F. Daniel Harbecke tackles the traveler/tourist debate that never seems to die, and finally puts the issue to a much deserved rest.
“Tourist.”
It hung heavy on the air, swollen with contempt. It wasn’t a bad word, at least as far as I knew. Yet here it was, shoved against the scene just occurred.
My buddy Joshua and I were standing in a slight line at a kiosk. The man in front of us was trying to buy a pack of batteries with a crisp twenty-dollar bill. Normally there’d be nothing to forgive in this. The problem was that we were in Rome.
Some people seem to wallow in their ignorance abroad, but when do you make the jump to the other side of the continuum?
“I’m sorry, signore,” said the woman behind the counter, “I cannot take this money. Only lire.”
Sir was not used to hearing no for an answer. “What’s wrong with my money?”
“The money is good, but only lire, signore.”
Checkmate. Quivering with fury, he slammed the batteries down on the counter. “Well… you… can take those batteries… and shove them up your ass!” Spinning on his loafered heel, he stormed away to another kiosk, his white shorts blazing in resentment.
The woman said nothing, sighing in disgust; it was Joshua who labeled him a tourist. A Melbourne native studying art in Florence, he spoke enough Italian to capture our regret for the man’s behavior.
She replied that it was common and she was used to it. All three of us wanted to put it behind, but it was most difficult for Joshua and me.
Aren’t We All Tourists?
I wish I knew enough Italian to say something as elegantly as my friend – something to erase the embarrassment of being unconsciously tied to such a lame display. The last thing I wanted was to be associated with such ignorance as we’d just seen.
Joshua and I were travelers – not like him. Not tourists.
Funny, though. I’d always thought of myself as a tourist, but it was only then I began to see differences between tourists. I knew of the Ugly American (being an American), but surely novices from any country run equal risk of looking stupid.
“Stay in Europe long enough,” said Joshua later, “you’ll come back with a Dumb Tourist story. Everyone has one. It’s just a matter of time.”
“What’s yours?” I asked.
“If I had to pick…” he mused for a moment, “it might be the college students who told me my English was very good, ‘even though I’m Australian.’” The last few words he delivered with a heavier bush accent.
I winced. “Wow. Where were they from?”
“Don’t ask.”
I wondered if Joshua commented on my mistakes when I wasn’t around. Granted, some people seem to wallow in their ignorance abroad, but when do you make the jump to the other side of the continuum?
What Is a Tourist?
Writer and inveterate traveler Paul Fussell wrote on the explorer-traveler-tourist distinction in his 1980 book Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars.
Since exploration is a significantly rare and deeper investment than casual travel, the emphasis today is placed on travel and tourism – in other words, the difference between inner and outer-directed experience.
The tourist is seen as making little or no attempt to delve into anything beyond their guide book.
In essence, tourism is an experience that’s catered to, the exotic locale witnessed from a safe distance.
On arrival, the tourist is guided to the most obvious spectacles as the sole object of the journey. Because the stereotyped experience is deemed the primary importance, the “foreign” culture is considered an oddity, a nuisance at worst.
The tourist is seen as making little or no attempt to delve into anything beyond their guide book.
Fussell lamented the disappearance of “true” travel, which he saw as being increasingly absorbed by tourism. To him, travel was in all aspects a matter of direct contact with transformative experience.
In his day, the mystery of distant places was preserved by the simple fact that they were still remote. In the early 1900s, travel was shaped by scarcity of air flight (not to mention landing strips), a lack of formalities between countries, and the absence of information needed to span cultures.
Today, thanks to television, movies, color photos and other sources, everyone has an idea of what a mountain looks like: the awe of Kilimanjaro is bled away, the Grand Canyon demystified by the saturated media.
To Fussell, travel is a pursuit steadily drained by excess comfort and modern amenities.
Travel Today
As the human frontier expands, the outlandish is harder to come by.
Travel in the Age of Communication has evolved into an adventure of interpersonal discovery. Yet because tourists and traveler now bump elbows in the same settings, the distinction between the two turns into a question of how the journey is pursued.
As a result, the depth of the experience is judged less by its own merits but by other criteria.
The irony is that “travelers” begin to define themselves against the habits of “tourists” – by external indicators rather than internal. Travel is judged by “how meager the lodgings” or “how low the budget,” rather than a personal navigation of the transformative experience.
Many backpackers feel travel is only about “keeping it real” – if you’re paying for clean clothes, three meals and a roof, you’re somehow missing the point.
Likewise, some consider travel a luxury of wealth. While the tourist only lacks insight, this class disparages the budget traveler who’s excluded from “the finer things.”
Travel becomes an arrogant show of financial success over the peasant backpacker – and again, the point is lost.
The Fallacy of the Anti-Tourist
Fussell commented on the anti-tourist, one whose angst of being “just another tourist” propels a forced consciousness.
Travel becomes tourism when focus shifts from the experience itself to the vehicle of experience.
Anti-tourists wear the garb and eat the food, but fall well short of “going native” because they’re so fixated on their appearance as tourists. They’re culture chameleons – adopting the trendier fashions of their hosts and shedding them on leaving.
But can this definition not extend to the anti-travelers, who consciously avoid the dialogue around them to be of the “experiential elite”?
Travel becomes tourism when focus shifts from the experience itself to the vehicle of experience. In this sense, the snob becomes as much a tourist as the novice, because both are shut off from the wider sense of the dialogue.
Neither privation nor unlimited funds guarantee the Moment, any more than simply going abroad versus staying home. Frequent fliers may be more familiar with a place, but thumbing their noses at the newbies speaks more to their own insecurities – and, paradoxically, how poorly-traveled they are.
What grants authentic discovery is opening your awareness.
Travel Tomorrow
The whole point of travel is to pursue the meaning behind the milieu: to discover oneself in the mirror of the Other.
Travel isn’t dictated by fad or tradition, but by curiosity. It is internally directed. Fixation on the role or material affairs only distracts from issues of real importance.
We are all tourists. We learn by doing. Our knowledge comes by the fine art of making our screw-ups something beautiful. And unless you’re willing to go down roads unfamiliar to the cowards and cynics, the art never arrives.
It is upon these roads where we are made travelers.
As the Global Village becomes more neighborly, the future will belong to the fluent – the ones able to accept the unknown and welcome it.
The test of that fluency will rest in our patience: not how well we speak, but how well we listen.
Outside the limits of preference and convention await new possibilities, the “undiscovered country” of our potential. Only by asking questions do we encounter anything new; only by challenging our assumptions of the world will reveal our place within it – as one voice in a chorus.
And only by honoring differences of those around us will shed light upon the ignorance that keeps us as tourists in our own lives.
F. Daniel Harbecke (just call him Daniel, the F’s a family thing) is currently working on “A Philosophy of Travel,” which envisions travel as a metaphor for the meaningful experience of life. Daniel has lived in Europe, South America and Asia and is trying to fund his tony lifestyle in Sweet Home Chicago.About the Author
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17 Comments... join the discussion!
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“The last article on the traveler/tourist distinction you’ll ever read…” I certainly hope so!
My views on this subject are well-known here. Interesting, thoughtful stuff, Daniel. But I can’t help but feel that as long as definitive statements like “the whole point of travel” and “authentic discovery” are still being strewn around, you’re missing the point too (my point, anyway – I suppose there are many points). You’re still categorizing and defining other people’s travel experiences for them.
I suppose it’s because I lived with a Derrida die-hard for three years in college (when he died, she put a homemade poster of him on our fridge that said “you will not deconstruct in our hearts”) but I doubt I’ll ever accept anyone’s definition of the “right” way to travel or the “true purpose” of travel, regardless of how well-researched or eloquently expressed it is.
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I don’t think it’ll be the last one. Especially since we’re defined “by honoring differences of those around us”…tourists included.
I think it’s definitely food for thought, but I’m kinda with Eva on this one. Tourists are looked down on by “travelers”, but to an expat there’s no difference between the two. And to a “native”, an expat may as well be an extended tourist.
A form of travel dick-measuring contest, whereupon the measuring is done via pant size.
It’s a pleasure to read your work, “F”.
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Thanks, Tim! I’ll try to write so it’s not quite so chewy next time.
I agree with both Eva and Jacob.
The traveler-tourist distinction is a vampire that will not die. But there is some merit in trying to identify it on a personal level.
Look, when I was in Europe, I went to McD’s a few times. So what? Am I kicked out of the club now? I don’t think anyone would bother suffering through someone else’s interpretation of “their experience being substandard.” If someone were to tell me I was a tourist based on their tough-guy contest idea of what travel is, they’re welcome to do so, after they take a number and get in line to kiss my ass.
The only place this way of looking at travel should occur is internally. So in that sense, yeah, I’m kinda judging this continuun for others, as a meter to judge themselves by.
If I’m out and about, I’ll respect your country and the people around me. But as to how I go about my time is my business. If there’s another way of seeing things I hadn’t known about, I’m interested in knowing. But no one has the right to say “I’m not doing it right.” That’s just elitist.
It’s about what goes on in your head. That’s the only where it really belongs.
Please, call me Daniel. F is for Frederick – it’s a family thing.
One last thing: about Derrida, Eva – at a certain point, you have to choose a message that works for you. =)
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BTW, Ian very wisely chose the title of this article, and I laughed out loud when I saw it. I dearly want to put this dick contest thing to bed with a shovel! But if it’s gonna haunt you, at least make it work for you.
It ain’t the bat, it’s how you swing it – if you know what I mean…
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Hello F.:
I see no distinction between “tourist” and “traveler”: they’re both ignorant and stupid.
But in general, tourists have money, and travelers have money–they are both impossibly wealthy to the local populaces of Third World countries. It’s interesting to note, though, that in Great Britain, the term “travellers” can be slang for “homeless chap.” I saw a sign on the door of a pub in London that said “NO TRAVELLERS!” Perturbed, I stode in briskly with my backpack and said, “What do you have against Americans!” A few shouts later, the bartender and I laughed off the misunderstanding.
We need a new term for peripatetic wanderers: “globetrotters” (too clubby), “packsackers” (too collegiate), or “voyageurs.” Now this last label sounds both elegant and a little Continental. That’s my final vote to replace the derogatory “tourist/traveler” title.
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Not sure I get what you mean. But what I’m trying to say is it really doesn’t matter what you call someone. Tourist, traveler, irrelevant. I’m using the words to try to help identify such trends in your own life – it’s the only level it really belongs. You can be just as insulated at home, a “tourist,” if you never bother to take in other ideas. Not just hear them, but really listen.
When I hear people go on about “libs” being Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging, pot-smoking… God, it just turns my stomach, hearing people summed up and ripped on for their lifestyles. It’s the whole “dump on someone who reflects our insecurities” I hate to see, in travel or anywhere else.
Labels interfere with that process. Tuning people out as being “backward,” “stupid” or “tourist” just builds walls. You can’t “entitle people to their own opinion” in one breath and call them “idiots” in the next. The whole T/T attitude is condescending and just creates more Us-and-Them. Labels are for food.
And it’s always the other guy who’s the tourist, as noted Rolf Potts on his site (don’t know who he’s quoting).
I think the bartender may have been talking about the Pavees – Irish Travellers (see also the movie “Snatch,” esp. Brad Pitt as what one character called a “Pikey”). They’re compared to gypsies and often called the same, derogatorily. I don’t know enough about it to comment further.
I refuse to get into the feeling-guilty-for-having-money rap. I don’t intend to change it, so why waste time feeling bad about it. Someone else’s trouble doesn’t extend to me feeling bad about myself for not having any. Count yourself lucky and buy the guy some dinner.
Tourist, traveller, tippling gadabout, backpackaglober, rolling wad of dough – doesn’t matter.
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I decided to coin a new term, “touraveller” to avoid the ongoing debate:
http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/2008/01/01/touraveller-lets-ditch-the-tourist-versus-traveller/↵ -
I liked this article because I felt Dan was articulating that the usual debate of the tourist/traveler distinction is based on outward appearances and actions: the tourist wears silly clothes and rides the group tours, while the traveler eats from food stalls and bunks in dorms.
So instead, Dan tried to dissect the differences from the inward motivation of the participants. Do you travel to learn? To expand your mind? To experience? Or do you travel to be pampered? To distract yourself from reality? To live in a fairy tale?
Only the individual can search inside and discover their personal motivations for leaving home. Therefore, everyone else is just passing judgments on what they believe someone else represents.
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“God, it just turns my stomach, hearing people summed up and ripped on for their lifestyles. It’s the whole “dump on someone who reflects our insecurities†I hate to see, in travel or anywhere else.”
Daniel – I’m glad to hear you don’t approve of labels, I’d gotten the impression from your article that you still believe in the traveler/tourist distinction but that you wanted to alter or broaden the terms a little:
“Travel becomes tourism when focus shifts from the experience itself to the vehicle of experience.”
Don’t you think that you are still defining terms and categories for people with that statement? And the lines I mentioned in my first comment about “authenticity” and the “whole point” of travel?
I don’t mean to be rude, but I was a little surprised to read the above quote about people being “summed up and ripped for their lifestyles”, coming from you. To be honest, I’ve noticed a general turn in some of BNT’s content lately towards, um, to put it bluntly, smug self-righteousness, judgment and condescension (see: “Christmas Compassion”) and I have to admit I had you “labelled” as part of that trend. In large part thanks to your response to my little joke about being a TV-watcher, on “Television is not the truth”:
“The people who DO know [what's going on in the world] are the ones who read newspapers and magazines (not a made-up statistic). Go to Europe, they’ve got cafes, beer gardens… they TALK to one another. Here we’ve got bars where the music’s jacked up too loud, and we barely know our neighbors’ names.
Did you know that people who watch TV think their community is a more dangerous place than non-watchers? That’s because TV focuses on violence and bad news. Slow news days are boring: they’ve gotta be juiced to get ratings to sell product.”
I’ve gotta ask – do you only feel nauseous when people judge liberals as birkenstock-wearing do-gooders, or does it also bother you when people dismiss those who are on the other side of the fence as well? Say, as uninformed, paranoid couch potatoes with no sense of community, wasting their lives in darkened rooms?
Sorry to let all that loose here. I’ve been bottling it up for awhile. You know me, just another repressed WASP with a liberal arts degree.
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Hmm… It’s occurred to me that I may have been a little harsh, here. The traveler/tourist debate has an uncanny ability to unleash some unpleasant memories from undergrad, wherein the snobs judged me for not having the right clothes, and the hippie activist types judged me for… not having the right clothes.
It’s been my experience that most of the people who claim to want to change the world are really just looking to stoke their egos and feel superior, exactly like the materialist types they criticize, only with disingenuity added in to boot. But, while we’re on the subject of labelling and judgment, Daniel, I suppose a couple of 800-word blog items aren’t enough for me to lump you in with all those people just yet.
I basically switch off any time I see the words “authentic” or “true” appearing anywhere near “travel”… It’s a dangerous road to go down, in my opinion anyway.
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Hi, Eva -
No worries. None at all. =)
(Ooo-kee, here we go with a hopefully not-too-long reply. They always start with that hope…)
When I wrote this article, I knew it would stir the pot. The automatic reaction is “Oh, yay – ANOTHER traveler/tourist post with someone telling me how to travel.” It’s understandable, because the discussion is such a slippery slope. They quickly go from “Hey, I had this incredible experience and I want everyone to have likewise!†to “You don’t want to be like THEM, you want to be like ME…†But overall, I don’t think anybody means any harm when they talk about this topic. But it does cause a division where one didn’t exist before. I certainly don’t think Fussell had this in mind, but it drifts that way in nothing flat. Understandably.
And the response is just as quick: Who are you to tell me how to travel? And I agree. That’s what the article tries to convey. The heart of the debate is “Who am I – who is anyone – to try to define what’s meaningful for anyone else?†That’s not what I’m trying to do, because nobody can. No one should try, and no one should accept it.
What I want to do is move the T/T contrast to a place where it can do most good. You’re the only one who can decide what travel means for you – is what you’re doing right now working for you? Does it feel right to you, or even… authentic? The only place that question is decided is in your own heart. I can’t sit here and write an essay to tell you that what I’m after is better than what you’re after. That’s garbage.
I’m afraid you have what I’m trying to say a little backwards. I don’t believe that the experience of travel is diminished because people are limited. I believe instead that people are diminished because the experience of travel is limited. And I believe it’s getting worse instead of better.
I went traveling for six months in Europe around May, 2001. When I got back, it was a few months after Sept. 11. When I tried to explain what incredible things I’d seen in other places, the reply was “What’s so bad about the United States?” The whole country was twitchy. So I left for a few years.
When I came back, it was still weird. People don’t talk like they used to. They’re afraid of offending one another – but more than that, they’re afraid of one another. The country I left is gone missing: we’re becoming more and more isolated and skeptical of the people around us. We prefer to see people from the safe distance of phones and TV, see the world from virals and soundbytes. And people are so nervous about being judged and written off, so they restrict themselves more and more. If you see travel as being able to open up to exotic experiences to grow as a human being, then you must see that it’s not doing so hot these days. Instead, we’ve got paranoia and anxiety and trying to fight the tide is a major battle.
I want people to do it themselves. All I want to do is offer some advice for how to find what you’re looking for on your OWN terms. If I say “Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t all nail ourselves to trees?†it’s not because I consider myself any better than anyone else. “What qualifies you to tell people not to nail themselves to trees, jerk?†Gosh – nothing, I suppose… If I write an article suggesting that we lay off judging one another, and let our conscience be our guide, I must admit that no, “I’m not the boss of you.†It’s just to bring something to the table, help someone feel better in their lives. I promise, I don’t have a picture of myself over my bed. I just want to do some good.
Eva, if I’ve offended you, I apologize. It wasn’t my intention. I don’t think I’m any better or worse than anyone else here. My post was meant to convey my distaste for judgments like this, not try to elevate myself. If I misunderstood your joke back on the TV post – hey, I’m sorry. But please understand, when I say that the “only, true, authentic†sense of travel comes from within and not from what other people tell you, just chalk it up to poetic license. I’m not demanding a thing. But it would be nice if we could be better to one another.
If I could look you in the eye right now, I think this wouldn’t be a big deal. We could hear the tone of voice and inflections, speak with better feedback. The ‘Net is good for some things, but really – it’s supposed to be an aid, not a replacement, to human interaction. I mean no offense to you or anyone else. If you’ve been burned for not fitting in, I’m not holding any matches here.
I wish you only the best, Eva. Thank you for your replies, thank you for your posts. And, just so you know, I like WASPs. “Some of my best friends are WASPs.†=)
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Shit. That reply was too long.
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Good point, Dan.
A few years ago I wouldn’t even think about telling one of my customers “You are the best and there are so many of us who rely on you.” (She is just back from a serious operation and still manages to put it aside and do a great job) Today, I had to short it to “Thank you for your assistance” just because I was told to be politically correct and not to impose any burden on people.
How funny is it?!? Encouraging became an imposing!!! We are extremely polite with each other, because we are afraid of each other. I think it’s wrong.↵ -
I enjoy reading the debate because it gets at some very interesting issues regarding how we see ourselves and how others see us when we travel.
My concern is that the word “traveler” is going the way of “artist” and “writer”. In other words, we end up with some kind of elite group and a label that doesn’t make sense after a while.
Am I a tourist or a traveler? I’m both, or neither. I’m someone who travels.
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Hey Daniel,
I’m sorry I misunderstood your post, and thanks for your, um, comprehensive reply.
“If I could look you in the eye right now, I think this wouldn’t be a big deal. We could hear the tone of voice and inflections, speak with better feedback. The ‘Net is good for some things, but really – it’s supposed to be an aid, not a replacement, to human interaction.”
I agree wholeheartedly on this one.
“Some of my best friends are WASPs.”
That one made me laugh out loud.
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=) =-) =^0 Am I the only one who can’t get the smiley faces to work?
It’s all good. The other thing that sucks about the ‘Net is you can’t buy someone a beer on Friday night.
Cool! I CAN be brief!
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