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The Case Against Travel
- mitchbob 3y agohttps://archive.ph/M2Tru https://archive.ph/M2Tru
- brvsft 3y agoI also find travel mostly unfulfilling, but one difference from the article is that I like doing things while traveling that I would also do in my hometown. For instance, I will go to museums, and I have gone to museums at home before, including being a member at a particular one I visited monthly until I moved. But overall, traveling is a fun activity with centuries of marketing around adventure that doesn't tend to change people in any manner. It is just very expensive fun, and I can have about as much fun doing things at home. I just can't take photos of it to prove how much disposable income I have.
- borski 3y agoWhile you’re not completely wrong, one of my main reasons for travel is exploring and understanding other cultures. That requires immersion, granted, and concerted effort to avoid the “TripAdvisor lists” unless you have no other ideas at present, but the opportunity for spontaneous interaction with someone wholly different from yourself is something that is harder to get at home. That and the feeling of scale; every time I visit Iceland, I find it difficult to describe to others just what about it is so beautiful. The problem is that pictures can’t capture the feeling of scale, and feeling like a small speck on the planet when standing in front of a massive waterfall or inside or on a glacier, etc. That feeling is hard to capture.
- shocks 3y agoI had this feeling when I first saw the Nile. Holy shit is that thing HUGE.
- brvsft 3y agoI agree it is hard to capture that feeling. I've had it a few times, like being in Yosemite it felt majestic, I can't think of a better word for it right now. But there is beauty in nature everywhere. It is harder to find in populated areas, but it is still there. In some ways, viewing something majestic, while nice and awe-inspiring, is like being smacked in the face with a baseball bat. Do I really need to be awestruck to remember that nature can be beautiful? As far as cultures, I get it, but I find it uninteresting at this point. These people queue up different. Those people stop and chat different. These other people view time and lateness different. It is mostly surface level stuff you observe when traveling. Like you write, immersion is required to get a real understanding. IMO that's not travel any more, it's living somewhere else for several months and knowing the language. But I'll accept competing definitions of travel, I just don't think it's what people mean when reading an article like this one.
- Gualdrapo 3y agoThat is my problem with so-called wanderlusters and how traveling is sold this days as a type of "solution" or "therapy" - people just assume traveling is a decision everyone can make, but not what it actually is - a possibility a few can take. And it's not that it actually does wonders.
- quickthrower2 3y agoIt is easy to conflate too. Is it the travel destination, or just the simple break from working, different climate or the change of scenery. I think travel being good for “westerners” talks to how homogeneous towns and cities have become. Maybe if the next town was interesting, getting on an airplane for 8 hours would be less needed.
- jltsiren 3y agoI remember mentioning a decade ago that going to Antarctica is cheap, while living in Helsinki is expensive. Then I took an academic job in what later became one of the least affordable areas in the US. Now I think that travel is cheap, fancy tech gadgets are cheap, and living in Helsinki would have been cheap. Doing things at home, on the other hand, is now a way to show off your wealth, because it assumes that you have a larger home than you would strictly need.
- thedrbrian 3y agoThis has a certain “You will stay in the pod and you will eat the bugs” vibe to it.
- throwawaylinux 3y agoWell, the commoners will. The more virtuous and tolerant and rich among us will still get to fly their private jets and luxury yachts around to climate conferences. For the greater good.
- trallnag 3y agoSo for you traveling is a rebellious act? You are so courageous...
- throwawaylinux 3y agoStruck a nerve, eh? Interesting. What do you do then?
- mindwok 3y agoThis is a very enjoyable and well-written article, and it makes a good point - The nature of travel, and everything you do while you're travelling, is so ephemeral that it really does nothing for establishing or communicating your identity. The people you spend your time with, the sights you see, the food you eat... you are doing all of it because of novelty, not because you've made a deliberate choice. Doing something once on a trip is easy. Doing something as part of your regular routine at home... That's different, and that's who you really are. That being said, the idea that people don't change when they travel is, I think, wrong. Someone changing fundamentally on a 2 week summer holiday? Unlikely. But I've had friends go off on long solo trips and they almost always come back having learned some pretty significant things about themselves.
- tyingq 3y agoA 2-week summer holiday used to have more impact than it does now. Prior to the internet, and back when long-distance calls were expensive, it did force some amount of change. Practical concerns made you disconnect from work, friends, etc, more than you do today.
- pydry 3y agotl;dr Woman went on holiday to the UAE (a Disneyland for the rich) and declared travel to not be a meaningful.... because too many people do it now and the experiences became a commodity. I think it's an indirect commentary on how travel no longer confers status: the plebians ruined it.
- mindwok 3y agoI think there's more to it than that. I have definitely observed a group of people who consider themselves 'travellers', and there does seem to be this societal aura around travel as if it's an achievement. I think the author is just asking the question... Why?
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoI agree with the main point of the article. I just disliked some of the specific examples. "You would t spend the entire day walking where you live" - some times I do! "You don't go to museums where you live" - I didn't until I moved to a city with amazing museums, and now I do!
- vidarh 3y agoAnd even when I don't, part of the reason I want to do them while travelling is that I'm freed from my daily route and somewhere new. I've done 1h+ walks along pretty much every route from my house. I've done some 3h walks in a single direction to/from where I live and relied on transport to get me the other way so I was happy to walk further. I've done many of those walks many times, and they are enjoyable, but sometimes I want to walk somewhere new. Last year, for example, I spent about 3h a day walking Nice. I covered most of the tram network on foot because I wanted to see areas well outside the typical tourist areas. I could've done the same length walks at home, but I'd have seen places I've already been many times. And often even when you go to destinations where your home might well even have superior options sometimes, the point is partly that it's different and new and that in itself has a qualitative difference in how you experience it (try walking down a street you've never walked anymore and be present, and walk down the same street again every day for a week - the experience noticeably changes), but also often simply that it creates an adventure, even if a tiny one, exactly because it's not something you usually do on top of being somewhere you usually aren't.
- crooked-v 3y agoOn that note, I live downtown in a city specifically because it lets me accomplish all day to day needs and most day to day wants entirely by walking.
- acidioxide 3y agoThat's true. I already know every bit of my city, I have visited almost all museums, walked almost every street. If I have the opportunity to do the same elsewhere, I will.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
- ziftface 3y agoA long article about essentially nothing. Maybe it's just my circles but I don't know anyone who thinks going on a vacation is some transformative experience, so I don't totally understand why this article needed to have been written.
- incrudible 3y ago> A long article about essentially nothing. This description fits almost every New Yorker article. Yet, the headline made you click. It does not matter if you read it, they do not expect you to read it, nor do they need you to - but there need to be some text following the headline.
- golemotron 3y agoAfter reading how the author views and handles her relationships ( https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/agnes-callard-profile-marriage-philosophy https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/agnes-callard-... ), it's hard for me to take her thought seriously despite her credentials.
- 4ad 3y agoIt's hard to take The New Yorker seriously in any capacity. I find it's just long, pointless essays that don't communicate any new information or original thought, but are designed to make someone who already has the same opinion as the author feel good about themselves. Opinions which are never explicitly made clear. It's class entertainment sold as news. It make a certain societal class feel higher class than they actually are.
- samtho 3y agoThis is rather unkind, but I think you are aware of this. Opinion pieces, by definition, will be full of the author’s bias based on their experience up until the point when the article was written. We all go through the journey of life at our pace and guided by our own direction (but even that is debatable), and as such, dismissing some work with an ad hominim towards the author instead of the content of the piece is uncharitable.
- 4ad 3y agoWhat work is being presented here, it's just an opinion piece. Analyzing an opinion piece through the lens of previously expressed opinion pieces is anything but an ad hominem attack. It's the only possible way to understand an opinion piece.
- samtho 3y ago> Analyzing an opinion piece through the lens of previously expressed opinion pieces is anything but an ad hominem attack. The problem is that original poster did not provide any actual analysis or reason to support their assertion as this is not a famous or well-known enough person (at least within HN) to know automatically what their other opinions are on other matters. For this reason, I stand by my statement that this is just an attack on the author and not the ideas the author is communicating. > It's the only possible way to understand an opinion piece. No, the only way possible to understand an opinion piece is to read the text while keeping in mind what organization decided to publish it. Let’s be honest here: this statement is just a ex post facto justification for the ad hominem. Perhaps a you’ve heard it’s cousin, the classic “no offense but, <something offensive>,” or even, “I’m not racist, but <something racist>.”
- MengerSponge 3y agoOr as Frank McCourt once said, when asked "Why do we have to read this?" by one of his students: “You will read it for the same reason your parents waste their money on your piano lessons. So you won't be a boring little shite the rest of your life.” It's very hard to learn how people in other cultures live without going there and experiencing it. Also, your low-stakes fumbles and challenges will make you a little more resilient, and so much more interesting.
- quickthrower2 3y agoYeah but do you really learn anything. Listen to “common people” by Pulp and that is the gist of what I think of how most people travel myself included. Rich westerners galavanting around poorer countries visiting a rice paddy or temple and doing a cooking lesson with the locals etc. You can be interesting and resilient through other means too. You could be a nurse for example! Or a cop. Or do a survival course down the road from where you live.
- westernpopular 3y agoExcept people rarely ever do get a real insight into other people's lives and culture from just travelling, do they? You're not sharing your life with the locals, you're not friends, you're just walking around the city centre looking at sights and eating in restaurants. You're not going to work, commuting, having coffee with friends, going to house parties, etc
- MengerSponge 3y agoYou can make friends. Sometimes it's easier, and sometimes it's harder, and there's a lot you can learn about yourself and the country you're visiting from that.
- htag 3y agoI thought it was going to be a climate/emissions based argument. Instead it was about how disappointing being a tourist is.
- mxmbrb 3y agoI can't see why so many people look down on traveling. I do not tell people unless asked (it is not part of my identity) but I traveled my fair share and it changed me a lot. The food I eat (the better half of my diet), the way I drive, my values for a fulfilled life, my willingnes to accept risks in life, appreciation and compassion for regions and many things more. Traveling is what you make out of it. If they walk it like dinsneyland polishing their instagram, travelling isn't the issue, it is people. But then, isn't it allways?
- pydry 3y agoIt's treated in a very similar way to many other status-linked luxuries which used to be the preserve of the upper classes and then spread to the masses through commodification. Theres probably a name for it. If there isnt there should be. Burberryfication? A lot of people who do travel I don't think actually enjoy it much but feel compelled to engage in status games. Meanwhile the upper classes and aspiring upper classes understand that it doesn't give them status any more. This becomes "a lack of meaning" because it's well understood among the upper classes that directly gatekeeping status is vulgar.
- shadow_broker 3y agoI think you're getting at why I struggle to share in people's excitement when they say they 'love to travel', is that to some extent, it feels like an obligation at a certain income level, and when I say I didn't really travel this year, people are surprised. Obviously I'm biased to my own experience, but I feel like I ended up having more to say about the experiences in state parks near me than some folks did about their island trips where they just sat on a beach and drank all day (which is totally fine to enjoy if that's your thing!). It just felt to me like throwing the yeah just got back from the Bahamas again was meant to carry more weight in conversation that what people actually did there or why they went, and that's diluted the meaning of 'travel' to me since I've become an adult.
- pessimizer 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
- pydry 3y ago>For example, a decade ago, when I was in Abu Dhabi, I went on a guided tour of a falcon hospital. I took a photo with a falcon on my arm. I have no interest in falconry or falcons, and a generalized dislike of encounters with nonhuman animals. But the falcon hospital was one of the answers to the question, “What does one do in Abu Dhabi?” So I went. I suspect that everything about the falcon hospital, from its layout to its mission statement, is and will continue to be shaped by the visits of people like me—we unchanged changers, we tourists. So she fell into a tourist trap. She wouldnt be the first.
- shadow_broker 3y agoI clicked into the article with a general mindset of planning to agree with the author. And while I generally did, the article felt a bit esoteric and like another commenter mentioned, the examples weren't great for me. I think my big issue when people tell me they love to travel is that it frequently ends up being almost a checklist, where the person has a whole list of "what's next" already lined up, like it's just something to do because they're bored. Almost like they are dissatisfied with their day to day life and the travel is the antidote. The author touches this briefly, but I've found so much joy in treating my own city like a tourist, and I'm still finding interesting places to go or explore years later, especially by running or biking. I've also had the fortune of traveling abroad 3 times in my life, and I do think because those were such unique events, it has changed me to some extent. One example would be seeing the train infrastructure across Europe and then Japan, and realizing how much I enjoyed that experience and how easy it was to traverse the cities themselves. I did also see the Mona Lisa, but quickly went back to just walking the streets of Paris at night, and enjoyed that experience much more!
- nicbou 3y agoI've been a tourist in my city for years, and I'm nowhere close to having seen everything. I haven't even some of the basics! It's funny that I go out of my way to see art galleries abroad, but haven't seen most of the local ones. That's to say nothing of the recurring events, the rich history, and the millions of people I haven't met yet.
- ramraj07 3y agoThe author buries the crux in the middle: travel is fun. It’s rarely if ever, meaningful or transformative. You can do it because it’s fun. You might even learn a thing or two and be awed by the people and sights, but that’s it. I’m yet to meet a well traveled person whom I truly admire for anything, quite the contrary. The vast majority of chronic travelers I’ve met are just collecting fridge magnets and checking things off some lists. In the end it’s likely not even worth having this discussion with them any more than trying to discuss the moral obligation or fulfillment of childbearing.
- soneca 3y agoI don’t like to travel. I often say that I only want to travel when I have a purpose (study something, visit someone, etc). It does shock some people when I say I don’t like to travel, even when I complement that I don’t dislike either. The accepted answer is that everyone “love” to travel. But I didn’t feel represented in this article. I didn’t feel connected with any of the arguments. I think the author carefully worded each example to being the worst interpretation of it to make a point without considering or conceding what is good about “loving to travel”. Take this part: > ” If you think that this doesn’t apply to you—that your own travels are magical and profound, with effects that deepen your values, expand your horizons, render you a true citizen of the globe, and so on—note that this phenomenon can’t be assessed first-personally. Pessoa, Chesterton, Percy, and Emerson were all aware that travellers tell themselves they’ve changed, but you can’t rely on introspection to detect a delusion. So cast your mind, instead, to any friends who are soon to set off on summer adventures. In what condition do you expect to find them when they return? They may speak of their travel as though it were transformative, a “once in a lifetime” experience, but will you be able to notice a difference in their behavior, their beliefs, their moral compass? Will there be any difference at all?” He puts the positive outcomes of traveling as utopian perspectives, while defining that you can’t disagree, and proposing a test that is obviously designed to fail. “Can you notice a profound transformation in your friends after asking them how the trip went?”. That’s silly. I noticed profound transformation from traveling in myself and in friends before, but that’s during conversation about other stuff than the trip and that happen along the years, not right after the trip. People talking about their careers, their partners, their family, their expectations, their doubts, and then mentioning something that happened years ago in a touristy trip. I read this whole text as someone making an effort to prove that they are right at being presumptuous about people who say “I love to travel”.
- gregw2 3y agoI appreciated the perspective in the article just having taken my first overseas vacation with my kids a week ago. There are overstated benefits and pros and cons and costs to the thing. How much of post-travel glorification is reflexive self defense of sunk cost psychology? But the article was a bit more of a thoughtful rant than a capturing the essence of the travel and its trade offs. Two thoughts it doesn’t capture: Travel in almost all cases broadens your perspective of what life is (or was) like for others, or could be like for you. The broadening of perspective you get from, say, books, is similar in a way but just… different. The type and degree of broadening you get can be different depending on duration, how and why you travel (vacation, visiting friends, volunteer work serving others, business) and what you do (touristy, backcountry, live with locals, museum focus, food focus, nightlife focus, outdoor focus, bucketlist focus) etc. Are all those of equal value? Are none of those of any value and they are all just vanity on the way to death? Second, there is also an aspect of “adventure” to travel. The traveler goes into the unknown in hopes of something and returns. Is adventure good or pointless? Is it true “the journey is the reward” (Steve Jobs quote) or is it all about outcomes as the article author implies? Anyway it was a good rant but something better could be written on the subject.
- _8j50 3y ago> Pessoa, Emerson, and Chesterton believed that travel, far from putting us in touch with humanity, divorced us from it. And that's bad because hunanity is awesome? I've travelled a little but never was I interested in people or culture. I liked experiencing natural beauty and land marks. Imagination has nothing on reality. For example, my favorite part of going to vegas is leaving it during the day to check out nevada,the canyon, utah and east california. Every single time I went exploring national parks or remote places, I am shocked and in awe more than before. America is pretty, perhaps these people could use a trip down the pacific highway or a day at yosemite. If they really did travel then kant,emerson and socrates are fools who in their intellectual pursuit found empty ego boosting thoughts and useless admiration from peope. And for the record, I love touristy places just fine. I travel for me not to brag about it or for virtue signaling and I hardly think I am a rarity.
- mo_42 3y agoI like the article as it kind of reflects my thinking about traveling. I used to joke about people who argued in favor of traveling that nature's laws are the same everywhere. So there’s no need to go somewhere else and experience something different. Nowadays, I see very much the harm from tourism. For example, places in Italy and Portugal are becoming inhabitable for locals.
- hosteur 3y ago> For example, places in Italy and Portugal are becoming inhabitable for locals. So tourists make the place for to live in for the locals?
- mo_42 3y agoI guess Venice is the prime example: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/30/sinking-city-how-venice-is-managing-europes-worst-tourism-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/30/sinking-city-...
- probably_wrong 3y agoAs a seasoned traveler, both with and without purpose, I feel the author is erecting a straw man tourist that fits no real person. "No, I don't mean those who travel with purpose, nor those who actually appreciate the place, nor those who follow through with a life-changing experience, nor those whose year will now be more bearable thanks to the memories made during the trip, nor those who think they got something out of it. I mean the other ones". I get the urge to dunk on those who are "doing it wrong" (hello Instagrammers blocking the way), but I'd need to have a long conversation with someone before labeling them "unworthy of traveling". And some of my fondest memories are of people and places I wouldn't have met at home - hard to enjoy a sunset next to a gorgeous cathedral on a cliff when your city is 100 years old and flat.
- loopdoend 3y agoNothing really matters due to the amount of coal being burned in places like China. Your vein efforts to reduce your personal footprint in North America are largely pointless. Edit: Lots of coal defenders in here. It is absolutely ridiculous to be burning coal in 2023. But hey, perhaps the US could focus on reducing its own coal usage. Go nuclear! My point is that your trip around the world is a drop in the bucket.
- natmaka 3y agoA non-negligible part of this coal is burnt in order to produce things exported to North America (among others), therefore by buying less...
- loopdoend 3y agoRight, non-negligible. And if those mass-consumers of electricity switch to clean energy it would be great. But a lot of dirty energy is used for heating homes in colder regions on an individual basis.
- pessimizer 3y agoChina manufactures things to send to North America.
- charlieyu1 3y agoLife is short. See the world while you can.
- midasuni 3y agoSee the world while it still exists
- amelius 3y agoDestroy the world while it still exists.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoThat is it, I think. Or the saying, "not afraid of dying, afraid of not having lived." I'm pretty sure as an old man I will not be wishing I spent more time in life browsing the web, ha ha. (Honestly though, probably regret having not spent more time with the people I love — we can of course have travelled together though!)
- FpUser 3y agoI want to leave my life with as little interference as possible from any moralizing types telling me how to do it. So my basic answer for "well wishers" - fuck off and leave me alone. You do what you want with your life (and I respect it) and let me do whatever I want with mine.
- midasuni 3y agoSure. Go live on the moon then. You generate externalities. You rely on society. You are part of society, you thus have obligations to that society.
- FpUser 3y ago>"Sure. Go live on the moon then" Uncalled for >"you thus have obligations to that society" And I fulfill said obligations by abiding laws (even though I find many unjust) and by paying taxes. I also try not to interfere with other people and not "trespass" into their space. But I have zero duty to follow demands of prudes, lunatics, "strong hand" wishers etc.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYes, it was a disappointingly judgmental piece that did nothing to change my perspective.
- brenainn 3y agoIt takes a while to really get to the point: "Travel is fun, so it is not mysterious that we like it. What is mysterious is why we imbue it with a vast significance, an aura of virtue". I think framing that everyone treats travel as this enlightening, broadening experience ("we") is wrong. I'm not one of those people. I'm a filthy tourist that goes to museums and art galleries and goes home after two weeks happy to be back and I'm okay with that. I also know people that put months or years of their life on hold so they could travel aimlessly with a backpack and they seemed like they had a great time, and would probably argue they feel enlightened and broadened for doing so. So I don't really know who this article is against. There probably are some vapid people who fit whoever this is targeting. Don't know why this is written like it's uncovering some ugly truth about "us" and "we", whoever that is meant to be.
- 0xEF 3y agoI travel for perspective, so I am not sure if I fit into your description of "imbuing it with vast significance," but I'm interested in exploring that. I have a pretty strong policy of regular self-review where I need to make effort to experience people and places outside of my day-to-day or comfort zone. In the US, it is very, very easy to become hyperlocally insulated and use yourself and your immediate surroundings as a standard by which the known universs is measured. I find that travel, and the mild culture shock or fresh experience that comes with it keeps all that in check in a pretty healthy way. I do have trouble applying any high virtue to that, though. It's much more selfish than that. Keeping my persective honed and dynamic allows me to function better as a human being, forming better relationships to get what I need, apply different ways of doing things to make my day easier, etc. In a way, sure, I guess that is broadening myself a bit, but I can't see any fault in that.
- borroka 3y agoVirtuousness is assigned to activities and pursuits that, in that context, to the non-virtuous may seem inconsequential, or worse than the "real thing", or a waste of time. Virtuousness is assigned, say, to reading, "she's a great reader," or cooking at home, "she makes such homely meals," while living one's life or going to a restaurant or bar instead of grocery shopping and peeling potatoes and cooking for hours is seen as plebeian. "She likes to drink diet coke" does not carry the same weight as "she likes to drink tea," where the former suggests an impoverished mind and the latter a certain philosophical attitude toward life. Or "she likes to walk everywhere" compared to "she likes to drive everywhere," where walking is "imbued with a vast significance, an aura of virtue," whether in the city, mountains, or woods (but especially in the mountains or woods). "She keeps a diary" sounds profound, but shallower when the diary is digital than when the paper smells of lavender and evokes flowering hills as far as the eye can see. I like to travel to certain places and at certain times, which makes me a "conditional traveler", and very often I travel alone, which often allows me to get to know the local people and to lose myself, for a few days or weeks, in another world, perhaps in another life. Other people like other ways of traveling, which I may find more or less appealing to myself, but it's the same feeling I get from clothes worn by others: I may not like them on me, but I don't have to wear them.
- skilled 3y ago> The single most important fact about tourism is this: we already know what we will be like when we return. A vacation is not like immigrating to a foreign country, or matriculating at a university, or starting a new job, or falling in love. We embark on those pursuits with the trepidation of one who enters a tunnel not knowing who she will be when she walks out. The traveller departs confident that she will come back with the same basic interests, political beliefs, and living arrangements. Travel is a boomerang. It drops you right where you started. This article couldn't be more insufferable if it tried.
- eetus 3y agoThe author has a point in regards to short trips (~2 weeks). However, I think if you travel and stay longer, the impact on your identity is far different. I've been traveling longer-term for two and half years, staying at each place for at least a month when possible. I'm amazed at how much experience I can pack in a week, time that used to spent commuting. I'm able to observe a lot of different people going about their lives, people I would've not encountered otherwise. I'm exposed to many ways of doing things and am also able to see great pieces of art and natural wonders on the weekend. These experiences have markedly shifted my general perspective. It just takes being away for longer than a week or two. Again, previously this time would've just gone towards commuting or watching mediocre stuff on Netflix (which we still do occasionally but not as often). In contrast, the things I and many of my friends used to do for entertainment when living in the Bay Area were more similar to the examples the author of the article mentioned-novelty for novelty sake and no impact on you as a person.
- culebron21 3y agoI saw 2-day trips lead people to looking up some history books, biographies, and so on.
- Loveaway 3y agoUgh harsh piece. Yeah you can argue fundamentally there's no deeper meaning to traveling then to entertain the traveler. That it is selfish and to the detriment of others. Certainly not completely untrue, but what a inhumane spin on the topic. This is nihilistic way of thinking.
- mtq1lzy5 3y agoI get the sentiments of the article, but I generally disagree with the author's perspective. I think my experience (although may not be necessarily unique) I tend to find that traveling to different places has reinforced connection to my own culture, be it through cultural links based on geography and history or through a more recent context where migrants from my cultural background have had to move to the country due to economic circumstances and I've had the privilege of encountering these individuals. Overall, I tend to find that travel provides a lot of perspective and context. One notable figure which helped me come to this realization was Anthony Bourdain. He used food as a baseline connection and when we as humans share a meal with people, we tend to be more open. He would then progress into talking about more sensitive topics which provided a deeper insight about a place. The takeaway that I have gotten from most of my travels has been that we are all really the same people. We need a place to sleep, something to eat, some fun and the feeling of safety. Understanding this has allowed me to make deeper connections with people that I've encountered and I'm thankful that experience.
- tartaglia 3y agoI had my fair share of trips around Europe and to the UK/US the last two years. I come from a lower class family and we never travelled when I was growing up. I had to wait to get a job to afford it. I think it gave a better appreciation for my hometown and country. It taught me that wherever I go there I am and I cannot fix my problems just by leaving (it’s not therapy). It allowed me to make friends. It taught me that this planet is freaking huge and wherever you go there is so much diversity of cultures, languages, and people. It’s exhilarating-if you’re into it. Could I have achieved the same without shelling thousands of euros? Could I have just read about other people’s experiences? Could I have just admired pictures of national parks, museums and cathedrals instead of visiting them by myself? Sure, but it would not have been the same. You live and learn. I don’t think travelling makes you better than people who don’t, nor does it necessarily makes you better than your past self. You gotta have the right expectations. I had the most fun when I was genuinely interested in visiting a place and I didn’t care about a checklist. I was the most miserable when I travelled to escape issues at home or because I was plain bored.
- losvedir 3y agoI kind of like to travel. I've traveled to maybe a dozen countries (and more than that states) in my life, and it's fun. The thing that bothers me, though, is people who think it's more than just a fun activity, that it's super meaningful, that it expands your horizons, that it helps you understand other cultures, and makes you a more interesting person. I don't think you really get any of that. In contrast I've lived, as in picked up my life, moved my things, etc, in different countries (and states) and I feel like that actually has affected me. Just one or two weeks has never been enough for me to settle in, to make life long meaningful connections and friends, and to truly live in a culture.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 3y agoI tend to think of travel as status posturing. The thing about status posturing is people don't want others to think they are status posturing. So, they make up other reasons for why they do something. For example, you need the huge pickup truck because you haul a lot of stuff once a year. Travel is similar. People like to claim they need their status posturing to be well rounded individuals. Now at the end of the day people have disposable income and have to spend it somewhere, but I don't think travel should be given the special regard that it is currently.
- GianFabien 3y agoI hate the queues, waiting, paperwork, being packed into tiny airplane seats, the monotony of long distance flights, the constant packing & unpacking, lumpy beds, other tourists, and the extravagant cost of everything. Other than all the inconveniences, travel isn't too bad if you have the time and money.
- Falkon1313 3y agoSame. Also being exhausted at the destination and wanting a vacation from your vacation. Then finally getting home totally wiped out and having to go back to work the next day wishing that you'd taken an actual vacation instead of wasting your free time traveling. I have had a few fun times while traveling. Hanging out behind the hotel with one of the hotel workers, feeding the stray animals that came by and talking about our pets (we both took in rescues and 'un-adoptable' pets). Chatting with some random salesman in a bar, whose business was in no way related to the convention I was in town for, but he could speak so eloquently and interestingly in a way that just made you feel like you were actually there in his stories. It was like having a conversation with Mark Twain. Stepping into a local townie bar just to get out of the heat for a few minutes only to find that it wasn't technically open, but nobody really cared because some of the locals would hang out there with the owner even when it was closed and they didn't mind us being there either. Stopping in with some acquaintances at a run-down grungy dive bar, that just happened to be having trivia/karaoke night with two local teams that had an intense rivalry and we came in as spoilers. None of that is in any way touristy or any kind of highbrow culture or achievement or profound magical experience. Just those mundane slices of life of being stuck somewhere with strangers for a brief time before you go your separate ways, those were the real fun parts. And you can do that anywhere, right in your own town even, without all the hassle and unpleasantness of travel.
- shocks 3y agoI think this article is rather lazy. People travel for all manner of different reasons. You might not, and that’s fine. Nobody needs to change anyone else’s mind. Neither are right or wrong.
- wkat4242 3y agoI expected this to focus on the climate aspect but it didn't. > In the many great cities I have actually lived and worked in, I would never consider spending whole days walking. I do. I walk a LOT in Barcelona. And I've lived here for 6 years. It's a great way to discover really exceptional things and I discovered the area I live right now in this way. In fact it's much nicer to just walk around and explore than to do all the usual tourist crap things. > That is, before quickly moving on: apparently, many people spend just fifteen seconds looking at the “Mona Lisa.” It’s locomotion all the way down. This is because you can't look at it quietly. It's tiny, behind a 10cm thick pane of glass you can't approach closer than 1 metre, and there's a whole queue of impatient visitors behind you. It's ridiculous. I think the author doesn't really get it. For me travel is important, it teaches me about other cultures. Understanding is important int his connected world. One time I spent an hour talking to an old lady beggar in Bucharest, who told me a surprisingly accurate vision of what is wrong with the world. She was not a druggy but a retired school teacher whose generation has been done a really raw deal by the current government. I also found the city I love to live in, which really improved my life. I've lived in 4 countries so far in my life and I love it. I don't think I'll ever want to return to my native Netherlands because it's changed so much and become too right-wing and materialistic. When I visit there now I'm anxious to go back because I don't fit there anymore. If I never would have traveled, why would I ever have considered moving? I'd have been stuck there. I would never have known what I like about different places, what I don't like, what's really "me". Travel has profoundly changed (and arguably improved) me as a person. So no, while I agree mass-tourism can be a terrible thing (here in Barcelona a typical example is the hen party groups that just come here to get wasted in a different and cheaper place), not all travel and not even all recreational travel is bad.
- andrewclunn 3y agoMuch like [decent but overrated entertainment], the issue isn't with travel itself. It's that the vast majority of people who are "into travel" are insufferable.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoTraveling is for people too low IQ to find boundless entertainment sitting in their room at their computer all day. Mentally and emotionally sessile, they can only move physically.
- PopAlongKid 3y agoI long ago found the lyrics of this lesser-known Beatles song to be thought-provoking: Without going out of your door You can know all things on Earth Without looking out of your window You could know the ways of Heaven The farther one travels The less one knows The less one really knows Arrive without travelling See all without looking Do all without doing -The Inner Light
- defrost 3y agoI guess the principal reason in this topic context for this to provoke thought about the benefit of travel is that it is a song written by George Harrison after he had convinced the band to travel to India and study Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and a song that demonstrates an overt Indian classical influence. It is literally a song unlikely to have been written without the act of travel.
- adamgordonbell 3y agoI disagree with it, but I love this biting line about travel: To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.
- xwdv 3y agoAs travel becomes more common I find experiences are becoming too homogeneous. Everyone travels to the same places to see the same things and most people recount having experiences that are vastly similar to other people who also visited those places, right down to seeing the same landmarks and eating the same foods. When you have a specific reason to travel to a place, that doesn’t involve tourism, you often end up having richer more genuine experiences. The location no longer becomes the focus of your trip, it just becomes a curiosity you happen to observe while you go about your business. You become a legitimate contributor to the surroundings rather than just a visitor taking pictures.
- ohashi 3y agoWell, I'm glad I won't run into the author while traveling. They sound miserable and bitter.
- dasil003 3y ago[dead]
- bunga-bunga 3y agoThis is such a bad take. People travel for entertainment, they don’t need to become a different person after coming back from Las Vegas. Some people watch a movie, others go to a museum in a different city. Additionally, the premise that all travel is meaningless discards what you could experience by spending 5 days in rural Bangladesh after living your whole life in New York. Talk about eye-opening.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoTravel is great. If the author doesn’t want to, our ticket prices are reduced. One annoying travel thing: people who count numbers of countries they’ve been to. You can hop around so many European countries in a week. But driving around US, you’d see slightly more of the world but only can add one to your count. Needlessly arbitrary. Most people here should consider themselves lucky how powerful our passports are. Do you know how difficult it is for most of the world to get tourist visas? It’s still in-person at the embassy experience and denials are expensive. I feel a little pressure to travel sooner these days because the a380 is going to be phased out starting in the 2030s. There’s no drop in replacement for capacity available. Airports aren’t being built. And many people in Asia are joining the international travel economy. They’ll get past that visa hurdle. I think we are headed towards a point where international travel is going to skyrocket in price in the next decade due to capacity hurdles.
- zamadatix 3y agoI wouldn't worry about the price of international travel from the perspective of per plane capacity. A380 is dying because nobody wants it anymore. Slightly smaller planes are already more attractive to both airlines and passengers. Most don't want to go to a hub then fly out with 500 others at a big bang time they want to go more directly in smaller groups and/or at better times. It's not necessarily more expensive to do so depending on the plane, regional demand, and if you can drop that connecting flight. Similarly the demand for more international flights means more orders for planes not a need for more seats in each plane, and there is no reason to expect we'll suddenly stop being able to increase plane production for a decade and then be in trouble just because the market shifted towards not making mega planes anymore.
- TacticalCoder 3y agoI hate being a "tourist". What I do love to do, though, is to be an expat. To actually go live in a city, for several months at least. Long enough to really know a few places and even already have some "favorite" ones. Long enough to have an actual keychain with car keys / apartment/house keys etc. and not just a card to swipe to enter the hotel room. I lived in Poland (Krakow), Croatia (Zagreb), Japan (Tokyo), the USA (L.A. and then a bit more south, Orange County), Spain (Valencia), Belgium (my native country), France (french riviera), nearly settled in Andorra (wonderful tiny country hidden in the mountains) then I now live in Luxemburg. I'll probably move again in a few years. I've never been a tourist in any of these places. I've always been renting or buying actual places (i.e not an AirBnB). I do join expat meetups and get to meet like-minded people. They're not tourists. And tourism in countries where tourism represent too big of a percentage of the GDP is an issue. France is now rethinking its approach to tourism for example: too many people all coming at mostly the same times of the year at the same spot. You don't get to see a country when you're a tourist: you get to see mostly other tourists (at the hotel, in the streets where the hotels are, in museums, in restaurants for you'll invariably end up on the restaurants where tourists go and not the ones where the locals do go). I don't see the point.
- madmax108 3y agoHonestly, I think I'd rather travel as much as possible, and gain first-hand experiences of places, things, and people who live and experience life differently than me, than write long winded articles in the New Yorker where I have to namedrop Pessoa and Socrates every two lines because I've outsourced my critical thinking to their writings. Honestly comes across like that angsty teen who just read Ayn Rand once and decides their entire personality is based on the book (Heck, many of us have been that kid!) There's a hundred reasons why folks dislike travel, many of them EXTREMELY valid to one's lived experiences/circumstances, but this article is the most strawman-ny argument against travel anyone could conjure up.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoI think it depends on the kind of travel. I think if I'm taking a risk where I could die, or something very bad could happen to me, then its usually a life changing experience (mountaineering, dangerous/unstable countries, general stupidity). But if I'm insulated from all that, and just bumbling around the touristy parts, then its exactly that, a tour. I don't learn anything about myself. Making love, making new friends, finding strange corners of the world, and having the time to be alone and think about yourself and where you're at: that is life-changing.
- culebron21 3y agoI'd sum this up as: "A wealthy 1st world person is dismissive of their own possibilities". Like if we here said "Internet is useless, because people just watch porn and post kittie photos." As someone from the former Eastern Block, I may reassure, that first travels abroad, especially if it wasn't mass sea resort, were transformative, mind-changing for us. For some who traveled back in the 90s, they were a shock. So yes, travel does change people. I remember well the English teachers who went on short programs to study abroad, and brought mostly their observations, some random artifacts like tourist brochures, that we, stundents, would look at and read. Sure, after some trips you get less and less impressions, but... what's the right amount of travel? Even a 1-2 days trip can boost curiosity. People come to a monument to an unexpected person in unexpected city -- start looking up his bio, start reading history books. Or start studying urban design being impressed with other cities -- I saw this with my eyes. I can give my own example, that even having a lot of correspondence with people abroad, only after traveling in person I shook some my stereotypes off, for instance to Brazil (I've been to 8 big cities.) Made me learn the language, made write columns and be sort of volunteer journalist for a while. After I was promoting some solutions from other countries, later travels made me notice their drawbacks and be balanced in the views. I think the author thinks mostly of mass tourism and the type who travel alone but stay in hostels with other tourists, hang out between themselves and just fill their checklists of things to visit. Well, even though this may be true, you can't draw a clear border between superficial and "transformative" travel. (Same goes for museums -- I've heard som art & museums folks both complain that "art" is not popular enough, and despise the selfie-takers who post about exhibitions on instagram.)
- vpastore 3y ago[dead]
- dventimi 3y agoJudging by the comments here, I guess I'm the only one guilty of traveling in the way the author describes, for the reasons the author describes, and having the experience the author describes. Evidently, everyone else is traveling the right way.
- onecommentman 3y agoRelevant: “Why do the Wrong People Travel?”, song by Noël Coward, 1961. Lyrics at https://lyricstranslate.com/en/noel-coward-why-do-wrong-people-travel-lyrics.html https://lyricstranslate.com/en/noel-coward-why-do-wrong-peop... 1. Travel they say improves the mind, An irritating platitude, which frankly, entre nous, Is very far from true. Personally I’ve yet to find that longtitude and latitude can educate those scores of monumental bores Who travel in groups and herds and troupes Of varying breeds and sexes Till the whole world reels to shouts and squeals And the clicking of Roliflexes. 2 Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel When the right people stay back home ? What compulsion compels them and who the hell tells them To drag their cans to Zanzibar, instead of staying quietly in Omaha The Taj Mahal, the Grand Canal and the sunny French Riviera Would be less oppressed if the Middle West Would settle for somewhere rather nearer 3 Please do not think that I criticize or cavel At a genuine urge to roam But why, oh why do the wrong people travel When the right people stay back home ? — And mind their business When the right people stay back home ? — With cinerama [variante : and eat.... doughnuts When the right people stay back home ? — I'm merely asking [variante : I sometimes wonder] Why the right people stay back home ? 4 Just when you think romance is ripe it rather sharply dawns on you That each sweet serenade is for the tourist trade Any attractive native type who resolutely fawns on you Will give as her address American Express There isn’t a rock between Bangkok and the beaches of Hispianola That does not recoil from suntan oil and the gurgle of Coca-Cola 5 Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel When the right people stay back home ? What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania And clack around like flocks of geese Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece ? On the smallest street, where the gourmets meet, They invariably fetch up And it’s hard to make them accept a steak that isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup 6 Millions of tourists are churning up the gravel While they gaze at St. Peter's dome, But why oh why do the wrong people travel When the right people stay back home ? — And eat hot doughnuts When the right people stay back home ? — With all that lettuce When the right people stay back home ? — Won't someone tell me why the right people stay back home ? 7 Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel When the right people stay back home? What peculiar obsessions inspire those processions Of families from Houston Tex With all those cameras around their necks ? They will take a train Or an aeroplane For an hour on the Costa Brava, And they'll see Pompeii On the only day When it's up to its ass in molten lava ! 8 It would take years to unravel, ravel, ravel Every impulse that makes them roam But why, oh why do the wrong people travel When the right people stay back home ? — With all their Kleenex When the right people stay back home ? — With all their K... ?? * I sometimes wonder... * https://lyricstranslate.com https://lyricstranslate.com
- bradt 3y agotl;dr Some people travel only to say they did. Those people suck.