I heard an inane interview on NPR via Vox last night. I’m not going to say the name of the person interviewed, because I really don’t want to promote her. I will say that this person regularly writes for one of the most snobby publications ever. In the interview, this woman smugly asserted that travel was unnecessary and unfulfilling and even absurd and should be discouraged, not celebrated.
She believes people who travel do ONE kind of travel: they go to another place, a famous region or city, and try to tick off boxes of things to see. And that these travelers do things abroad that they don’t do in their own communities and actually don’t enjoy – they do it just because it’s foreign.
I have no idea why NPR nor Vox gave this woman a platform.
At one point, she mocked people for going to organ concerts in Europe but not in their own communities. Um… there are no organ concerts where I live. And there are no, massive, huge cathedrals where an organ concert blankets you with sound anywhere near I live.
She would probably mock me for loving the day I rode a bicycle around Hopkins, Belize in February and smirk, “Why not do that in your own community?” I don’t do it here because there are no lightly traveled dirt roads in my neighborhood that take me to beautiful views of the ocean, or to an out-of-the-way coffee shop with no drive through – just locals and a large porch where I can watch the children walk to the only school in town. Because there’s no beach in my town, and if there were, and I rode to a hotel here and said, “Hi, I’m not a guest here, but can I go sit out on your beach access?” they would laugh and call security – instead of welcoming me in and giving me and my husband free sodas. Because when I ride my bike here where I live, which I do for work, I have to ride with an eye to a great deal of traffic and people who wouldn’t mind at all if they hit me, and I have to ride quickly, not leisurely. Because there’s no restaurant with wood-fired pizza right on the non-existant beach where I live that I can ride my bicycle to. And if I went all the way to the Oregon coast, even with that beach access, none of the aforementioned is possible, because there are no charming dirt roads and small neighborhoods along the beach – just oh-so-busy Highway 101, massive resorts and private communities with their own private roads and no public beach access. No, there’s no way to replicate that amazing day I had in Belize here in Oregon, you twit.
Another reason I love to travel, especially abroad, is that I am fascinated at how I get treated as a stranger abroad. I’m obviously out-of-place, and most people are so welcoming, even if I don’t speak any of their local language. It restores my faith in humanity, especially because I live in Oregon, a state that is NOT known for its hospitality, a state that is NOT known for its diversity, and where you have to be conscious that the guy who feels you cut him off in traffic or that you are trespassing or that hates the bumper sticker on your motorcycle is likely armed with a loaded gun.
And even though I am not from Oregon, and deride the people here a LOT here on this blog, I have seen more of Oregon than most Oregonians, and have loved it. Because I travel. Camping in my backyard is not the same as camping in the Alvord Desert and looking out on that vast emptiness of the playa – and the night sky above. I’ve never seen anything like Crater Lake in any of the 40 countries I’ve visited. Reading about the takeover of Alpine, Oregon by a religious cult is one thing – but actually going there and seeing the remains of red paint in the stock room at the restaurant and talking to locals about that time made it oh-so-real.
Yes, there are people that travel just to tick off boxes. There are people who won’t go to any public lands just a few miles from their home, won’t go hiking, won’t go to any of the outdoor presentations about nature, but will plan a trip to Yellowstone – and spend most of the time in their car, driving through the park, or going to Old Faithful and then getting angry they couldn’t get closer to film it on their phone. There are people that go to the Louvre and try to see the entire museum in a day. There are people that will go to an outdoor cafe in Italy and think it’s magical – but not go to any in their own community (and even fight against a cafe that tries to create such). I know those people too. But they hardly represent most travelers.
I don’t travel for bragging rights. I don’t travel to tick off boxes. I travel to get closer to history, to experience different cultures, to have experiences I can’t have locally and to feel some distance from my every day life. Yes, I share photos of my travels – I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I share photos of me being happy?! There is no local experience in my country that can match me weeping at the ancient pyramids of Egypt, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. And it wasn’t until I went to the ceremonial mounds of Ireland, Scotland and Northern France that I realized how much my country has lost by not preserving the mounds of the Mississippian culture in what is now the USA, the culture here before Europeans came.
Reading about a place is great – but when I stand in that place I have read about in history, I am often overwhelmed with emotion. I’ve read so much about ancient Roman and Greek civilizations – I even took an entire university course in such back in my college days. But standing in Pompeii or Herculaneum or Petra or the Colosseum in Rome… history was alive. I could (and did) place my hand upon a rock carved by someone thousands of years ago. I walked on streets once, and still, bustling with people. It is astounding to see what could be done with just hand tools, with no machinery as we know it. You wonder if they were smarter than us now.
And what I love about fellow travelers, the people this philosopher doesn’t seem to know at all, is that they also immerse themselves in local experiences in their own communities, or not too far away. They are the ones with a wood-fired pizza oven in their own backyard, who go hear a bluegrass band playing at a local pub, who dance to the Tejano band at the local farmer’s market, who go to history presentations at the local library, who go hear the handbell concert at the Methodist church across the street from their house, who visit the nearest Halal market to buy what’s needed to prepare a special supper that night (and practice some of my five words of Arabic or Dari with local staff).
I really hope no one listened to this woman and her snobby mocking nonsense. I hope no one who was planning to travel abroad, especially the first time, is now rethinking the trip because of her.
I’m firmly with Mark Twain (in The Innocents Abroad, 1869) on this one:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.
I have an entire section of my web site devoted to travel – not just my travels, but resources to help YOU travel (especially for women travelers). There’s advice on packing, knowing what kind of accommodation is best for you (not everyone likes the same thing), safety and more.
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