Little Tibetan Lama，Sichuan，China / Photo: utpala
Some travelers morally object to visiting certain countries with poor human rights records. But is there a case for visiting these outcast nations?
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Burma, China, and Cuba: just a few of the countries out there with poor human rights records and a history of authoritarian governments.
Some travelers and organizations have advocated a travel ban to such countries, arguing that tourism helps to support the offending regimes.
Does it make us bad global citizens that my husband and I consciously chose to visit these countries and have a few more “rogue” states on our travel wish list?
We think the opposite. Here’s why.
1. Understanding and Advocacy
Father and son play games at their Ippodrom market
stall in Tashkent. Photo: Uncornered Market
It’s difficult – if not impossible – to truly understand a place without experiencing it first-hand and interacting with its people. You can be an advocate without ever having visited a place, but your advocacy carries more context and authority once you’ve traveled there and spoken with people on the ground.
What you see, hear and experience in country will influence, and possibly change, how you think about effective actions that support local people. Share this newfound knowledge and insight with others.
We had read about Chinese business interests in Burma, but it wasn’t until we visited Burma that we understood their importance in keeping Burma’s military officials, literally and figuratively, in business.
Another Matador writer explains how travel is a patriotic act. Her experiences in Cuba provided a sophisticated understanding of this misunderstood country; she now shares this knowledge with others.
2. Reject Isolation
A mother and daughter moment, Burma
/ Photo: Uncornered Market
Authoritarian governments generally want to keep their people isolated from the world. Their strategy is to control their people’s access to outside information and news. This is why they prefer tour groups to independent travelers. Organized tours help ensure that foreign tourists only see the “beautiful things.”
If possible, travel independently. Even if you’re forced to take a tour, find a way to engage with locals. Talk with real people at the market, in the taxi, at your guesthouse, and at street stalls.
We didn’t need to initiate discussions about politics or daily challenges – local people brought the conversation on their own when they felt comfortable with us and in a safe environment. We found locals’ views on their country to be surprisingly complex and nuanced, as were their questions about our home country.
In Turkmenistan, a country almost completely closed off to the western world until 2007, Turkmen people surprised us with their openness and curiosity.
3. Where You Spend Your Money Does Make a Difference
A spin around the vegetables, Turkmenistan
/ Photo: Uncornered Market
It is impossible to prevent every cent of the money you spend from slipping into the hands of the government. However, tourism is the people’s business.
Spend your money consciously: at privately run stores, street stalls and guesthouses rather than government-sponsored hotels, shops and restaurants. We believe the benefits that independent travelers spread by spending their money and sharing themselves with ordinary people outweighs the amount of money the government might collect in taxes and visa fees from your visit.
In places like Uzbekistan and Burma, people we spoke to felt the same. As tourism numbers dwindle, it’s the ordinary people working in guesthouses, restaurants, markets and shops who really feel the pinch. There just aren’t a lot of other job options.
4. Breaking Down Bias
Jose of Cuba / Photo: Sami
The perception we receive about a country often comes from the evening news, front page of a newspaper or the latest movie. Media is in the business of reporting crisis and Hollywood is in the business of creating drama. Countries, and their people, may look ominous and dangerous in this media light, but the reality is often something different.
I’m certainly not immune from these stereotypes. Before traveling to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, I thought of these areas as dark, evil places where people mysteriously die in prison. (Much of this is due to the fact that I worked for a media organization whose journalists were at risk). I initially resisted traveling to these countries, but my husband convinced me otherwise. And I’m glad he did.
Not to diminish the relevance of the transgressions that do still occur, but there’s more to these countries than their governments’ human rights records.
Like anywhere else, average citizens are just trying to make a living, raise a family and hope for a better life for their children – many times with extreme challenges. This is just as much the story as the rogue governments that run their countries.
5. Experienced-Based Empathy
At the animal market in Kashgar, China
/ Photo: Uncornered Market
When you’ve traveled through a country and have a connection with its people, the news about that place becomes more personal. When our own empathy is rooted in experience, it becomes deeper – we want to help.
Why does this matter? Perhaps this empathy will motivate you to act and become an advocate – to raise money, volunteer, or share your knowledge and educate others.
Even though we did not visit Tibet during our travels across China, the time we spent in two other minority regions – Kashgar (in the western province of Xinjiang with a primarily ethnic Uighur community) and Xiahe (in Gansu Province with a substantial ethnic Tibetan population) – provided the context to understand some of the impacts of the Chinese government’s development actions and attitudes first-hand.
I had seen plenty of “Free Tibet” slogans before our trip, but I now have a deeper understanding of what those signs mean and the nuances of the situation.
Although we’ve decided to travel to these countries with shaky human rights records, each person needs to decide whether to visit countries with governments they may not support.
If you make the journey, it’s even more important to travel responsibly and with an open mind. And don’t forget to share your experiences when you return.
What do you think – do the benefits outweigh the negatives when visiting banned countries?
About the Author
Related Posts
12 Comments... join the discussion!
-
-
Visiting Cuba (in 2007) and China (last year) has taught me things about those countries & their people which I would never have learnt from home. I’m a strong believer in travel-for-understanding, and that has to mean leaving your preconceptions behind… I’m struggling to find anything in this article that I disagree with
↵ -
Just as any kind of travel where you get to know the locals will give you a different view of the place than you had previously, so is the same with banned countries.
It’s interesting, because I had a good friend who went to Cuba and loved, loved, loved everything Cuban (including what she saw as a misunderstood and much maligned-by-the-US Castro). This greatly influenced my outlook on this country, and I ended up learning about the vast organic food system they were essentially “forced” to put in place because of the embargo that included pesticides. And so over the past decade or so with the rise of organic farming, many US organic farmers have been learning from Cuba’s “discoveries.”
So I agree with the importance of people visiting these countries and sharing their experiences because when it comes down to it, we are all citizens of planet Earth, and can all relate on some level.
↵ -
I think that traveling to banned countries is great, but I don’t even know how to start planning to go to these places. Can anyone expound on that some?
↵ -
Interesting article.
The one exception I can think of would be North Korea. The tours and associated expenditures are so controlled that achieving any of the aforementioned goals is generally impossible.
You’d be better off donating money or time to groups that help North Koreans escape across the border, for example LiNK. http://www.linkglobal.org/
↵ -
Thanks for the great comments and discussion!
@Karin: if you are interested in planning a visit to such countries, get your hands on a guide book, research the country online and ask questions on travel forums from other travelers who have gone before you (eg., Matador Community, Lonely Planet Thorntree or Bootsnall). Another place to get started for visas is this article: How to Travel to Rogue States.
@Alan: I agree that if you can’t travel independently within a country, it limits interaction with locals and achieving some of the goals above. The only country we’ve visited that required a tour was Turkmenistan. We thought we would constantly be watched, but we had much more freedom than imagined. North Korea is more difficult, however. We’ve heard the tours are incredibly restrictive and interaction with regular locals is almost non-existent. Each traveler has to research and weigh the potential benefits to locals of his/her trip and make a decision whether to travel to a place.
↵ -
i think the fact that they’re banned is a great reason to go. the gov’ts have a problem, but the people i’m sure don’t and it’s not fair to them. and you’re right, where you spend your money makes such a difference, and giving to the people who need it most is the best feeling of all!
↵ -
Not wishing to upset the Author:) But I disagree with her.. the issue is much larger than her points of defense.
I believe that the powers that determine whether a country should be placed under sanctions have much greater intelligence than any individual traveller. Moreover, if an individual traveller decides to visit a country under sanction they undermine the effects of those sanctions.
So the general rule should: if you agree with the reasons given by a government to put a nation under sanction then you should support that government. If you don’t agree then you have a different argument.
For example, I have visited Cuba because I am an E.U. citizen I do not agree with the sanctions placed upon that country by the U.S.and I, to some extent, support the ideals of the Cuban government.
Further, when given the opportunity to cross from Thailand into Myanamar I was not interested to do so because to my knowledge it is governed by a military junta that does not represent the people.
Neither of the above countries is banned for travel by the E.U. but they are both frowned upon (Cuba to a lesser extent) so most of the moral dilema comes within your own conscience.
There are tens of thousands of individuals who would like to go to ‘banned countries’ out of curiosity. If we all went then sanctions would have limited effect. E.g. Myanamar would be very much like Thailand, with holiday resorts everywhere and the government doing well from the resulting taxes.
I think that this is well demonstrated by China.. we got used to doing trade with china and touristing it. China has gotten very wealthy from that and now the voice of protest against various human right abuses (not least Tibet) is all but ignored.
People tend to think that they as an individual can make some positive difference but I think collective action (in this case on the scale of nation against nation) is by far more effective. Tourism of any form is a trade and I think we all would benefit from making a united front for fairer trade and refrain from profiting from the countries who don’t play fair. The unfair governments of isolated countries will probably fall faster than those unfair governments that are part of the world trade community.
↵ -
@Matt Sky: No problem disagreeing with me : ) Everyone needs to make his/her own decision based on the information available and personal values.
For us, our visit to Myanmar underscored that the current structure of sanctions by the US/EU and certain UN countries just isn’t working and it’s not because of the tourists like us that visit (when we were there tourism was down 80-90%). It’s hurting regular people more than the government because a big neighbor to the north (China) now has almost a monopoly on buying resources, food and minerals from the Myanmar government. So, the junta has no incentive to change because they have a secure buyer. We now understand that if the international community wants sanctions to have any effect, they have to get China’s buy-in. These are subtleties we didn’t understand before and we can now better support initiatives that are more likely to work. Also, we are stronger advocates for the people of Myanmar than before our trip – we’ve seen first hand how awful the government really is. It’s not just an impersonal story on the news anymore.
After our visit to China, we are more critical of the international community turning its back on human rights and “development” actions in exchange for keeping up good trade relations. Before, it was something we read about but we didn’t have the first hand knowledge to see how it is really playing out for the lives of ethnic minorities all over the country.
For us, the complexity of understanding we gain from these journeys into countries with authoritarian governments helps us become better advocates and a bit wiser about which national (eg. US) and international actions might have real effects against these governments and which actions are just spinning wheels (i.e., because there’s a deeper issue not being addressed by the int’l community).
So, we can agree to disagree.
↵ -
Interesting article. I guess I disagree in a selfish way: I like to enjoy myself when I travel!
So instead of visiting Turkmenistan or North Korea I’ll visit little known or isolated places in Brazil, where (in a way) I’ll fulfill your five main points, but I’ll also have Carnaval and beaches right around the corner. I think of the difference between doing an Amazon tour out of Manaus with a well known tour company, vs. spending a week with a family that lives in a small riverside village.
The same options can be sought when visiting other “popular” destinations. In the end it’s not where you go but how you go and what you bring with you: the mindset, the attitude, the sense of responsibility, the open mind, etc.
↵ -
@Ernesto – I completely agree that it’s not where you go it’s the way you travel and the sense of responsibility you take with you. This attitude allows you to “travel” in your own home town if you choose.
We’ve had heated discussions with people about the “morality” of our decision to travel to countries with authoritarian governments or places with poor human rights records, so I wanted to share – from our first-hand experiences – the benefits to locals and yourself from choosing to travel to such places.
↵ -
Very nice, thanks.
↵
