: the city-as-theme-park. Once you take out the industry, possibly the finance (see Brexit) and nascent tech - what have you got left, apart from public sector? Is this a modern trend for our time? How many other cities around the world are increasingly dependent solely on travel and hospitality?

stevekemp 9y ago
I recently left Edinburgh, to relocate to Finland. Reading that made made sad, although I can also completely see what she meant. (I lived in Leith so most of the "stuff" there didn't affect me, except for all the tram-works, and the Mela/etc on Leith Links.)
ataturk 9y ago
A lot! Post-industrialism is a huge problem. Most of Upstate NY is one ghost town after another punctuated by art studios and phoney-baloney tourist towns with a "pedestrian mall" which is just a bricked over main street with some landscaping added. All for the benefit of the massive state workforce, I guess. Anyone who can escape has escaped. Imagine my surprise on going back to visit my elderly parents after an 8 year hiatus only to find that absolutely nothing had changed! Nothing. That's not to say all of NY is like that, but I'm astounded at how very little economy there really is in that whole region. The mega-city has killed the rest of that political boundary, killed it dead. It's sad what the US has become overall. We imagine sprawling futuristic cities and there's not a single one anywhere. Everywhere that isn't what I just described in some variation of bedroom community with endless strip malls and suburban blight and as you get closer to whatever city, then the urban blight takes over--mostly to do with trucking, warehouses, and so forth. There's little industry anywhere, just armies of people sitting behind computers while sipping coffee in climate-controlled offices. The 21st century is truly strange. What's also truly strange is that it is nearly impossible to get "off the beaten path" anywhere on the east coast. The Eastern US is unending sprawl beginning somewhere near the Maine border all the way to Miami. You can still get away in the Northwest, Montana, and the Dakotas and maybe also down the center of "Flyover Country" but that's about it. Okay, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is sufficiently remote, too.

foodislove 9y ago

The first time my mother took me to Beijing, it was a mess. There were few streetlights, few shops that sold western amenities, yet I loved it. It was different. There was no Starbucks, yet every little alleyway there were stalls that sold dumplings to deep fried dough to stinky tofu. Now, all the alleyways have been closed down. Starbucks, KFC, Macdonald's and other generic shops dot the landscape. Every major city now serves Starbucks styled over-roasted coffee along with obligatory Gucci, Toyota, and Apple shops. It takes a lot of effort to really experience something different. Perhaps the author is right that it's about brownie points these days, but I'm an old school romantic and I still love that feeling of visiting a city or town that I've only heard before in books. If I'm lucky, a place turns out to be better in real life than my dreams. No doubt there are real costs for mass travel and the impact is often negative. But that's the by product of a Nash equilibrium whereby I do want to see the world and all its wonders.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
why not want to explore and experience more? Because you are literally destroying what you supposedly cherish by visiting it.
- foodislove 9y ago
  Completely agree. It's a Nash equilibrium. If nobody visits, the destination stays the same. If only I visit, then the destination stays the same yet I derive immense enjoyment. If everyone visits, the place goes down the drain and everyone loses.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Well, even the most overrun places have some kind of invisible system which keep the tourists confined, even if it's unintentional. Sort of like that one version of Sonic the Hedgehog which was completely on rails and the player was never allowed to leave the prescribed path. There's literally a moat around Waikiki. Most people visiting a place foreign to them are already extending themselves beyond their comfort zone and tend not to leave the prescribed path, even if they're "out exploring". Having lived in some of these popular tourist destinations for most of my adult life, I've found that there seems to be a fairly common heuristic for leaving these areas and getting out into "the real world": Find a bar away from the main lines of public transportation and spend a couple of hours there meeting and talking to locals. It's like fishing, and having the right attitude is the bait. I travel pretty frequently and this works almost everywhere you can find a bar. The places I end up are completely devoid of tourists. And those are the places most likely to lack a McDonalds or Starbucks in favor of a local cafe or street vendor. I guess it really depends on what anybody wants out of the experience.

cageface 9y ago

I've been living as a nomad for the last seven years and had tons of experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. But I prefer to take my time and spend at least a month in each place I visit. However I can also relate to the homogenization the article describes. Even Vietnam is starting to suffer from this generic urbanization. You can still find undiscovered places if you're willing to really get off the beaten path but a lot of these places are undiscovered for a reason.

dfcowell 9y ago
I've been living in Saigon for 4 years. Even within this highly touristed city, you just need to venture 5 minutes outside of the city centre to see Vietnam as it really is. I've spent time in 5-6 different cities and towns and for sure, if you stay on main street it's very generic, or sterile. Rent a bike, set out in a random direction for 20 minutes; you won't find any TripAdvisor listings but the local culture is alive and well. Most people expect to land somewhere new and have the local lifestyle at their fingertips, but that's not what the beaten track optimises for.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

It's a well written piece and very funny. I don't agree with the message though. Let's try to make travel cleaner rather than just decide to sit in one spot and not go anywhere. There's something about travelling from one place to another that humans enjoy, it's a journey. I'm back living in London, UK now for 6 years after having spent 10+ years in Canada and I do not need to own a car so I do not. However I miss cruising. It's just a joy driving and going from place to place in of itself.

vinceguidry 9y ago

I came expecting a thoughtful how-to on squeezing more juice out of routine and boring-ness, what I got was an irate classist polemic that just didn't know when to end. It segued all-too gradually from amusing and clever rant to listening to that one uncle rave incoherently for hours about racist bullshit. I daresay he got paid by the word. Now I know what a half-boiled frog feels like. I couldn't even finish it.

ballenarosada 9y ago
Classist?
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Unbelievably classist. Everyone who wants something different than the author does from travel must be snooty and incapable of appreciating 'real' travel.
  - mpnordland 9y ago
    I'd say she would rather one not travel at all.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      You would think so, given the title but after all the polemic, she never seems to argue for it. Maybe it was just buried at the bottom of the rant.
- jzymbaluk 9y ago
  Disgustingly so. These lower middle-class dolts who scrimp and save to go on vacation are RUINING cities for REAL travelers like the author. These poor idiots don't even deserve to travel! Why can't they just learn their place and stay put?
  - reureu 9y ago

allsunny 9y ago

Ahh, whatever happened to the lost art of "getting to the point." :-)

sandworm101 9y ago

Way too long. Was this author on something? This reads like the rambling manifesto of a movie protagonist. We get it. You hate tourists. But check the mirror. I bet this guy has flown more places than most. It is the standard false sense of ownership, the tourist trying to keep all the other tourists away from 'his' favorite places.

jzymbaluk 9y ago

What an unpleasant individual

marze 9y ago

Rant of the year. Epic.

cafard 9y ago

Actually the bafflement set in a couple of paragraphs down. Did anyone else find this overdone?

peterwwillis 9y ago

If you know even one person who works for an airline, you can tell from the beginning that this article is just emotional mindless trash. The author pines for the "good old days" of Edinburgh. Talk to anyone over 50 from Edinburgh. It wasn't great. It wasn't even nice. I mean, you're in Scotland. This was never the promised land. It's perhaps more plastic now, but the vomit was there already. Travel is one of the most eye-opening, empathy-instilling, educational practices a human can muster. What the author is really railing against is mindless tourism, not travel. But they're too narrow-minded and angry to think past their blunderous miswording. I am all in favor of limiting tourism, and virtually eliminating eco-tourism. But travel? Honest-to-god, mind-expanding, awe-inspiring, information-sharing, culture-trading, value-shifting travel? The world needs more of it now than ever. If I have to listen to another fucking nationalist prick talk about how their country needs to be more white and be more hostile to foreign nations and peoples, I'll puke. If you want to save the planet, curbing plane rides is not the way. Every nation's pollution has different causes and solutions. And pulling back from technology is not going to help us - it would cause the death of countless millions that would have died years ago if their health wasn't extended by modern innovations. Being smarter about how we use and regulate it would be the best benefit. For every tourist flying to Japan to see the cherry blossoms in spring, we should be instilling in them the need to get into the suburbs and have natto with a host family. Sitting there with their bowl of soy snot, silently contemplating how a city with no trash cans can be so clean, they might appreciate their own breakfast more, and begin to think that their world can change if they simply choose to. That's what travel can do.