The Anti-Tourist and Travel Sterotypes
Of all the travel sterotypes the Anti-Tourist is possibly the worst, he is the traveller who as the name implies, hates with a burning passion the regular tourist, he is quite well defined here. He is the one who doesn’t just give advice on travel, he tries to tell you how to travel. He misses the worlds best attractions because there are to many tourists there and the location has lost it’s authenticity. The Anti-tourist’s main problem is that he has forgotten what travel is about, learning. He thinks he has learned it all and feels he is obliged to tell those he thinks are on his path how to get there faster, he has lost his patience with people. His original problem was simple he started travelling with a steadfast idea of what travel should be like and he charged ahead on that path.
Every traveller believes that they are travelling is the way travel should be. As far as travelling ‘right’ goes every traveller who feels they are travelling ‘right’ probably is (for them), maybe the best piece of advice we can all learn is to just let travel be what it is to each of us, (to each their own). Sterotyping travellers although a favourite pasttime of many travellers doesn’t serve anyone any benefit even if they are true. Travel is a subjective exeprience and it should be, the result is that even if different people experience the same things they experience as an idavidual and therefore might take very different things from it. There is an excellent discussion on boots&all travel forums about tourists here and there is a very good section in Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding about the ‘tourist’ ‘traveler’ divide. As Rolf says, travel is not a social contest, maybe tourist travel does leave something to be desired but if you look with an open mind you will see that in many ways ‘travelers’ are not that much different than tourists. Maybe a distinction between travelers and vacationers is more justified althought it is equally pointless because each are pursuing a completely different goal.
Most travellers want to imerse themselves in other cultures as much as they can and they aim to be as broad minded about it as possible, it would therefore make sense to extend that open mindedness to the travel culture.
Popularity: 33% [?]
I’ve been wondering about this topic ever since I started traveling (as opposed to touring, right?). It’s something that I wonder a lot about because I’ve met so many of those anti-tourists on the road that I fear being one of them more than being a tourist.
Nice piece. I’ll be posting something related later today. I’ll be sure to link you.
Take care,
Timen
[...] power to be not identified as a tourist: The Anti-Tourist. Daniel at thelostglobe.com talks about this interesting phenomenon. I agree with him that these guys are pretty annoying (putting it lightly). But let me take a [...]
[...] it’s all about personal preference. I definitely agree with Timen and the sentiments at The Lost Globe that each person thinks he or she is doing it the ‘right way’. It’s human [...]
[...] Timen and Daniel ruminate on the difference between a tourist and a traveler, if in fact, the distinction even [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptOf all the travel sterotypes the Anti-Tourist is possibly the worst, he is the traveller who as the name implies, hates with a burning passion the regular tourist, he is quite well defined here. He is the one who doesn’t just give … [...]
[...] some of what I tried to get across in my previous post on the topic of tourism v. travel. The Lost Globe cautions against the anti-tourist He misses the worlds best attractions because there are to many [...]
Your post reminds me of one place where I’ve been to just recently. When I first stepped on a restaurant, which I just found out from my travel guide, I had this guts to ask one of the customers there. I tried to ask him about the best place that he can recommend to me since I’m new in his place. After a long speech about he managed to live for almost a decade now, he didn’t even care to say nice things about his homeland. Instead of answering my very simple question, he kept on reminding me to take good care of myself about kidnappers, terrorists, and the likes. Isn’t that something odd? If I were in his place I would have talked about all of the beautiful spots in my place. I might as well ask the tourist to hire me to be his personal guide. But well we’re two different people with different perspectives in life.
Ahh the problem is then in how one views oneself, either as a non destructive travel person or a negative destructive traveller.