It was Anthony Bourdain who drilled the line “be a traveller, not a tourist” into my impressionable adolescent brain, all thanks to late-night re-runs of A Cook’s Tour and No Reservations.
asserted
who → drill → Tour
It’s a quote that gets plastered on hostel walls and resurfaced in old Facebook posts, the kind you thought were deep when you were 18 but now only serve to remind you of how cynical you’ve become.
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you → ’ → you
The problem is that I’ve never quite understood the difference between the two.
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I → understand → two
What is a traveller if not a tourist who has tricked themselves into thinking they’re somehow better than the other tourists around them?
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they → trick → them
No one had ever laid out adequate criteria for each, not one that can convince me of the difference, anyway.
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that → lay → difference
Once, long ago, I was having a beer in Bangkok and joined a table of fellow travellers, who immediately started swapping war stories about their journeys – where they had been, how long they had been there for.
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they → have → journeys
When I told them I was only in Thailand for two weeks, one girl looked me dead in the eyes and said …
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asserted
girl → tell → inbox
“Oh, so you’re, like, a tourist?”
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you → ’re → ?
Never had I been more insulted.
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I → insult → ?
The most embarrassing part of this was that I found myself scrambling to justify the duration of my trip, truly believing that I owed these backpackers, with their dirty feet and ankle bracelets, an explanation.
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I → find → explanation
It was all the time I could get off work, I protested, and while, yes, this trip was only for two weeks, the last time I was in Thailand I stayed there for months.
uncertain
I → get → months
To think that the only difference between a traveller and a tourist was the duration of stay seemed grotesquely inadequate, a kind of free pass for people with closed minds and the luxury of time.
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difference → think → time
I’d met people like this in hostels all over Europe.
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I → meet → Europe
They would always want to know how ‘long’ you were travelling for, as if that was somehow a marker of how good a traveller you were.
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you → want → ?
Some of them would proudly proclaim that they were travelling for years at a time, but spent the majority of that time trapped in their hostel, eating the cheapest pasta known to Carrefour supermarket.
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they → proclaim → supermarket
They couldn’t afford to eat out at local restaurants, or drink at local bars, or experience anything of the local culture.
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They → afford → culture
They did, however, spend a lot of time talking down to people who were only travelling for two weeks because if you’re only travelling for two weeks it’s more of a holiday, innit?
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it → spend → holiday
Duration of stay wasn’t the only thing that could either qualify or disqualify you from your traveller status.
uncertain
that → qualify → status
Some would only consider you a traveller once you’d ticked off enough countries, like you had to have a certain number under your belt before you could put on your traveller pants.
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you → consider → pants
Others would immediately discount your experience if you stayed in a luxury hotel because travel is meant to be uncomfortable, and no true traveller would ever subject themselves to the horrors of white sheets and fluffy pillows.
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traveller → discount → sheets
But the absolute worst example of this kind of gatekeeping was a dude I met in Laos, who, after joining our jury-rigged group of backpackers, proudly proclaimed that none of us could call ourselves travellers as none of us had been to India.
uncertain
none → meet → India
And, according to him, you haven’t travelled until you’ve been to India.
uncertain
you → accord → India
Well, I’ve since been to India and I can confirm what I already suspected: this guy was an idiot.
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guy → confirm → what
Without exchanging a single word, the rest of our crew agreed to ditch him at the next bar, and our night was all the better for it.
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night → exchange → it
To me these things are symptoms of the same disease, where the distinction between traveller and tourist has slipped into the realms of competitive sport.
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distinction → slip → sport
It’s become something to be scored, measured and recorded for everyone else to see, because what good is a competition when you’re only competing against yourself?
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you → become → yourself
It’s not about where you go, how long you’re there for or how many ankle bracelets you accumulate when you get there; it’s about your hosts.
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it → ’ → hosts
Call me a tourist, call me a traveller, call me whatever the hell you like because I’ve long since stopped caring.
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I → call → hell
These labels mean nothing to me as neither of them puts the right part of the travel experience in the frame.
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neither → mean → frame
It’s not about where you go, how long you’re there for or how many ankle bracelets you accumulate when you get there; it’s about your hosts.
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it → ’ → hosts
That’s why I no longer think of myself as a traveller or a tourist but as a guest; one who was lucky enough to be invited to a country.
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who → ’ → country
To be a guest is to remember that an invitation is a privilege, not a right, and one that has been afforded to us thanks to the purchasing power of our geography.
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that → remember → geography
The travel scales have been tipped heavily in Australia’s favour, giving us the opportunity to visit countries in which the locals will never get the chance to do the same.
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locals → tip → same
This, I think, should be treated with a certain level of respect as there isn’t anything that we’ve done to earn this privilege; it is simply because of where we were born.
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we → think → privilege
And yet I still see people travel halfway around the world and then lose their minds when one meal comes out 15 minutes after the other.
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meal → see → other
Yes, I know, it sucks that you didn’t get to “enjoy your meal together”, but then it also sucks that the person in the kitchen is making something like 50 bucks a week, as is often the case in the developing parts of the world.
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person → know → world
As a guest, you have to accept that things aren’t going to work as efficiently as they do at home.
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they → have → home
They’re going to look, smell and taste different, but that’s all part of the charm.
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that → go → charm
Sure, the cars might not stop at pedestrian crossings, and you’ll have to dry your hands with soggy toilet paper, but 10 bucks says whatever they’re cooking in the kitchen will be way better than whatever you left back in yours.
uncertain
you → stop → yours
Manners, too, are important, and we should always try our best to adopt the practices of the house we’re standing in.
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we → try → house
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
