6 ms·

I guess that's why I said called it strange. People live in tourist towns. The people there are real people with real lives (that involve a lot of interaction w

I guess that's why I said called it strange. People live in tourist towns. The people there are real people with real lives (that involve a lot of interaction with foreigners). There's no reason to avoid those places if you want to "get an idea of how people live."

em-bee 4y ago
if i want to get an idea of how people live making money of tourists. (not that this is a bad thing) but i think that is the point, the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere. it's not the life that i am interested in learning about. i want to interact with people that don't make money from talking to me. if i visit a tourist place, then i do it with local friends, and my interaction is focused on the local friends and not the rest. you may say that not everyone living there makes money from tourists, and that would be true. but why should i make things hard for me, instead of going to a place where only very few people make money from tourists.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  > the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere I think, what I am getting at, is that this sentiment equally applies to every industry. You will find similarities if you compare any two tourist areas. You'll also find similarities between cities with healthy financial services sectors, or towns with small fishing industries, or towns where light (or heavy) industry is the main source of employment. Tourism is just a way of making money, just like any other. It's normal and expected to get bored of tourist areas (because they are often the areas you go to most) - but the fact that you (or I) are bored of them does not make them worse than any other area. If this article's pitch was "I got bored of tourist areas so here's how to travel in other places" I would be into it. Instead it is suggesting that tourist areas are somehow lesser than where people are living "real" lives, which is pretty off-putting and, as I said above, strongly clashes with my own travel experience.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    fair point. i am not the author, and i can just talk about my own motivation. what bothers me about tourist areas is that if i go there, i am the target that people want to make money off. just as i don't like advertising, this is a reason for me to avoid tourist areas or tourist seasons even if i have never experienced places like that before. that doesn't mean that i'll avoid tourist places at any price. i'll still go there if the place is interesting enough, but the peddling i am subjected to always leaves a sour taste. so the problem for me is not getting bored by those places, but the difficulty of meeting people that are genuinely curious about me as a person, and don't just want to sell me something.

em-bee 4y ago

if i want to get an idea of how people live making money of tourists. (not that this is a bad thing) but i think that is the point, the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere. it's not the life that i am interested in learning about. i want to interact with people that don't make money from talking to me. if i visit a tourist place, then i do it with local friends, and my interaction is focused on the local friends and not the rest. you may say that not everyone living there makes money from tourists, and that would be true. but why should i make things hard for me, instead of going to a place where only very few people make money from tourists.

aeturnum 4y ago
> the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere I think, what I am getting at, is that this sentiment equally applies to every industry. You will find similarities if you compare any two tourist areas. You'll also find similarities between cities with healthy financial services sectors, or towns with small fishing industries, or towns where light (or heavy) industry is the main source of employment. Tourism is just a way of making money, just like any other. It's normal and expected to get bored of tourist areas (because they are often the areas you go to most) - but the fact that you (or I) are bored of them does not make them worse than any other area. If this article's pitch was "I got bored of tourist areas so here's how to travel in other places" I would be into it. Instead it is suggesting that tourist areas are somehow lesser than where people are living "real" lives, which is pretty off-putting and, as I said above, strongly clashes with my own travel experience.
- em-bee 4y ago
  fair point. i am not the author, and i can just talk about my own motivation. what bothers me about tourist areas is that if i go there, i am the target that people want to make money off. just as i don't like advertising, this is a reason for me to avoid tourist areas or tourist seasons even if i have never experienced places like that before. that doesn't mean that i'll avoid tourist places at any price. i'll still go there if the place is interesting enough, but the peddling i am subjected to always leaves a sour taste. so the problem for me is not getting bored by those places, but the difficulty of meeting people that are genuinely curious about me as a person, and don't just want to sell me something.