4 ms·

Today a yuppie can get off an airplane, demand Google maps tell them where the overpriced cocktail bars are, demand Uber take them there, demand the locals spea

Today a yuppie can get off an airplane, demand Google maps tell them where the overpriced cocktail bars are, demand Uber take them there, demand the locals speak English, and demand an overpriced pretentious Old Fashioned. No knowledge of local culture, customs, knowledge, etc needed in any city in the world. The exact same hollow experience over and over again. And yet these people pat themselves on the back for it. They instagram every moment of this manufactured and repetitive experience. We're losing a lot of culture with globalization. A lot of what makes the different places in the world unique.

bombcar 4y ago
We’ve been losing this for decades (Tolkien complained about it) - appification has made it significantly worse. You can still find real cultures but you have to dig. Everywhere that tourists go have become upscale McDonald’s - identical the world over. It’s what people want. They don’t actually want all the messy problems associated with actually interacting with a different culture, they just want to tell themselves they have.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  I live in what feels like the center of the problem you described. Most tourists see one of 3 places, each of which are not even close to local culture. The thing is, if local culture were what tourists wanted, they wouldn't come here. They want the touristy crap they paid for in the tourist areas.
  - Eleison23 4y ago
    I've always lived close to the Mexican border, and I've ventured into Mexico just a few times, in several of the border cities. And the one piece of advice that you really need to adhere to is to stick to the tourist areas. You go outside the tourist areas, and nobody will speak English to you, and you will probably get ripped off (more-so than any tourist would) and you just can't be guaranteed safety as an American in Mexico if you're not in a tourist area of Tijuana, Nogales, Tecate, etc. I did venture into these off-brand areas a few times, and it is sort of night and day; you know you are out of your element, and you want to go back to the tourist zones ASAP. You really gain nothing by going outside them. It's not "local color" it's "prey on the Gringos" time out there. It is not pretty.
    - ok_dad 4y ago
      Well, I can’t speak about Mexico, it was mostly fine to go across the border when I was a kid. Where I live now, the tourists want the resort experience, the actual local experience is not interesting to them. They just want the pools and shopping.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      As with many (most?) countries the key is to have a local guide. There are cities in America you’d not want to be caught in the wrong part of at the wrong time - the locals know this stuff.
- andirk 4y ago
  "We just got back from Mexico. It was great!" Then "We just got back from Thailand. It was amazing!" It can either mean they assimilated into a new culture, or they went to the Marriott in whatever city. When I travel, I desire to feel like I live there. An AirBnB with nice amenities, the occasional expensive cocktail(s), and some mainstream event, but the rest needs to be as authentic as possible. And that involves accepting some possible discomfort whether it be from language, cuisine, commute, etc. Where comfort isn't, experience is!
- at_a_remove 4y ago
  "You know how Americans are, Kiki. They all love to travel, and then they only want to meet other Americans and talk about how hard it is to get a decent hamburger." -- Naked Lunch
- fosk 4y ago
  I used to be younger and I used to love being in the middle of the “local mess”. As I got older, I just need a relaxing place with a place that meets my expectations. I traveled across 40+ countries around the world and on every continent before I was 30. I have seen it all. “Assimilating local culture” is always the same stuff: you meet happy people with nothing, happy people with something, and unhappy people with nothing, and unhappy people with something. Turns out that - besides food and the nuances of local politics - the whole world is the same mesh. There is not much else to see. I had better conversations in Michigan with immigrant Uber drivers in a 15 minutes ride than spending one week in their country. For a while it was fun to “go with the flow”, ultimately after so many experiences I realized that it is not the place that made the experiences fun, but the mindset. By changing my mindset I had an equal amount of fun experiences in my hometown without having to travel hundreds or thousands of miles away. Sure..I can say this now after traveling quite a bit, perhaps we can call it experience and wiseness. The only thing that is truly memorable are the landscapes, and the things you see: temples, pyramids, you name it. But even then, I would say that sightseeing doesn’t really mean that there is any expansive mixing with the local population. It’s a sterile experience, so to speak.
  - porknubbins 4y ago
    I can empathize with being older and wanting to just relax and have a quality experience. I used to try to thoroughly immerse myself in daily life of a city but that is exhausting after a while. I am more content to just hit the highlights now. But it also sounds like you were a little burnt out on travel. I have lived abroad and found most regions of the world are quite different and have something unique and worth experiencing. Different countries are not just different themes on the same OS in my experience. People do live in meaningfully different ways. Out ability to take in new experiences that is finite and needs recharging though.
- margalabargala 4y ago
  Places with "real culture" aren't actually difficult to find, at all. They exist everywhere, in places that are not tourist attractions, especailly in places that have not had huge influxes of money. My wife and I went to Greenland just pre-covid, where almost no one speaks english, no signs are in english, and there was a very strong culture of which we were very much not a part. We were able to experience a small amount of it thanks to the kindness of our host. There is a program run by the official government tourism agency that allows Greenlandic residents to host tourists in their homes as a Bed & Breakfast. With patience and lots of english-danish translations we were able to communicate well enough to get around. I would go back in a second and much prefer a place like that over a more generic setting like described in this article. That said, when our two weeks there were up, it was very nice to meet a Canadian in the airport going home and hold a real conversation with someone besides my wife in my own language for the first time in a half a month.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
This is why I mostly have no desire to travel. I do not enjoy the experience of being a tourist. I already live in New York City--why should I go to Paris? I'm sure there are trips I could take that would be truly different. I used to have a coworker who would plan trips to the Congo or North Korea or places like that. (She'd go completely on her own, by the way.) I really have no desire to take a trip like that either!
- andirk 4y ago
  NYC pizza is the best. I stash slices of Joe's Pizza from the Lower East Side in my backpack on my way to Paris. Paris baguettes and butter are the best. I stash baguettes and butter in my backpack on way back to USA. Best Mexican food in San Diego. Best coffee in Oregon/Washington. Prettiest beaches, not sure, so many. Most dog walkers ever, Buenos Aires. Nicest people, Bali. Funniest smell with best brass band music everywhere, New Orleans.
  - orange_joe 4y ago
    If you’re in LES, I’d really suggest Scarr’s over Joe’s.
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    >Best Mexican food in San Diego. Wait until you try it in, ... well, Mexico?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Mexican food was invented in San Diego. And sadly the Mexicans don’t know how to make it. (Mostly a joke but actual Mexican food is not what people usually expect or want.)
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    I will admit to being continually perplexed at how no one in all of NYC can make a croissant as good as even an average one in Paris. I don't like food nearly enough to travel around the world for it, however.
Markoff 4y ago
I blame smartphones, not globalization for losing touch with local culture/people. It's very different travel experience, if you have translator in the phone and navigation and don't need to rely on locals as in older days, I'm glad I experienced traveling prior smartphones went mainstream, I'd have much less stories to tell if I had contemporary smartphone.

bombcar 4y ago

We’ve been losing this for decades (Tolkien complained about it) - appification has made it significantly worse. You can still find real cultures but you have to dig. Everywhere that tourists go have become upscale McDonald’s - identical the world over. It’s what people want. They don’t actually want all the messy problems associated with actually interacting with a different culture, they just want to tell themselves they have.

ok_dad 4y ago
I live in what feels like the center of the problem you described. Most tourists see one of 3 places, each of which are not even close to local culture. The thing is, if local culture were what tourists wanted, they wouldn't come here. They want the touristy crap they paid for in the tourist areas.
- Eleison23 4y ago
  I've always lived close to the Mexican border, and I've ventured into Mexico just a few times, in several of the border cities. And the one piece of advice that you really need to adhere to is to stick to the tourist areas. You go outside the tourist areas, and nobody will speak English to you, and you will probably get ripped off (more-so than any tourist would) and you just can't be guaranteed safety as an American in Mexico if you're not in a tourist area of Tijuana, Nogales, Tecate, etc. I did venture into these off-brand areas a few times, and it is sort of night and day; you know you are out of your element, and you want to go back to the tourist zones ASAP. You really gain nothing by going outside them. It's not "local color" it's "prey on the Gringos" time out there. It is not pretty.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    Well, I can’t speak about Mexico, it was mostly fine to go across the border when I was a kid. Where I live now, the tourists want the resort experience, the actual local experience is not interesting to them. They just want the pools and shopping.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    As with many (most?) countries the key is to have a local guide. There are cities in America you’d not want to be caught in the wrong part of at the wrong time - the locals know this stuff.
andirk 4y ago
"We just got back from Mexico. It was great!" Then "We just got back from Thailand. It was amazing!" It can either mean they assimilated into a new culture, or they went to the Marriott in whatever city. When I travel, I desire to feel like I live there. An AirBnB with nice amenities, the occasional expensive cocktail(s), and some mainstream event, but the rest needs to be as authentic as possible. And that involves accepting some possible discomfort whether it be from language, cuisine, commute, etc. Where comfort isn't, experience is!
at_a_remove 4y ago
"You know how Americans are, Kiki. They all love to travel, and then they only want to meet other Americans and talk about how hard it is to get a decent hamburger." -- Naked Lunch
fosk 4y ago
I used to be younger and I used to love being in the middle of the “local mess”. As I got older, I just need a relaxing place with a place that meets my expectations. I traveled across 40+ countries around the world and on every continent before I was 30. I have seen it all. “Assimilating local culture” is always the same stuff: you meet happy people with nothing, happy people with something, and unhappy people with nothing, and unhappy people with something. Turns out that - besides food and the nuances of local politics - the whole world is the same mesh. There is not much else to see. I had better conversations in Michigan with immigrant Uber drivers in a 15 minutes ride than spending one week in their country. For a while it was fun to “go with the flow”, ultimately after so many experiences I realized that it is not the place that made the experiences fun, but the mindset. By changing my mindset I had an equal amount of fun experiences in my hometown without having to travel hundreds or thousands of miles away. Sure..I can say this now after traveling quite a bit, perhaps we can call it experience and wiseness. The only thing that is truly memorable are the landscapes, and the things you see: temples, pyramids, you name it. But even then, I would say that sightseeing doesn’t really mean that there is any expansive mixing with the local population. It’s a sterile experience, so to speak.
- porknubbins 4y ago
  I can empathize with being older and wanting to just relax and have a quality experience. I used to try to thoroughly immerse myself in daily life of a city but that is exhausting after a while. I am more content to just hit the highlights now. But it also sounds like you were a little burnt out on travel. I have lived abroad and found most regions of the world are quite different and have something unique and worth experiencing. Different countries are not just different themes on the same OS in my experience. People do live in meaningfully different ways. Out ability to take in new experiences that is finite and needs recharging though.
margalabargala 4y ago
Places with "real culture" aren't actually difficult to find, at all. They exist everywhere, in places that are not tourist attractions, especailly in places that have not had huge influxes of money. My wife and I went to Greenland just pre-covid, where almost no one speaks english, no signs are in english, and there was a very strong culture of which we were very much not a part. We were able to experience a small amount of it thanks to the kindness of our host. There is a program run by the official government tourism agency that allows Greenlandic residents to host tourists in their homes as a Bed & Breakfast. With patience and lots of english-danish translations we were able to communicate well enough to get around. I would go back in a second and much prefer a place like that over a more generic setting like described in this article. That said, when our two weeks there were up, it was very nice to meet a Canadian in the airport going home and hold a real conversation with someone besides my wife in my own language for the first time in a half a month.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

This is why I mostly have no desire to travel. I do not enjoy the experience of being a tourist. I already live in New York City--why should I go to Paris? I'm sure there are trips I could take that would be truly different. I used to have a coworker who would plan trips to the Congo or North Korea or places like that. (She'd go completely on her own, by the way.) I really have no desire to take a trip like that either!

andirk 4y ago
NYC pizza is the best. I stash slices of Joe's Pizza from the Lower East Side in my backpack on my way to Paris. Paris baguettes and butter are the best. I stash baguettes and butter in my backpack on way back to USA. Best Mexican food in San Diego. Best coffee in Oregon/Washington. Prettiest beaches, not sure, so many. Most dog walkers ever, Buenos Aires. Nicest people, Bali. Funniest smell with best brass band music everywhere, New Orleans.
- orange_joe 4y ago
  If you’re in LES, I’d really suggest Scarr’s over Joe’s.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  >Best Mexican food in San Diego. Wait until you try it in, ... well, Mexico?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Mexican food was invented in San Diego. And sadly the Mexicans don’t know how to make it. (Mostly a joke but actual Mexican food is not what people usually expect or want.)
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  I will admit to being continually perplexed at how no one in all of NYC can make a croissant as good as even an average one in Paris. I don't like food nearly enough to travel around the world for it, however.

Markoff 4y ago

I blame smartphones, not globalization for losing touch with local culture/people. It's very different travel experience, if you have translator in the phone and navigation and don't need to rely on locals as in older days, I'm glad I experienced traveling prior smartphones went mainstream, I'd have much less stories to tell if I had contemporary smartphone.