9 ms·

It’s not about how many countries you have been to

128 points by clementmas 8y ago

keithnz 8y ago
I'd say do both... in New Zealand we have the idea of an "OE" (Overseas Experience... and every other country is overseas for NZ). The OE often goes through asia and ends with working in England (often London) for a few years and doing excursions into Europe. Some of that can be soulless, you never really experience a place and its people. So you definitely do want to slow down and take your time with some things. But some stuff, you've read the history, the stories of a place and you really just want to go to the place and just "touch" it to feel connected to that piece of history.
clementmas 8y ago
We wrote this article for our blog but here is our website if you want to check out our app: http://travelmap.net http://travelmap.net
- iddan 8y ago
  The site is by default in French and if I try to switch to English on iPhone (which requires scrolling to the very bottom) the button can’t be pressed
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Hi Clement, I work in the tourism industry. What's your pitch ? What's the difference between you and Cirkwi ? Can you connect to feeds from Apidae and others (well known formats and custom ones) ? Are your approaching institutional tourism information offices ?
quickthrower2 8y ago
Yeah I did some back packing, south east asia tours and all that and honestly I didn't like it that much overall. You are whisked from one place to the next, 6am starts and getting drunk is the norm every night. My favorite part was just hanging out in Hanoi for a day or two without much of a plan. I met people doing months of this stuff back to back around the world. I wished I had just spent the whole time in New Zealand in a couple of nice places. It would have been more relaxing and more up my street.
- rakoo 8y ago
  You're basically agreeing with the article: the moments where you just had to move where uninteresting, and you'd rather stay a day or two or much more in a place, surrounding yourself with the local atmosphere, right?
- kaybe 8y ago
  Was that a guided backpacking tour? Why would you get up at 6am (unless you like that)? Wait, how much planning beforehand went into that if you changed location that fast? I have so many questions.
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    The early starts were either to get to the next place or cram many sightseeing things into one day. The tours were organised by a company.
    - kaybe 8y ago
      Mhm, I figured. My travelling is usually more like the hanging-out-somewhere kind. If you have a return ticket to a place, your visa and safety information (eg what not do to in order not to die) in place (and are not trying to go someplace small in peak season!) that's usually all you need. A guidebook is nice-to-have too, because there is a map and information about the country and language. Sometimes you get stranded somewhere for longer than you'd like, sometimes you cannot find food (arriving too late or not in shop distance), you might miss some sights.. but that's fine.
hellofunk 8y ago
I'm in agreement, and many people just throw the "quantity over quality" perception towards everything in life. It is as superficial a way to experience the world as it is anything else you do with your time.
vr46 8y ago
People playing cultural bingo is nothing new, but at least gives people some sense of progress and accomplishment, which is probably the priority of those people. Personally, having travelled a bit, think that travelling is not about moving. If you actually want to understand anything about anything, you need to stand still for a while, and then go away and come back. It's hard to reconcile this with being a (passport) stamp collector.
netsharc 8y ago
I very much agree with the article, but "... instead, talk about your most memorable experience, how that one time you had this deep connection with this person in at meditation camp in Southeast Asia because you speak their language, or the quiet moment, the intense gratitude you had after a long day of cycling, after setting up camp, and looking at the beautiful sunset in the offing." makes me think of this pic: http://atimetoheal.london/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cmon-Inner-Peace.png http://atimetoheal.london/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cmon-In... Next it'll be the trend to collect "Deep moments". I guess some influencers do it on Instagram already, copy-paste a "deep" thought onto their vacation pic so the IG scrollers can fool themselves into thinking they're being deep.
- mikorym 8y ago
  neural networks <= linear algebra [1] deep learning <= linear algebra with some elementary graph theory [1] Neural networks is included in linear algebra. Now, none of us need ever to use the word "deep" again, unless we want to download a 1998 movie.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    What does this have to do with the parent comment? That is, besides the word "deep" which gets used in an entirely different context.
    - mikorym 8y ago
      The word "deep" is being used in social contexts more often after the advent of "deep learning".
- placebo 8y ago
  Thanks for the link - I loved its accuracy and humour :) In many ways, I think it's possible to apply some of the good answers here to any "how many X have you been to" question.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  It makes me think of this British sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU (it's also poking fun at a posh accent, with the pronunciation of year and Tanzania).
keiferski 8y ago
If you can manage it, I really recommend visiting places in the off-season. You’ll get an entirely different perspective of the place, especially if it’s a touristy one. E.g. Dubrovnik in August is a humid, crowded nightmare. In February it’s an empty seaside village.
- supermatt 8y ago
  This is great advice. For example, Venice in March is amazingly beautiful and you can visit all the touristic locations without queuing for half a day.
  - pmontra 8y ago
    But if you don't want big crowds be sure to skip Carnival, which can happen in March (earlier this week.)
- jaco8 8y ago
  I agree. Recently I was asked for the best time to visit Lombok. I said in 1979 , I had the whole beach in Kuta for me alone for a week. Ok, discounting the family of rats in the hut I rented, but they were friendly, too.
abcd_f 8y ago
> Rue Cremieux, a trending attraction in Paris https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47482034 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47482034 - the other side of the same coin. "Paris street to shut out Instagrammers".
- ah- 8y ago
  The same thing is happening in Notting Hill atm. Trying to stop it just feels futile, why not let people have fun taking some pictures? It'll be over in a while anyways.
dalbasal 8y ago
Where I live (dublin) there's a persistent tourist subculture that photgraphs doors of georgian buildings. I've met several tourists with irish surnames who set out to visit every pub that has their name (hard work if you're a murphy, kavanagh, ryan...). I met a chinese-australian couple doing an "ancestry trail" visitng the ancestral villages of their in-law. That kind of stuff is ultimately just a frame. A way of exploring, selecting destinations, and allowing the unexpected to happen. The premise itself isn't the point. The premise is a way of facilitating harder to target stuff: meeting people, exploring. I've heard similar criticisms of photo-takers. They're more concerned with photos than experiences. These criticisms and accusations of shallowness are shallow themselves, and uncharitable. Collecting countries, places, pubs, doors or whatnot is just a way of deciding what to do next, and allowing experiences to happen themselves.
- aldanor 8y ago
  Ditto re: doors :) I’m renovating a Victorian house (Dublin centre) and it took us a good few weeks to pick a front door and its colour so it blends in the neighbourhood. I was surprised to find out there isn’t a single book on that.
  - dalbasal 8y ago
    Hello neighbor.
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  Yeah, just let people enjoy whatever frame they enjoy. I (used to) do urban exploration when traveling, especially in frozen conflict areas, unrecognized states and similar, so I do tons of photography of stuff most people isn't interested in, can't comprehend, and potentially illegally. You talk to locals, do homestays, and hike? Cool, I do that too, but my goals are my goals, yours are yours. I move quick and fast because the spots I'm interested in are far in between and will require time and study to explore safely, evade surveillance and the like. One of my coolest trips I only knew long after the fact. I travelled to Abkhazia, a breakaway state from Georgia. There was a war between them in the early 90s and there were plenty of things to have a look at for me. Among them, I visited an abandoned beach resort hotel in Sukhumi. I have plenty of pictures and footage from inside. As I usually do, I collected some kind of souvenir, in this case, a check-in form, because yeah, back in the day they were on paper. From that document, I got to know that it was called Hotel Tbilisi, a very bad name for the Georgia-hating Abkhazia, so it doesn't even appear on Google with that name (or any name, for that matter). Fast forward a few years, and my wife starts explaining my weird travel kink to my mother-in-law (they're Ukrainian). So I start showing some pictures, and bam, full front picture of the hotel. She was like "that's in Sukhumi, right?". Yeah, right. It happened that my in-laws had their honeymoon in exactly that hotel, before the war and the collapse of the Soviet Union; she recognized the interiors, the check-in form, the surroundings. It was a sad, happy, and powerful moment that made us feel closer.
supermatt 8y ago
This is so true. I spent 3 years travelling through Europe in a converted military truck. I would say that of the 24 countries we have "been to", we have only truly known 2 or 3 (and of those, I was born in one, and now live in another). That is despite having spent months in many places, city and countryside alike. How anyone could ever consider "doing europe" in anything less than a lifetime is beyond me. City-hopping, and going to the typical instagram pictures to take more of the same is not travelling, IMHO.
- personlurking 8y ago
  I'd say there is a false notion that having been somewhere means you know it. I've been to France but I don't know it. During that week-long trip, I spent all my time in Paris but I don't know it. Even the places I've been to in Paris (like the Louvre or the ET), I don't actually know well.
  - kaybe 8y ago
    Eh, I don't even really know my hometown.
    - supermatt 8y ago
      Id HIGHLY recommend getting to know your hometown. It is life changing.
      - kaybe 8y ago
        What does 'know' even mean in this context?
        supermatt 8y ago
        for your hometown - being "knowledgeable" of the geography, the history, the people, the culture, and the economy.
        tekkk 8y ago
bmmayer1 8y ago
Something I can relate to, having "done" 85 countries myself (yes, I'm one of those 'shallow' travelers who counts countries). This article is right in some ways. It's right in that deep travel experiences are almost always more memorable than shallow ones; that traveling by hitchhike will get you more face time with locals than traveling by rent-a-car. If you travel to truly understand a place, you need to spend real time there (I define 'real time' as at least 2-3 weeks, which is an eternity in travel world, since you really fully immerse yourself in the place during that time). But it's wrong to try to define a right way to travel, as if there is some authentic travel nirvana that all travelers could or should reach. First of all, it depends on what kind of traveler you are, and why you travel. If you travel to learn about as many places as possible, because you crave exposure to new experiences and cultures, and you know that every time you go someplace new you learn something new that you never would have known if you hadn't gone, travel has to be somewhat of a quantity game--unless you are a full-time traveller and have the luxury (or the tolerance for nomadship) to live on the road. But most of all, there really is no 'wrong' way to travel. There will always be people who criticize Club Med-goers and cruise-takers for only dabbling in 'tourist traps', glampers for not doing 'real' camping, backpackers for living like 'hippies' without jobs and 'vacationing' in other peoples' poverty, hostel-stayers for hanging out too much with other tourists, expats for isolating themselves from the countries they live in, students abroad for not making friends with locals, homestayers for not learning the language, peace corps volunteers for being neocolonial, missionary trips for dressing a vacation as charity...at the end of the day, every traveler is trying to explore their horizons at their comfort level, and no one who travels is truly ever "authentic" in their experience, no matter how many chickens they pluck themselves or squat toilets they use. All travelers are just visitors, and before long they will leave, and everyone who knows them on their journey knows that their stay is temporary, whether it is 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years. The best you can do is learn as much as you can in the time you have, be open minded, and take your lessons with you when you go home, or to the next place. Unless you're moving to a place permanently, starting a family and plan to die there, you're a transient, and you have no right to criticize how other people choose to be transients in their own way. Every traveler is better off for the experience and the world is better off for the cultural exchange and greater global understanding facilitated by travelers.
- 8y ago
zimablue 8y ago
Deep travelling is also nonsense, this kind of modern travel is largely just status fencing by upper middle class people who can't gain status through thoughts or substantive actions. Which is all fine, where it gets disgusting is tendency to somehow conflate it with virtue. "He's a really interesting person he spent 2 years in Holland". "Everyone should travel.. if you don't it betrays some closed mindedness".
- rofo1 8y ago
  That definitely happens, but there's a lot to be gained of visiting places for some time (couple of months). For one thing, you can copy local businesses and spread awareness in your country for something that the markets didn't even know was missing. I've seen this happen first hand! But in general, you learn a lot. You learn how much society really shapes an individual. It's different when you experience that first hand, rather than reading a Wikipedia article about a certain culture, or tradition, or something like that.
- kome 8y ago
  living abroad and traveling are quite different things. I agree that traveling, also "deep traveling", is mostly bullshit. It's tourism, it's consumption. But living abroad, and especially learning another language and another culture, is something that is really illuminating on so many ways... and you don't have to be rich for that. In fact, most of poor immigrants do just that. The rich one, they call themselves expats.
  - collyw 8y ago
    I read "deep traveling" as "living abroad" - mainly because that's what I have done for a large part of my adult life. Though in the context of this article it is just trying to differentiate their service.
  - zimablue 8y ago
    I'm not saying travelling is terrible, or teaches you nothing I'm saying that if someone goes to a foreign country for a long time and it's not as a byproduct (as in they have a career NOT related to travelling, picking a career specifically to travel doesn't count) of their work, then what it statistically indicates about them is that (privilege + propensity to try and socially signal) is greater than some number, but a lot of people seem to take it purely as "virtue".
rofo1 8y ago
Spot on article. I always preferred spending more than couple of days at a place (say, couple of months, if possible), just to see how it really is. Try to be one of them (locals) during the months you are there. Also, walk. Walk in random directions, without a plan. See what's really going on! In my opinion, there's no other way of truly experiencing another culture. Taking a picture in tourist-packed place is surely not the way to experience anything. I realize that's difficult to spend a month in another country due to other obligations (kids, work, etc.) - not sure how are we going to solve that, ever (or even if it needs "solving" at all). That's just how society is structured, for now.
- matt-snider 8y ago
  I find 100% vacation leaves me wanting to work after a week or two, and 100% work leaves me wanting travel after a few months. I think it would be ideal to work a flexible job where it's possible to live and work remotely for several months at a time, while discovering that place slowly. In this way you get more of the day-to-day life experience, and you are able to "absorb" the place/culture at your own pace, getting to know it beyond a superficial level. Basically, you just try to live a "normal" life there, albeit with more frequent evenings out, weekend trips, etc. This is of course, part of the appeal of digital nomadism, but I consider that to be a much more extreme version of what I mean.
  - Tepix 8y ago
    > This is of course, part of the appeal of digital nomadism, but I consider that to be a much more extreme version of what I mean. in what regard?
KozmoNau7 8y ago
Every time I've traveled somewhere, I've deliberately kept the plans extremely vague. My biggest priority is to sample the local culture primarily through food and drink, and to avoid the stereotypical tourist traps. So far, this approach has been a resounding success. I just don't get the people who need to plan out their vacations in every detail. To me, the entire purpose is to relax and let life unfold on its own, away from the routine of everyday life.
- kaybe 8y ago
  That does not work too well in peak season, I found, and have to remember to keep in mind.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Yes, absolutely. We don't have kids, so we tend to not travel in the peak season, and we avoid the most popular destinations in any case.
    - Tepix 8y ago
      Often the most popular destinations are popular for a reason.
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
        I've found that my tastes usually don't line up with mainstream popularity. This tends to be very convenient. Just let me walk around some interesting architecture and find some interesting restaurants, I don't really care if it's popular or not.
Alliva 8y ago
This hits home. Truly understanding a country is one thing and visiting somewhere for a few days is totally different. You don't get to experience countries inner values in a few days nor its problems.
Krasnol 8y ago
Nice. This blog post delivers the message that everybody should open an account there because even the one trip you made is worth putting it on. You don't have to be part of the traveling elite to be on travelmap.net.
renholder 8y ago
Whilst I agree with the underlying premise, there's a touch of what the kids are calling "privilege" these days in the blog post that's entirely unrealistic for the predominance of the world: "It is way better to spend 1 month working and living in Ethiopia than 1 month visiting all the famous attractions of the African continent." It purely depends on a few suppositions automatically being "true" for everyone: 1. People have a enough capital for such ventures. 2. People have employers who will "allow" this. 3. If not via employ, then they have enough vacation per year to do ventures like that. For expounding on point 3, take our American counterparts, whom only get something like two weeks off a year. They would have to either consume their sick leave (assuming that they even have it) to make the full month or just have the crap-shoot of the two weeks. If that's all that you get, would you rather take a chance that you'll be miserable for two weeks or would you do what all of the other cool kids are doing and just hit the main attractions because, then, at least you're doing something and you're not sandboxing yourself into possibly being miserable for the only time that you do get off for the year? Whilst the article seems to have the best intentions at heart, its perspective seems pretty myopic, when you take into consideration the grand stage of the world and the arresting details those other cultures might include - which is what I assume the intended audience of the blog is (e.g.: the world).
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Certainly it's a privilege. But I'd say if you HAVE that privilege and squander it, it's a massive waste. Some people seem to be showing the sentiment "people who are worse off are unable to travel, hence there can be no value or meaning in travel", and that doesn't compute to me.
- netsharc 8y ago
  > If that's all that you get, would you rather take a chance that you'll be miserable for two weeks or would you do what all of the other cool kids are doing and just hit the main attractions because, then, at least you're doing something and you're not sandboxing yourself into possibly being miserable for the only time that you do get off for the year? Your comment made me wonder about the artificiality of tourist destinations/activities, because when we just have a week to experience a culture, we'd probably seek the condensed version that we think will give us an understanding of said culture (I'd compare it to reading a book's plot on Wikipedia vs. reading the book). One can go to Bali and visit a traditional dance show. Is it authentic, or just something performed for the tourists? It's like hiring a prostitute and confusing that with a relationship. To answer my own question: at least the bigger/village-wide ceremonies are being done by people who really are doing something due to their traditions, not for the show: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/traditional-rituals-in-bali-you-should-know-about/ https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/tradition... I guess in the end tourism and "deep travel" as written in the article are both just a search for novelty experiences. Sure millions have been to Bali, and looked at the same temple at the same time of day (sunset); but it would be novelty to me, compared to my office job. Less people from the West have spent time living in Ethiopia and that too would be a novelty experience (meanwhile the Ethiopians are wondering what the hell the white man is raving about). Talking about the your novelty Bali experience with others who've had the same experience (novelty to each, but cookie cutter for all) does make for dull conversation. Meanwhile there are also people who don't even get to experience something new, because they're busy being documentary photo-/videographers for their little corner of social media where they're a star.
rebuilder 8y ago
The main reason I don't like urban travel is it takes so long to get to know a place. Having been abroad to study and work on a few occasions, that experience of actually becoming part of the city is so powerful that just visiting one seems unfulfilling. Also, urban environments are pretty stressful at the best of times IMO, and spending a week in a city just means I never get comfortable. Now, nature travel... I loved touring the western USA. The country is just designed for road trips. What little interaction you do need to have with the local culture is made tremendously easy by how standardized the service sector seems to be. Too bad flying is so damaging to the environment, I'd love to go again.
- kaybe 8y ago
  Mhm, we really have to work on sustainable air travel. Transport in general, actually.
selune 8y ago
Just... let people enjoy things their own way. I like taking photos of architecture and I don't like talking to people or immersing myself into culture (I rarely even eat local food because of my diet). Tourism is a form of entertainment. It doesn't need to be "deep".
newsgremlin 8y ago
How does the saying go, it's about the journey not the destination? Have a destination in mind, but don't get completely caught up focusing on getting there. Head off the beaten track whenever something catches your eye or ears.
wenham 8y ago
Sounds to me like keeping up with the Jones' but in a different way. "Oh you've been to 20 counties? Well I've done one, but covered it 20 times deeper" Does any of it really matter? You experience life for you, not anyone else, if you get more out of speed running every country you can than spending a year in Provence- then that is the way to go. Both are good, both are bad, both are nothing to keep score over.
wwqrd 8y ago
Do we really need to police how the young and affluent are talking about their gap years?
runn1ng 8y ago
Good recommendation for getting to know a foreign country is to marry a guy/girl from there and move there. I can guarantee you will really get to know the place and the culture very well, perhaps even too much
angarg12 8y ago
I see where the author is coming from, but I have the exact opposite experience. Me: I'm travelling to x Chap: for how long? Me: 3 days Chap: Only 3 days?? You need at least 1 week! If it is 1 week you need 2, if it's 2 you need one month. I get the benefits of slow and deep travel, but I don't have the money and time to spend weeks in every single location I'm going. I also feel like there is a diminishing return on how much time you spend on each place. So for the last few years I have been doing this 'speed travelling', and although it might look like checkbox ticking, I feel I'm getting a wider range of (albeit shallower) experiences. So it might be the case that the dial has moved way too far into the fast travel and it needs a correction, but with the experiences that I am gathering now I'll be able to travel deep and slow to my favourite places later in life.
peteretep 8y ago
> It is way better to spend 1 month working and living in Ethiopia than 1 month visiting all the famous attractions of the African continent Is it though? I have lived on a bunch of different continents, traveled both fast and slow, and this kind of weird elitism about getting a “true cultural experience” is way overdone. You want a true cultural experience? Catch a local tropical disease. Pay a bribe. Get in a road traffic accident. There’s nothing special about getting bitten by a dog in the Caribbean as opposed to Bali. People are about the same everywhere.
grecy 8y ago
I agree with the article, and I will also say if you're looking for a truly special experience, make the effort and go places on the planet where tourists simply don't venture. In West Africa I repeatedly had people say "What means Tourist" and often people would want to touch me because they had never seen a white person. I took a stupidly small route from Nigeria into Cameroon, and the Immigration guy that I eventually tracked down was more than a little shocked to see me. In three years working there, he had never seen a single foreigner. When you spend time with people like that, it is a genuine experience, and sitting on floors to share communal food or being hosted in people's houses is something I will never forget as long as I live.
- phicoh 8y ago
  This summer I was in Wales with a Dutch car. One day we parked the car on the side of a road and went for a hike. When we turned back to the car we could easily see the car from up high. And the weird thing was, there was a van parked right next to it. There was no reason for it to be parked there; there was plenty of space; why park very close to my car? I assumed something was wrong. When we returned to the car it turned out that the driver of the van was just curious what foreigners would show up. Living in a city that is packed with tourists, it would never occur to me that someone would just wait next to a foreign car to see who shows up.
- matwood 8y ago
  > I agree with the article, and I will also say if you're looking for a truly special experience, make the effort and go places on the planet where tourists simply don't venture. I agree, but you don't even have to go where no tourists venture. Just go where less venture. And, if you are American go to where less Americans go. SEA is packed with Americans now because it's the current trendy place. Eastern Europe outside of the big spots like Prague are still pretty wide open though. Going in the winter also limits the number of other tourist (we went to Budapest in the winter once, enjoyed the hot springs nearly alone one evening and then went ice skating - quite fun).
- Symbiote 8y ago
  > I took a stupidly small route from Nigeria into Cameroon When was this? I was invited to a wedding in rural Nigeria a few years ago, but considering the security situation it seemed crazy to contemplate going.
dorwi 8y ago
Ha, I love these discussions about what is a "good" way of travelling. In the end it's all about your personal values; if you prefer to be one with the nature you'll be labeled as a "deep traveler", if you are playing the social game you'll be labeled as a "shallow traveller", or you can do both and get a label accordingly. Long story short, the way you travel is proxy for who you are.
platz 8y ago
The advice here boils down to: don't just vacation, quit your job and take up a freelance/remote worker lifestyle for an unknown period of time.
mlrtime 8y ago
Interesting opinion but if someone wants to travel this way, so be it. Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1314/ https://xkcd.com/1314/ Maybe someone has a more relevant one.
kstenerud 8y ago
It depends on why you're traveling. I you're traveling to impress your peer groups, that's fine. Nothing wrong with a little peacocking. Building your networks? OK, sure. Just want to do something to enjoy yourself? Rock on. Just be honest with yourself about what the purpose of your travel is, and make sure it actually serves you. Beyond that, anything anyone has to say about how YOU travel is nothing more than advice.

128 points by clementmas 8y ago

I'd say do both... in New Zealand we have the idea of an "OE" (Overseas Experience... and every other country is overseas for NZ). The OE often goes through asia and ends with working in England (often London) for a few years and doing excursions into Europe. Some of that can be soulless, you never really experience a place and its people. So you definitely do want to slow down and take your time with some things. But some stuff, you've read the history, the stories of a place and you really just want to go to the place and just "touch" it to feel connected to that piece of history.

clementmas 8y ago

We wrote this article for our blog but here is our website if you want to check out our app: http://travelmap.net http://travelmap.net

iddan 8y ago
The site is by default in French and if I try to switch to English on iPhone (which requires scrolling to the very bottom) the button can’t be pressed
johnchristopher 8y ago
Hi Clement, I work in the tourism industry. What's your pitch ? What's the difference between you and Cirkwi ? Can you connect to feeds from Apidae and others (well known formats and custom ones) ? Are your approaching institutional tourism information offices ?

quickthrower2 8y ago

Yeah I did some back packing, south east asia tours and all that and honestly I didn't like it that much overall. You are whisked from one place to the next, 6am starts and getting drunk is the norm every night. My favorite part was just hanging out in Hanoi for a day or two without much of a plan. I met people doing months of this stuff back to back around the world. I wished I had just spent the whole time in New Zealand in a couple of nice places. It would have been more relaxing and more up my street.

rakoo 8y ago
You're basically agreeing with the article: the moments where you just had to move where uninteresting, and you'd rather stay a day or two or much more in a place, surrounding yourself with the local atmosphere, right?
kaybe 8y ago
Was that a guided backpacking tour? Why would you get up at 6am (unless you like that)? Wait, how much planning beforehand went into that if you changed location that fast? I have so many questions.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  The early starts were either to get to the next place or cram many sightseeing things into one day. The tours were organised by a company.
  - kaybe 8y ago
    Mhm, I figured. My travelling is usually more like the hanging-out-somewhere kind. If you have a return ticket to a place, your visa and safety information (eg what not do to in order not to die) in place (and are not trying to go someplace small in peak season!) that's usually all you need. A guidebook is nice-to-have too, because there is a map and information about the country and language. Sometimes you get stranded somewhere for longer than you'd like, sometimes you cannot find food (arriving too late or not in shop distance), you might miss some sights.. but that's fine.

hellofunk 8y ago

I'm in agreement, and many people just throw the "quantity over quality" perception towards everything in life. It is as superficial a way to experience the world as it is anything else you do with your time.

vr46 8y ago

People playing cultural bingo is nothing new, but at least gives people some sense of progress and accomplishment, which is probably the priority of those people. Personally, having travelled a bit, think that travelling is not about moving. If you actually want to understand anything about anything, you need to stand still for a while, and then go away and come back. It's hard to reconcile this with being a (passport) stamp collector.

netsharc 8y ago

I very much agree with the article, but "... instead, talk about your most memorable experience, how that one time you had this deep connection with this person in at meditation camp in Southeast Asia because you speak their language, or the quiet moment, the intense gratitude you had after a long day of cycling, after setting up camp, and looking at the beautiful sunset in the offing." makes me think of this pic: http://atimetoheal.london/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cmon-Inner-Peace.png http://atimetoheal.london/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cmon-In... Next it'll be the trend to collect "Deep moments". I guess some influencers do it on Instagram already, copy-paste a "deep" thought onto their vacation pic so the IG scrollers can fool themselves into thinking they're being deep.

mikorym 8y ago
neural networks <= linear algebra [1] deep learning <= linear algebra with some elementary graph theory [1] Neural networks is included in linear algebra. Now, none of us need ever to use the word "deep" again, unless we want to download a 1998 movie.
- majewsky 8y ago
  What does this have to do with the parent comment? That is, besides the word "deep" which gets used in an entirely different context.
  - mikorym 8y ago
    The word "deep" is being used in social contexts more often after the advent of "deep learning".
placebo 8y ago
Thanks for the link - I loved its accuracy and humour :) In many ways, I think it's possible to apply some of the good answers here to any "how many X have you been to" question.
Symbiote 8y ago
It makes me think of this British sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU (it's also poking fun at a posh accent, with the pronunciation of year and Tanzania).

keiferski 8y ago

If you can manage it, I really recommend visiting places in the off-season. You’ll get an entirely different perspective of the place, especially if it’s a touristy one. E.g. Dubrovnik in August is a humid, crowded nightmare. In February it’s an empty seaside village.

supermatt 8y ago
This is great advice. For example, Venice in March is amazingly beautiful and you can visit all the touristic locations without queuing for half a day.
- pmontra 8y ago
  But if you don't want big crowds be sure to skip Carnival, which can happen in March (earlier this week.)
jaco8 8y ago
I agree. Recently I was asked for the best time to visit Lombok. I said in 1979 , I had the whole beach in Kuta for me alone for a week. Ok, discounting the family of rats in the hut I rented, but they were friendly, too.

abcd_f 8y ago

> Rue Cremieux, a trending attraction in Paris https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47482034 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47482034 - the other side of the same coin. "Paris street to shut out Instagrammers".

ah- 8y ago
The same thing is happening in Notting Hill atm. Trying to stop it just feels futile, why not let people have fun taking some pictures? It'll be over in a while anyways.

dalbasal 8y ago

Where I live (dublin) there's a persistent tourist subculture that photgraphs doors of georgian buildings. I've met several tourists with irish surnames who set out to visit every pub that has their name (hard work if you're a murphy, kavanagh, ryan...). I met a chinese-australian couple doing an "ancestry trail" visitng the ancestral villages of their in-law. That kind of stuff is ultimately just a frame. A way of exploring, selecting destinations, and allowing the unexpected to happen. The premise itself isn't the point. The premise is a way of facilitating harder to target stuff: meeting people, exploring. I've heard similar criticisms of photo-takers. They're more concerned with photos than experiences. These criticisms and accusations of shallowness are shallow themselves, and uncharitable. Collecting countries, places, pubs, doors or whatnot is just a way of deciding what to do next, and allowing experiences to happen themselves.

aldanor 8y ago
Ditto re: doors :) I’m renovating a Victorian house (Dublin centre) and it took us a good few weeks to pick a front door and its colour so it blends in the neighbourhood. I was surprised to find out there isn’t a single book on that.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Hello neighbor.
Uberphallus 8y ago
Yeah, just let people enjoy whatever frame they enjoy. I (used to) do urban exploration when traveling, especially in frozen conflict areas, unrecognized states and similar, so I do tons of photography of stuff most people isn't interested in, can't comprehend, and potentially illegally. You talk to locals, do homestays, and hike? Cool, I do that too, but my goals are my goals, yours are yours. I move quick and fast because the spots I'm interested in are far in between and will require time and study to explore safely, evade surveillance and the like. One of my coolest trips I only knew long after the fact. I travelled to Abkhazia, a breakaway state from Georgia. There was a war between them in the early 90s and there were plenty of things to have a look at for me. Among them, I visited an abandoned beach resort hotel in Sukhumi. I have plenty of pictures and footage from inside. As I usually do, I collected some kind of souvenir, in this case, a check-in form, because yeah, back in the day they were on paper. From that document, I got to know that it was called Hotel Tbilisi, a very bad name for the Georgia-hating Abkhazia, so it doesn't even appear on Google with that name (or any name, for that matter). Fast forward a few years, and my wife starts explaining my weird travel kink to my mother-in-law (they're Ukrainian). So I start showing some pictures, and bam, full front picture of the hotel. She was like "that's in Sukhumi, right?". Yeah, right. It happened that my in-laws had their honeymoon in exactly that hotel, before the war and the collapse of the Soviet Union; she recognized the interiors, the check-in form, the surroundings. It was a sad, happy, and powerful moment that made us feel closer.

supermatt 8y ago

This is so true. I spent 3 years travelling through Europe in a converted military truck. I would say that of the 24 countries we have "been to", we have only truly known 2 or 3 (and of those, I was born in one, and now live in another). That is despite having spent months in many places, city and countryside alike. How anyone could ever consider "doing europe" in anything less than a lifetime is beyond me. City-hopping, and going to the typical instagram pictures to take more of the same is not travelling, IMHO.

personlurking 8y ago
I'd say there is a false notion that having been somewhere means you know it. I've been to France but I don't know it. During that week-long trip, I spent all my time in Paris but I don't know it. Even the places I've been to in Paris (like the Louvre or the ET), I don't actually know well.
- kaybe 8y ago
  Eh, I don't even really know my hometown.
  - supermatt 8y ago
    Id HIGHLY recommend getting to know your hometown. It is life changing.
    - kaybe 8y ago
      What does 'know' even mean in this context?
      - supermatt 8y ago
        for your hometown - being "knowledgeable" of the geography, the history, the people, the culture, and the economy.
      - tekkk 8y ago

bmmayer1 8y ago

Something I can relate to, having "done" 85 countries myself (yes, I'm one of those 'shallow' travelers who counts countries). This article is right in some ways. It's right in that deep travel experiences are almost always more memorable than shallow ones; that traveling by hitchhike will get you more face time with locals than traveling by rent-a-car. If you travel to truly understand a place, you need to spend real time there (I define 'real time' as at least 2-3 weeks, which is an eternity in travel world, since you really fully immerse yourself in the place during that time). But it's wrong to try to define a right way to travel, as if there is some authentic travel nirvana that all travelers could or should reach. First of all, it depends on what kind of traveler you are, and why you travel. If you travel to learn about as many places as possible, because you crave exposure to new experiences and cultures, and you know that every time you go someplace new you learn something new that you never would have known if you hadn't gone, travel has to be somewhat of a quantity game--unless you are a full-time traveller and have the luxury (or the tolerance for nomadship) to live on the road. But most of all, there really is no 'wrong' way to travel. There will always be people who criticize Club Med-goers and cruise-takers for only dabbling in 'tourist traps', glampers for not doing 'real' camping, backpackers for living like 'hippies' without jobs and 'vacationing' in other peoples' poverty, hostel-stayers for hanging out too much with other tourists, expats for isolating themselves from the countries they live in, students abroad for not making friends with locals, homestayers for not learning the language, peace corps volunteers for being neocolonial, missionary trips for dressing a vacation as charity...at the end of the day, every traveler is trying to explore their horizons at their comfort level, and no one who travels is truly ever "authentic" in their experience, no matter how many chickens they pluck themselves or squat toilets they use. All travelers are just visitors, and before long they will leave, and everyone who knows them on their journey knows that their stay is temporary, whether it is 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years. The best you can do is learn as much as you can in the time you have, be open minded, and take your lessons with you when you go home, or to the next place. Unless you're moving to a place permanently, starting a family and plan to die there, you're a transient, and you have no right to criticize how other people choose to be transients in their own way. Every traveler is better off for the experience and the world is better off for the cultural exchange and greater global understanding facilitated by travelers.

8y ago

zimablue 8y ago

Deep travelling is also nonsense, this kind of modern travel is largely just status fencing by upper middle class people who can't gain status through thoughts or substantive actions. Which is all fine, where it gets disgusting is tendency to somehow conflate it with virtue. "He's a really interesting person he spent 2 years in Holland". "Everyone should travel.. if you don't it betrays some closed mindedness".

rofo1 8y ago
That definitely happens, but there's a lot to be gained of visiting places for some time (couple of months). For one thing, you can copy local businesses and spread awareness in your country for something that the markets didn't even know was missing. I've seen this happen first hand! But in general, you learn a lot. You learn how much society really shapes an individual. It's different when you experience that first hand, rather than reading a Wikipedia article about a certain culture, or tradition, or something like that.
kome 8y ago
living abroad and traveling are quite different things. I agree that traveling, also "deep traveling", is mostly bullshit. It's tourism, it's consumption. But living abroad, and especially learning another language and another culture, is something that is really illuminating on so many ways... and you don't have to be rich for that. In fact, most of poor immigrants do just that. The rich one, they call themselves expats.
- collyw 8y ago
  I read "deep traveling" as "living abroad" - mainly because that's what I have done for a large part of my adult life. Though in the context of this article it is just trying to differentiate their service.
- zimablue 8y ago
  I'm not saying travelling is terrible, or teaches you nothing I'm saying that if someone goes to a foreign country for a long time and it's not as a byproduct (as in they have a career NOT related to travelling, picking a career specifically to travel doesn't count) of their work, then what it statistically indicates about them is that (privilege + propensity to try and socially signal) is greater than some number, but a lot of people seem to take it purely as "virtue".

rofo1 8y ago

Spot on article. I always preferred spending more than couple of days at a place (say, couple of months, if possible), just to see how it really is. Try to be one of them (locals) during the months you are there. Also, walk. Walk in random directions, without a plan. See what's really going on! In my opinion, there's no other way of truly experiencing another culture. Taking a picture in tourist-packed place is surely not the way to experience anything. I realize that's difficult to spend a month in another country due to other obligations (kids, work, etc.) - not sure how are we going to solve that, ever (or even if it needs "solving" at all). That's just how society is structured, for now.

matt-snider 8y ago
I find 100% vacation leaves me wanting to work after a week or two, and 100% work leaves me wanting travel after a few months. I think it would be ideal to work a flexible job where it's possible to live and work remotely for several months at a time, while discovering that place slowly. In this way you get more of the day-to-day life experience, and you are able to "absorb" the place/culture at your own pace, getting to know it beyond a superficial level. Basically, you just try to live a "normal" life there, albeit with more frequent evenings out, weekend trips, etc. This is of course, part of the appeal of digital nomadism, but I consider that to be a much more extreme version of what I mean.
- Tepix 8y ago
  > This is of course, part of the appeal of digital nomadism, but I consider that to be a much more extreme version of what I mean. in what regard?

KozmoNau7 8y ago

Every time I've traveled somewhere, I've deliberately kept the plans extremely vague. My biggest priority is to sample the local culture primarily through food and drink, and to avoid the stereotypical tourist traps. So far, this approach has been a resounding success. I just don't get the people who need to plan out their vacations in every detail. To me, the entire purpose is to relax and let life unfold on its own, away from the routine of everyday life.

kaybe 8y ago
That does not work too well in peak season, I found, and have to remember to keep in mind.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Yes, absolutely. We don't have kids, so we tend to not travel in the peak season, and we avoid the most popular destinations in any case.
  - Tepix 8y ago
    Often the most popular destinations are popular for a reason.
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      I've found that my tastes usually don't line up with mainstream popularity. This tends to be very convenient. Just let me walk around some interesting architecture and find some interesting restaurants, I don't really care if it's popular or not.

Alliva 8y ago

This hits home. Truly understanding a country is one thing and visiting somewhere for a few days is totally different. You don't get to experience countries inner values in a few days nor its problems.

Krasnol 8y ago

Nice. This blog post delivers the message that everybody should open an account there because even the one trip you made is worth putting it on. You don't have to be part of the traveling elite to be on travelmap.net.

renholder 8y ago

Whilst I agree with the underlying premise, there's a touch of what the kids are calling "privilege" these days in the blog post that's entirely unrealistic for the predominance of the world: "It is way better to spend 1 month working and living in Ethiopia than 1 month visiting all the famous attractions of the African continent." It purely depends on a few suppositions automatically being "true" for everyone: 1. People have a enough capital for such ventures. 2. People have employers who will "allow" this. 3. If not via employ, then they have enough vacation per year to do ventures like that. For expounding on point 3, take our American counterparts, whom only get something like two weeks off a year. They would have to either consume their sick leave (assuming that they even have it) to make the full month or just have the crap-shoot of the two weeks. If that's all that you get, would you rather take a chance that you'll be miserable for two weeks or would you do what all of the other cool kids are doing and just hit the main attractions because, then, at least you're doing something and you're not sandboxing yourself into possibly being miserable for the only time that you do get off for the year? Whilst the article seems to have the best intentions at heart, its perspective seems pretty myopic, when you take into consideration the grand stage of the world and the arresting details those other cultures might include - which is what I assume the intended audience of the blog is (e.g.: the world).

kalleboo 8y ago
Certainly it's a privilege. But I'd say if you HAVE that privilege and squander it, it's a massive waste. Some people seem to be showing the sentiment "people who are worse off are unable to travel, hence there can be no value or meaning in travel", and that doesn't compute to me.
netsharc 8y ago
> If that's all that you get, would you rather take a chance that you'll be miserable for two weeks or would you do what all of the other cool kids are doing and just hit the main attractions because, then, at least you're doing something and you're not sandboxing yourself into possibly being miserable for the only time that you do get off for the year? Your comment made me wonder about the artificiality of tourist destinations/activities, because when we just have a week to experience a culture, we'd probably seek the condensed version that we think will give us an understanding of said culture (I'd compare it to reading a book's plot on Wikipedia vs. reading the book). One can go to Bali and visit a traditional dance show. Is it authentic, or just something performed for the tourists? It's like hiring a prostitute and confusing that with a relationship. To answer my own question: at least the bigger/village-wide ceremonies are being done by people who really are doing something due to their traditions, not for the show: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/traditional-rituals-in-bali-you-should-know-about/ https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/tradition... I guess in the end tourism and "deep travel" as written in the article are both just a search for novelty experiences. Sure millions have been to Bali, and looked at the same temple at the same time of day (sunset); but it would be novelty to me, compared to my office job. Less people from the West have spent time living in Ethiopia and that too would be a novelty experience (meanwhile the Ethiopians are wondering what the hell the white man is raving about). Talking about the your novelty Bali experience with others who've had the same experience (novelty to each, but cookie cutter for all) does make for dull conversation. Meanwhile there are also people who don't even get to experience something new, because they're busy being documentary photo-/videographers for their little corner of social media where they're a star.

rebuilder 8y ago

The main reason I don't like urban travel is it takes so long to get to know a place. Having been abroad to study and work on a few occasions, that experience of actually becoming part of the city is so powerful that just visiting one seems unfulfilling. Also, urban environments are pretty stressful at the best of times IMO, and spending a week in a city just means I never get comfortable. Now, nature travel... I loved touring the western USA. The country is just designed for road trips. What little interaction you do need to have with the local culture is made tremendously easy by how standardized the service sector seems to be. Too bad flying is so damaging to the environment, I'd love to go again.

kaybe 8y ago
Mhm, we really have to work on sustainable air travel. Transport in general, actually.

selune 8y ago

Just... let people enjoy things their own way. I like taking photos of architecture and I don't like talking to people or immersing myself into culture (I rarely even eat local food because of my diet). Tourism is a form of entertainment. It doesn't need to be "deep".

newsgremlin 8y ago

How does the saying go, it's about the journey not the destination? Have a destination in mind, but don't get completely caught up focusing on getting there. Head off the beaten track whenever something catches your eye or ears.

wenham 8y ago

Sounds to me like keeping up with the Jones' but in a different way. "Oh you've been to 20 counties? Well I've done one, but covered it 20 times deeper" Does any of it really matter? You experience life for you, not anyone else, if you get more out of speed running every country you can than spending a year in Provence- then that is the way to go. Both are good, both are bad, both are nothing to keep score over.

wwqrd 8y ago

Do we really need to police how the young and affluent are talking about their gap years?

runn1ng 8y ago

Good recommendation for getting to know a foreign country is to marry a guy/girl from there and move there. I can guarantee you will really get to know the place and the culture very well, perhaps even too much

angarg12 8y ago

I see where the author is coming from, but I have the exact opposite experience. Me: I'm travelling to x Chap: for how long? Me: 3 days Chap: Only 3 days?? You need at least 1 week! If it is 1 week you need 2, if it's 2 you need one month. I get the benefits of slow and deep travel, but I don't have the money and time to spend weeks in every single location I'm going. I also feel like there is a diminishing return on how much time you spend on each place. So for the last few years I have been doing this 'speed travelling', and although it might look like checkbox ticking, I feel I'm getting a wider range of (albeit shallower) experiences. So it might be the case that the dial has moved way too far into the fast travel and it needs a correction, but with the experiences that I am gathering now I'll be able to travel deep and slow to my favourite places later in life.

peteretep 8y ago

> It is way better to spend 1 month working and living in Ethiopia than 1 month visiting all the famous attractions of the African continent Is it though? I have lived on a bunch of different continents, traveled both fast and slow, and this kind of weird elitism about getting a “true cultural experience” is way overdone. You want a true cultural experience? Catch a local tropical disease. Pay a bribe. Get in a road traffic accident. There’s nothing special about getting bitten by a dog in the Caribbean as opposed to Bali. People are about the same everywhere.

grecy 8y ago

I agree with the article, and I will also say if you're looking for a truly special experience, make the effort and go places on the planet where tourists simply don't venture. In West Africa I repeatedly had people say "What means Tourist" and often people would want to touch me because they had never seen a white person. I took a stupidly small route from Nigeria into Cameroon, and the Immigration guy that I eventually tracked down was more than a little shocked to see me. In three years working there, he had never seen a single foreigner. When you spend time with people like that, it is a genuine experience, and sitting on floors to share communal food or being hosted in people's houses is something I will never forget as long as I live.

phicoh 8y ago
This summer I was in Wales with a Dutch car. One day we parked the car on the side of a road and went for a hike. When we turned back to the car we could easily see the car from up high. And the weird thing was, there was a van parked right next to it. There was no reason for it to be parked there; there was plenty of space; why park very close to my car? I assumed something was wrong. When we returned to the car it turned out that the driver of the van was just curious what foreigners would show up. Living in a city that is packed with tourists, it would never occur to me that someone would just wait next to a foreign car to see who shows up.
matwood 8y ago
> I agree with the article, and I will also say if you're looking for a truly special experience, make the effort and go places on the planet where tourists simply don't venture. I agree, but you don't even have to go where no tourists venture. Just go where less venture. And, if you are American go to where less Americans go. SEA is packed with Americans now because it's the current trendy place. Eastern Europe outside of the big spots like Prague are still pretty wide open though. Going in the winter also limits the number of other tourist (we went to Budapest in the winter once, enjoyed the hot springs nearly alone one evening and then went ice skating - quite fun).
Symbiote 8y ago
> I took a stupidly small route from Nigeria into Cameroon When was this? I was invited to a wedding in rural Nigeria a few years ago, but considering the security situation it seemed crazy to contemplate going.

dorwi 8y ago

Ha, I love these discussions about what is a "good" way of travelling. In the end it's all about your personal values; if you prefer to be one with the nature you'll be labeled as a "deep traveler", if you are playing the social game you'll be labeled as a "shallow traveller", or you can do both and get a label accordingly. Long story short, the way you travel is proxy for who you are.

platz 8y ago

The advice here boils down to: don't just vacation, quit your job and take up a freelance/remote worker lifestyle for an unknown period of time.

mlrtime 8y ago

Interesting opinion but if someone wants to travel this way, so be it. Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1314/ https://xkcd.com/1314/ Maybe someone has a more relevant one.

kstenerud 8y ago

It depends on why you're traveling. I you're traveling to impress your peer groups, that's fine. Nothing wrong with a little peacocking. Building your networks? OK, sure. Just want to do something to enjoy yourself? Rock on. Just be honest with yourself about what the purpose of your travel is, and make sure it actually serves you. Beyond that, anything anyone has to say about how YOU travel is nothing more than advice.