[HN Gopher] The Case Against Travel
___________________________________________________________________
The Case Against Travel
Author : tkgally
Score : 92 points
Date : 2023-06-24 10:41 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| probably_wrong wrote:
| As 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.
| literalis wrote:
| I think in the US at least, travel has an even deeper aspect of
| ritualized behavior or religiosity in the positive sense of
| those concepts. A pilgrimage for people who don't believe in
| anything.
|
| Even someone who takes a 20 hour flight to take photos for
| Instagram is having a unique life experience. They are going to
| have experiences worth telling stories about. Certainly more
| than the person who doesn't leave the house.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| [flagged]
| mozman wrote:
| I quite enjoy traveling and fly about 50,000 miles per
| year. I take offense to your sentiment. I have as much
| right to travel as anyone else. We need to live and let
| live.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| > I take offense to your sentiment.
|
| I'm sorry I offended you. Do you have a better term for
| someone using several hundred percent more than their
| allotment of a resource?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Sure there is. Do it once every 3 years. Simple math.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| A sustainable level of CO2 emissions per person is 2.3
| tonnes per year. This includes food, housing, clothing
| and transportation.
|
| A 20 hour flight produces ~3 tonnes of CO2. This is ON
| TOP of the CO2 used up for living.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| You haven't given the number of how much CO2 people use
| to live, only what the sustainable number is, so there
| isn't enough information to make any conclusion.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| The current average in the US is ~16 tonnes per year, so
| around.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Sounds like that number just takes the CO2 that the us
| produces and divides by population. It would be agreeable
| if the wealth that came from that CO2 production did also
| was similarly distributed, but since it's not, that's not
| really how much your every day joe produces to live. It's
| what is produced to put another billion dollars onto a
| company's books.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| Still, it's produced and it's produced because there's
| demand.
|
| But yes, I agree, the vast majority of CO2 is produced by
| corporations who don't pay for the externalities they
| create.
| amelius wrote:
| > hard to enjoy a sunset next to a gorgeous cathedral on a
| cliff when your city is 100 years old and flat
|
| Just get a pair of those Apple VR goggles.
|
| Is it the same? No. Is the difference worth destroying the
| planet? Hell no.
| spookie wrote:
| It's not the individual who should be blamed for the dire
| state of the planet.
| amelius wrote:
| Ironically, we can blame them more, the more we blame them.
| arp242 wrote:
| Travel/tourism is what I like to call "rudeness in aggregate".
| What I mean with that is that single individual people are
| doing nothing egregiously wrong as such, but above a certain
| number all combined create a strong negative ("rude") effect.
|
| The most obvious example of this in context of travel are these
| huge cruise ships. No one is really doing anything wrong with
| that, as such, but craptons of tourists descending on your
| comparatively little city or town can become quite disruptive
| (as I've experienced first-hand as a resident).
|
| There's quite a few problems like this, from small to large.
| Humans don't seem very good at taking "collective
| responsibility" for these sort of things, "because I'm doing
| nothing wrong", which is true, but also not.
| cratermoon wrote:
| As a kid working in a fast food joint, whenever someone would
| notice a bus of any sort pull into the parking lot, the cry
| of "bus!" sent everyone into oh-shit mode. I imagine a cruise
| ship pulling into a small tourist town dock is similar but
| much larger.
| synetic wrote:
| It's weird to see downvotes on this comment. I think it is
| without question that me traveling to, say, Yellowstone is
| just fine but not if too many people do so each year. The
| damage done would ruin the place.
|
| At a higher level I think the issue is overpopulation
| combined with ease of travel. We cause too much damage.
| arp242 wrote:
| > It's weird to see downvotes on this comment.
|
| I saw it stand at 0 (i.e. 1 downvote) shortly after I
| posted it; I don't know if it went lower than that, but
| probably not. A single person downvoting something shortly
| after it was posted can make something appear "as if it's
| downvoted", but more often than not it's just a single
| person. I wouldn't put too much stock in it.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Question: how do you see downvotes (or any votes) on a
| comment? I use news.ycombinator.com but all I see is when
| the downvotes are large enough to gray out the comment. I
| often see people talking about upvotes and downvotes as
| though they can see a number. I'm just wondering if I may
| be "doing it wrong".
| synetic wrote:
| When I commented the comment was grayed out. That was the
| only indication I had that there were downvotes.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Ah, thanks.
| detaro wrote:
| You are not doing anything wrong, you can't see points
| for comments that are not your own.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Thanks for the confirmation.
| kurthr wrote:
| You might think of it as a tragedy of the commons.
|
| Certainly, there are many who rely on the "rudeness" of the
| travelers for their livelihood. New Orleans comes to mind,
| when I say that people who live there may not appreciate the
| tourists, but know that many of the things they do appreciate
| (dining, arts, etc) would not be there, but for the tourist.
| Luckily, the peak influx can be avoided while enjoying the
| fruits the rest of the time.
| pipes wrote:
| Ordinarily I disagree with this kind of thinking, but I live
| in Edinburgh, for some reason I hate that the old town now
| feels like a theme park, though I'm not sure why. Especially
| given that during lock down I walked around it a lot and
| missed all the tourists. Makes no sense.
| arp242 wrote:
| It's about the number of people. Less than 5% is fun and
| allows you to meet all sorts of people from various places,
| at 5-15% it's already a bit more mixed, and at >15% it
| becomes disruptive to every-day activities and the place no
| longer feels "yours".
|
| I'm just making these numbers up because I don't have a
| good way to estimate them, could also be ">50%" instead of
| ">15%". But that's what it comes down to.
|
| I think COVID really highlighted the contrast; first it was
| a slow increase that you don't really notice directly, then
| suddenly none, and then suddenly a huge spike again. e.g.
| Edinburgh roughly doubled the number of tourists from 2012
| to 2019[1] which, in spite of being a fairly large change,
| you probably don't really notice when spread out over a 7
| year period.
|
| [1]: visits to Edinburgh castle is probably a reasonable
| proxy:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/586822/edinburgh-
| castle-...
| loopdoend wrote:
| Nothing 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 wrote:
| A non-negligible part of this coal is burnt in order to
| produce things exported to North America (among others),
| therefore by buying less...
| loopdoend wrote:
| Right, 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 wrote:
| China manufactures things to send to North America.
| jjallen wrote:
| This is like saying "Nothing really matters due to the
| millions of people in our countries that also vote making our
| vote worthless so don't bother voting". If we all thought
| like this the world would be a worse off place.
| __m wrote:
| Sure, if you ignore population size and accumulated past
| emissions, it's easy to blame China and sleep peacfully.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think Ive read anything as dismissive and cynical
| as this piece.
|
| I found myself trying to see their viewpoint, trying to be
| critical of my own experiences as a traveler and I kept failing
| to do so. What a horrible narrative they're embracing.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| > I don't think Ive read anything as dismissive and cynical
| as this piece.
|
| About par for the course for the New Yorker, in my experience
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Dismissive and cynical writing in The New Yorker.. never!
| xwdv wrote:
| As 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.
| tartaglia wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| brvsft wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| While 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 wrote:
| I had this feeling when I first saw the Nile.
|
| Holy shit is that thing HUGE.
| brvsft wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| That 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 wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| This has a certain "You will stay in the pod and you will eat the
| bugs" vibe to it.
| trallnag wrote:
| So for you traveling is a rebellious act? You are so
| courageous...
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Well, 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.
| shocks wrote:
| I 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.
| mo_42 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| I guess Venice is the prime example:
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/30/sinking-
| city-...
| crooked-v wrote:
| Venice has become increasingly unpleasant to actually live
| in compared to the mainland for basic infrastructural and
| engineering reasons, and tourists have exacerbated those
| but the problems would still be there without them.
| hosteur wrote:
| So you mean the opposite of inhabitable?
| bunga-bunga wrote:
| This 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.
| mindwok wrote:
| This 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.
| pydry wrote:
| tl;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 wrote:
| I 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?
| tyingq wrote:
| A 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.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| Life is short. See the world while you can.
| midasuni wrote:
| See the world while it still exists
| amelius wrote:
| Destroy the world while it still exists.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That 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!)
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| I 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!
| crooked-v wrote:
| On 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.
| vidarh wrote:
| And 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.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| My parents are members of several museums and societies in
| their large city. Now normally the member benefits provide
| tickets and passes multiple times per year that present
| opportunities for locals to visit the museums "for free"
| because they are already paying members. (There are also free
| days for everyone.)
|
| But my parents are part of that sizable minority of members who
| never go to these places on their own. So every time I visited
| home, there would be an appreciable pile of passes and vouchers
| on the mantelpiece, and Mom and Dad would encourage me to take
| a friend, or my sister, and have an outing with the free
| passes, so we could at least use them up.
|
| So this is the case in my family. Now I can see where people
| who love visiting museums become members in their own towns,
| get free passes, and visit there often, right in their
| backyard. I can also see people becoming members because they
| love entertaining visitors and they can show those visitors a
| good time if they have a supply of free passes on-hand and
| ready for when someone new comes around.
| acidioxide wrote:
| That'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.
| FpUser wrote:
| I 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yes, it was a disappointingly judgmental piece that did nothing
| to change my perspective.
| midasuni wrote:
| Sure. 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 wrote:
| >"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.
| ziftface wrote:
| A 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| After reading how the author views and handles her relationships
| ( https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/agnes-callard-...
| ), it's hard for me to take her thought seriously despite her
| credentials.
| samtho wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| What 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 wrote:
| > 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>."
| golemotron wrote:
| > No, the only way possible to understand..
|
| This is not true of anything. There are always multiple
| perspectives and ways of understanding things. We short-
| change ourselves and others when we think otherwise.
| 4ad wrote:
| It'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.
| brenainn wrote:
| It 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.
| borroka wrote:
| Virtuousness 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.
| 0xEF wrote:
| I 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.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Or 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.
| westernpopular wrote:
| Except 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 wrote:
| You 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.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Yeah 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.
| htag wrote:
| I thought it was going to be a climate/emissions based argument.
| Instead it was about how disappointing being a tourist is.
| skilled wrote:
| > 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.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Travel 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| GianFabien wrote:
| I 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.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| I 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.
| mxmbrb wrote:
| I 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?
| civilitty wrote:
| _> the way I drive_
|
| I too realized just how pointless signs and driving laws were
| on my travels.
| pydry wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Do you really need to travel to China to get an appreciation
| for Chinese food? That's kinda the point the author makes.
| asah wrote:
| 5000 years of history summed up as Panda Express.
|
| This is _precisely_ why people need to travel: not to learn
| 5,000 years (good luck) but to appreciate that there's a
| helluva lot more than to a place.
| gregw2 wrote:
| Funny thing about that. I always have liked (Americanized I
| know) Chinese food without visiting China.
|
| But I didn't love Vietnamese food until visiting Vietnam.
| Having been there, I now seek it out here.
|
| Even though I had it on quite a few occasions as a kid.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Yes? I traveled to China and had some amazing food I haven't
| found here since, Same for pretty much anywhere I've
| traveled. This is due to not having to force things to fit
| the American palate and survive as a restaurant.
| mxmbrb wrote:
| But we are not rational machines. There is a difference in
| emotion and depth to buying a cookbook, or randomly stumbling
| upon a dish you (maybe unexpectedly) like and take the ideas
| of it home with you. One (of many) example of mine is british
| breakfast tea.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Yes, because once you get there, you learn that "Chinese
| Food" outside of China is generally a collection of different
| cuisines sanitised for the local palette. There's no such
| thing as real Chinese food; China is enormous and full of a
| wide range of cultures and cuisines. While we're on the
| subject, there isn't one Chinese language either...
| probably_wrong wrote:
| Since you mention China specifically: I was in Beijing once.
| On my first day there I walked into a random restaurant and
| was given a vacuum-sealed package full of stuff I couldn't
| recognize. There were multiple spoons, a teapot (I think), a
| small plate... far from the chopsticks I was expecting. I
| eventually had to accept that I had no idea how to eat
| "Chinese style" and resigned myself to being "that guy" who
| eats straight out of the serving spoon.
|
| I gained a new appreciation that day for what "different
| culture" truly means, and has made me more tolerant to those
| who break social rules without malice. I knew all of that
| before, but that moment really helped me _grok_ the concept.
|
| To put it in algorithmic terms (this is HN after all): one
| could be stuck in a local maximum and not known it, and
| making a small jump in a completely random direction might be
| exactly what's needed to get out of there.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Could we do same argument with other food. Like why try any
| authentic burger when you have McDonald's available anywhere.
| Or specific pizza as you can get frozen one from a store...
| FpUser wrote:
| I don't need to have a "need". Want alone is enough. We did
| not "need" to do shit since we were wandering around
| gathering food some bazillion years ago.
| tartaglia wrote:
| This. I get that it's an opinion piece but it seems a bit
| overthought
| nicbou wrote:
| My best friend is Indian. Many of my friends are. We talked a
| lot about India. I read a lot about India. I watched a bunch
| of Indian movies. I ate my fair share of Indian food.
|
| And then I went there. Nothing could have prepared me for it.
| Seeing it for yourself is a whole different beast. It puts
| the whole thing in context.
|
| Reducing a whole culture to a meal in a local approximation
| of its cuisine? Come on.
|
| Hell, after living in Canada for two decades and consuming
| American culture ad nauseum, going there for a few days is
| always a mind trip. The magic happens in the details, not in
| the broad strokes. I wouldn't pretend to understand America
| because I ate at a fried chicken place.
| dkqmduems wrote:
| So pretend to understand after visiting for a long weekend?
| valenterry wrote:
| Yes, unless you live in a place that really has authentic
| Chinese food (and there are so many different kinds). And how
| do you really know it is?
|
| So the answer is almost always: certainly. Especially if we
| talk about Sichuan food - very hard to find the authentic
| stuff imho.
| logifail wrote:
| > Do you really need to travel to China to get an
| appreciation for Chinese food? That's kinda the point the
| author makes.
|
| "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 think the author has bigger issues than travel.
| hooverd wrote:
| He's really doing the Instagram thing and then whining
| about it.
| shocks wrote:
| I've eaten a lot of Japanese food in London, but I just came
| back from Japan and the food was /not/ the same - it was so
| much better.
| dnissley wrote:
| This sentiment is the "the book was better than the movie"
| of the travel world :)
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| This is a terrible example because that's one cuisine where
| the western experience and the China experience are
| significantly different. I'm talking even authentic
| restaurants not Panda Express.
| pydry wrote:
| >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.
| eetus wrote:
| The 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.
| shadow_broker wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I'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.
| Loveaway wrote:
| Ugh 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.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Much 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 wrote:
| Traveling 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| The 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.
| dasil003 wrote:
| [dead]
| soneca wrote:
| I 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".
| veave wrote:
| You are not alone, friend. I also don't like to travel. I am
| lazy to pack up, lazy to sit while I reach the destination,
| lazy to see things, lazy to pack again, etc. And all to see
| "new stuff", which is not something I'm interested in.
| gregw2 wrote:
| I 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.
| nicbou wrote:
| You might genuinely not be a travel person, but sometimes
| people just hate the specific kind of travelling they've
| experienced.
|
| For instance, many Americans try to cram all of Europe into
| their two weeks there. They end up seeing a major capital with
| centuries of history in 6 hours. Perhaps they'd have a better
| time strolling around Poznan for two weeks.
|
| I think that travel is a lot more pleasant if you reject the
| completionist approach and just try to have a good time while
| expanding your horizons.
| hackernoteng wrote:
| I dislike travel. I wouldn't mind traveling alone though. But
| travel with family is more expense and hassle than its worth
| imo. The packing, whining, sharing hotel rooms, arguing about
| what to do, when to do it, where and what to eat, etc. Spend
| tons of money and kids dont even appreciate it and would rather
| just stay at the hotel pool, or stay in the room all day, etc.
| mtq1lzy5 wrote:
| I 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.
| ohashi wrote:
| Well, I'm glad I won't run into the author while traveling. They
| sound miserable and bitter.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| I 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.
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/M2Tru
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I 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.
| badrabbit wrote:
| > 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.
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