Welcome to Day Two of The Hegemonist Spring Break! Today I’m talking about travel, and using travel to better understand the world in which we live, so grab a piña colada, sit down a spell, and enjoy.
I think when most people think of ways to better their understanding of the world, they immediately think of travel. Books, television, educational courses, and the news rarely provide the same lasting impression as actually experiencing a place first hand. It’s always hard to argue a point you read in a book about a place with a guy who says, “that’s not how it was when I was there,” even if you’re right and he’s wrong.
Travel vs. Tourism
Let’s be honest, people can get snooty about being a “traveler” rather than a “tourist,” elevating the former while sneering at the latter. I’m not going to go that far; if you want to go to an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas and never leave the hotel’s beach, I think that’s great (seriously, I think it would be phenomenal), but it’s not what I mean when I say travel. It’s a fine line (most trips abroad have bits of both, I think), but travel can be differentiated by:
- Avoiding over-crowded tourist areas
- Trying to understand rather than just relax/have fun
- Stepping a bit outside one’s comfort box
Improving your Travel
If you really want to understand a place, you have to work a bit, here are some suggestions:
- Stay off the beaten path. I understand that there are certain places you have to go. You can’t go to Panama without seeing the canal, and you can’t go to Francis without seeing the Eiffel Tower. Famous tourist attractions are famous because they’re marvels that are wondrous to behold. That being said, try to get out to less-developed tourist areas to see the way people live, not just the way they present themselves to foreigners
- Stay as long as you can, especially in places similar to where you’re from. This probably goes without saying, but if you want to understand the motivations, lives, and thoughts people have, you have to be there longer than a weekend. I’m always jealous of Europeans with their stereotypical long vacations for this very reason.
- Don’t choose a mid-level tourist agency. Many people shun agencies all together, but I think they can be of use in unfamiliar places. In my experience, those middle-of-the-road tourist agencies should generally be avoided. Cheap, local agencies frequently become misadventures (and misadventures always bring out the idiosyncrasies of a place), and extremely high-end agencies (like Smithsonian or the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia) are supposedly quite adept at providing understanding (I confess that I have never been able to afford one of these trips, but have long wanted to. Let me know if you have [and how it was] in the comments!).
- Speak the local language. I know, this can be somewhat limiting. Unfortunately, many of the people tourists meat that speak English work in the tourist industry, and are paid to tell tourists what they want to hear. I’ve found that you can get a bit more local color speaking the language. Go back and re-read my post on learning a language (ignoring # 4)!
- Talk to locals. If you don’t speak the local language, try to find some way to talk to locals anyway. Bars in the university district probably have a few English-speakers in them. Try using Couch Surfing to find someone with whom you can share a meal (or bum a bed!).
- Keep your eyes and mind open. Ok, let your mind relax sometimes too, it is your vacation, after all, but be on the look out for differences. If something is done differently, try and figure out why.
Case Study - A Tale of Two Islands
During my trip last week I flew to an island, got on a motorized canoe, and went to a second island. The second island was beautiful, there were only two other tourists staying there, the cabins we stayed in were owned and operated by an indigenous group, and we sat on the beach. The people lived in a thatched-house village and spent most of their time fishing/foraging on the nearby mainland for food. They go to church once a day, play soccer once a day, and have neither cell phones nor Coca-Cola. We returned to the island with the airport where members of the same indigenous group lived very different lives. They had lived in concrete houses, lived largely in the store-bought poverty that we all know so well, and had Coke and Christian churches (but still no cell coverage). These two places couldn’t be more different, and I confess I’m still pondering them now.
Well, that’s all for today. I hope the next time you visit a place you can learn, experience, and understand a bit more.
