It's really such a shame that AIRBNB has been ruined by the property investors. It used to be a nice way to imerse yourself in s place and give your money to a local rather than a random hotel.
It's honestly funny how Airbnb has gotten so bad that it makes the hotel industry look good and ethical in comparison(hotel industry is still bad in case that wasn't obvious)
I grew up in a tourist trap and learned to hate them pretty quickly, but as an adult who travels that makes it easy to remember that the people in these quaint little villages are people too. Be nice, be considerate, and always remember that you are a guest.
If it wasn't the same 5 villages of any type it would be much more bearable. We have one campground and maybe 50 beeds among 5k residents and I could easily bare more people visiting but less than 5km up and 20km downstream there are towns with a much worse ratio (20/80 allredy is uncomfortable, not to mention things like Mediterranean islands or thise in the Pacific)
I live on one now, often one so expensive that it's employees cannot afford to live there. I live in my car to afford the rest of the lifestyle it affords me. All because people care more about the real estate prices than the employees trying to live there and contribute long term.
I currently live in a tourist trap and have lived close to one before. tourists make the worst customers, especially when they go to normal stores that aren't part of the theme park or resort. This is Walmart, not Disney world. We don't bend over backwards to make your day perfect. It's amazing how people dehumanize locals when they travel.
Especially in towns with tourism as their main industry, visitors there are under the impression that - like Disney Land - all of this exists _for them_. They confuse hospitality for entitlement. Whenever we went to visit family and stay with aunts and uncles, our parents always sat us down and gave us this speech: "Hospitality is a two-way thing, not a one-way thing. The role of the courteous and humble guest contributes as much to the visit as that of the gracious host. " Which translates to "I know you don't pick up your towels or offer to wash the dishes at home but you better G.D. do it while you're here" lol But it's a lesson I take with me whenever I travel.
I remember very vividly two American women walking down the street when I was coming from school, hitting me over the head with a flower bouquet, and not even turning their heads to apologize. I've seen tourists take pictures of people living their lives without their consent, like we are zoo animals, like our way of life is somehow so special and different and exotic. I've seen the city become more and more design to appeal to tourist's sensitivities instead of our own. The rents become unlivable because of gentrification. Everything gets more and more expensive. And while tourists enjoy the wonders of travel, we struggle with child labour, homelessness, lack of access to water and food, and they just don't see it because they stick to the "aesthetic" parts of the city, and those that do see it rarely ever care. It's like they are hitting all of us with that metaphorical flower bouquet. Sometimes I don't think they even see us as people...
You know they don't see us as people. We're there for their entertainment and if they move there they say terrible comments such as how it would be better if we didn't exist. As the years go by you see their vision become reality and see less and less of your kin folk. And the remaining kin folk you do see are impoverished and broken. Sigh, Sigh, Sigh!!!
Ironically, as am American who grew up in a touristy city (Hollywood) I would frequently notice typically Asian tourists taking pictures of me and other stereotypical California American girls (tall and blonde). Objectification by tourists can affect anyone, so I always grew up very aware of how to act when traveling as to not be like all the tourists I’d experienced
I think it can someone make a difference. I was on holiday in a country that does Halloween in a big way (not the US or UK), unlike my own culture. There were loads of families out late with kids in adorable costumes, and it was tempting to take pictures. But a) those are other people’s children, not a public spectacle, and b) it wouldn’t be fair for me to create the feeling in these kids that they are a commodity in their own homes. With adults it may be different, especially if you have the language skills to ask first ( “Your clothing looks wonderful. Is it for a special occasion? May I take a photo so I can remember it?”) but I’ma guest in their city and it felt important to be polite. As someone who was visibly not of the same ethnicity as them, if anything I was the spectacle! A few people started but no one took photos of me.
6:39 Thank you for bringing that up! I’m from Greece, and the situation with hyper tourism is very infuriating. Our country has basically become a giant playground for all manners of foreign visitors that will come here, visit the same three or four famous landmarks, go to the same three or four famous islands and are basically just trying to party as hard as they can, ignoring the local way of life or the local culture. Places like Santorini or more infamously Mykonos, don’t even really feel “Greek” anymore. They are just a caricature of what a tourist believes “Greece” is. Wage slavery is just the tip of the iceberg. I remember a case from that summer, where in one Greek island, they couldn’t find a house for the new schoolteacher, since almost all houses are rooms-to-let! The situation is more serious with the local “beach mafia” as I’ll call them: businessmen that create shops in beaches (beach bars and restaurants) and they would fill the beach in front with deck chairs and umbrellas. Now, Greek law says that in such cases, 50% of the beach is reserved for use of the shop, and the rest is free for anyone else to use. Unfortunately, most businesses just ignore that and fill the entire beachfront with chairs and umbrellas (that you need to pay to use) and are often driving away locals that want to go the beach. In another case, a beach bar owner had his security men throw an elderly couple off the beach, despite the fact that they were using the “free” part of it. I think the old gentleman hurt his arm in the process and had to be hospitalized. Thankfully, among other things, a new social movement arose against such practices, the “Towel Movement” (Κίνημα της Πετσέτας) where people would occupy beaches with their towels and drive off the big businesses. There were even some confrontations between them and the police. All in all, things in Greece are pretty shit right now. Prices to travel in certain regions of the country are so high, that many local people that may have families there cannot visit them as often. As we say over here: “Greece is a country where everyone has fun except for the Greeks”. All in all, I hope “untourism” becomes more of a thing, and replace all that bullshit that goes on.
That beach example sounds very reminiscent of the situation in Jamaica. Business owners everywhere gobbling up and privatizing the commons however they can
Know the feeling, in Cornwall whole small village’s have become nothing but air b&bs, and I’ve heard horror stories of entire city centres becoming air b&bs in tourism heavy city’s. I really think governments need to step up and bring in legal restraint’s to air b&bs and the amount of property they can hold, it’s getting ridicules
I hate to read it. I love Greece. My girlfriend was from Athens. And I try to learn a bit of Greek as well (at least I can read it 😂). But yeah, same things in the Netherlands, but than 100x worse in Greece. And after being exploited by EU banks and the drop in living standards, it's a gorgeous country with great people in a pretty shit situation...
During the pandemic, in a tourism-focused Eastern European capital city, a whole host of people had to sell their homes in the middle of the city and move to the outskirts because it was too costly for them. A lot of these homes have been bought up by companies that work with AirBnB, Booking, and other short-term rental sites. Literally watched so many places around me get snatched up (and we're considering leaving ourselves once we can find another pet-friendly rental). And it was kind of miserable before that happened: You can barely walk through the pedestrian areas without having to yell at a tourist group to get out of the way (and there's, like, 10 or more 30+ people tourist groups being led around at any given time, just standing in the way so that they can learn about this plaque to Mozart). There's nothing except dozens of souvenir shops (which I have no idea how they *all* survived during the pandemic other than the fact they have to be money laundering schemes), convenience marts, and restaurants. The nearest grocery store is designed primarily for tourists, and everything else so so far away. Bars upon bars and constant shouting and fights in the evening. Disruptive and misogynist stag-dos constantly harassing local women, particularly after they've gotten off the mobile party beer-cart. All those absolutely ridiculous tourist buses taking up all the walking spaces. Being yelled at by (mostly) British and French tourists for "getting in the way" and "ruining their picture" while I'm just trying to *go to work*. And all of the trash and broken bottles everywhere, especially in the morning after all the tourists have gone partying. Hell, the fact that the city has basically crowded tourists into *one* area and not making people engage in the whole of the city. It's so tiring all the time, I swear.
I always say Trinis are truly blessed to not have to put up with an influx of tourists upon which we'd be economically dependent. Just imagining our landmarks overrun with disrespectful visitors makes my skin crawl
@@Andrewism I am curious about how it is during Carnaval. Is there an influx of tourists then, or is it mostly local? An American, I went to T&T in April of 1983 or so and it was lovely. I went with a Trini expat and stayed with his family and we were just Soca fans together, meeting everyone we could, seeing everyone perform that we could.
@@ginkgobilobatreeCarnival always brings in a large number of tourists. There aren’t any official statistics (that I’m aware of) which show how they’re divided but they tend to be members of the diaspora, friends of the diaspora and interested persons. The problem that we face with carnival as well is that the commodified parts of it are the ones that are packed to capacity. The traditional events have been dwindling in size for years, but there seems to be a growing interest in some of them (due in part to increased youth participation and engagement.
I try to make it a point to give my money to the locals, going to their businesses and attempting to live among them. I don't care to have the bougiest experience when I travel, and the last thing I want to do is go into someone else's home and ruin something. I want to live as the locals do, so long as they'll have me. As a backpacker, thank you for this video.
Stingy backpackers are one of my pet peeves. When they are determined to pay the same as a local or give out endlessly about being overcharged for something. First, its small change to you, let it go. Second, your on holiday, go spend you money and have fun!
@@AlG214people having a problem with how other people live their lives when it has no effect on them is one of my pet peeves, lol. There’s certainly a line, but OP doesn’t seem near it. What’s wrong with paying the same for anything as a local?
@@AlG214this is an interesting take. I understand the tourist tax for areas that are catered to tourism. I lived in nyc and was able to access certain spaces for free because I was a resident. My taxes and money in general went directly to the local economy. And as someone who travels for long periods of time, not necessarily on holiday, I’m aware of the restaurants with local and tourist menus (usually their food is… not great, so I avoid in general), venues and parks with different prices for residents. Again, I get it… for smaller nations, a lot of money for tourism does not reach the local economy, so people try to capitalize when possible. Tourist pay the tax for ease and convenience in other countries, and many locals can’t afford to live in tourist areas. Being able to travel is a privilege and comes with alot of assumptions. With that said, I understand the frustration and exhaustion in feeling singled-out and up-charged due to your nationality and assumed ignorance of the culture and local economy. There are certain situations that are acts of extortion and scams. So I think it’s contextual. At the end of the day tho, connecting with communities, having respect and knowledge tends to decrease the chances of those types of interactions.
@@5hirtandtieler Sorry, reading back, my post came across as more shady towards the OP than intended. I was actually agreeing with her and adding to it as she said "I try to make it a point to give my money to the locals". I was talking about backpackers who seem to do everything in their power to give as little as possible to the locals. @ariesmry Also to make it clear, this only really applies when rich people travel in poor countries. When you go to say, India, you are getting everything for a fraction of what you would pay in the EU/US, so why argue about a few cents difference?
As someone with a weak passport, international travel itself is prohibitive for me and others like me, on top of the costs involved. I at least have the privilege to financially afford travel, I am thankful for it. But I think free movement that is also ethical and sustainable would be a welcome change. On the bright side, many of us do have history, culture and nature in our backyards (so to speak) that we may have never explored, so that might be a more affordable, accessible option that also is less impactful on the environment. Travel local just like you shop local, I guess?
@@FernandoTorrera I'm a Mexican too and can confirm. Getting a VISA is jumping through hoops and after months of wait they can still deny it to you for no reason lol
I used to live in Moscow and it would be cheaper and easier to fly to Europe or Thailand than to many beautiful parts of Russia. Consumerism sucks but it's also not very fun when you can't visit a place unless you know someone who can navigate this particular wilderness, and even proper accomodations might have a privy outside
One easy way to change the way you travel in privileged areas - doesn't work so well in "tourism colonies" - is through the various "volunteering for food and a roof over head" deals you can find on workaway, helpx and the like. A few years ago I travelled for 6 months staying in a place 1 month at a time, truly meeting people, learning languages and local spots, and actually helping! I don't think I could go back to snapping pictures any more.
thank you! this was very helpful and is exactly the kind of experience i've wanted to have with travel. i had no idea this stuff existed ❤ you're a lifesaver fr
I live in a tourist town. On a typical weekend or town of 300-400 can double on size during shopping hours. During special events we are outnumbered by far. A lot of effort goes into the locals trying to cordon our private spaces off from the public facing spaces. Some of that is for our mental health, and privacy. Some is environmental. So on one side it is advantageous to locals to trod the established paths. "Stay on trail" and all that. But at the same time, going to resorts and never actually experiencing the culture and people that live in a place is really not the point of travel. In order for travel to actually break down barriers between people, we cannot go to the disnified versions we pay the wealthy capitalists for. We need to have the freedom to explore, within set limits. Yaya nuance. Nothing is simple, Yada Yada Yada.
People don't want to stop flying unfortunately yet that is a major problem for the world. We know about climate change but people don't to want to minimize plane traffic or military traffic.
Your last point about improving our own spaces so we feel less need to escape them for other people's reminds me of a bizarre contradiction I've often heard discussed in urbanist spaces. North Americans love the dense, walkable spaces with good public transit they find in Europe but oppose moves to make North American cities denser and more walkable or to improve their public transit. Obviously, the dynamics of visiting Europe are different than those of visiting poorer nations. It's just on this last point that I see an interesting connection.
I think you may have misinterpreted that people in North American (US and Canada) want more walkable cities but won’t try to make it happen. Many of us do try. But the efforts aren’t usually noticed or they are on a very small scale. This is because it is a massive uphill battle working against NIMBYism, decades of unsustainable infrastructure development, decades of lack of infrastructure maintenance, and the never ending desire of people wanting to drive everywhere (includes places where they don’t have to). It is immensely difficult working against these forces since they are so grained into the culture. I can personally attest that it is exhausting trying to be the change you want to see in the world.
@@MightyFineMan oh I don't deny those people exist. I'm one of them. I just also recognize there are people who love walkability abroad but oppose it at home.
@@allanjmcphersonoh ok, the wording of your initial comment was unclear to me; thanks for clarifying. And yes, unfortunately I too have experienced people like what you described.
@@allanjmcpherson I absolutely wish we had better public transportation here in the US. It's a big reason I want to move to a city somewhere in Europe. I hate driving and feel personal vehicles are excessive, I'd much rather take public transportation, or walk.
Yes I absolutely agree with that. I live in the Midwest in a rural area, so I think it's a little different because 90% of the people around have never been to Europe, but they still would oppose public transit. There used to be trains that ran all over from town to town, now the nearest bus is like 10 miles away. I have a car and I like it, but I wouldn't use it nearly as much or might share it with a bunch of people if I could get on a train and busses.
Took a class in undergrad called the Anthropology of Tourism. Talked about everything you mentioned. One of the films we watched that has stuck with me is called Cannibal Tours. It's on YT. Takes place in Papua New Guinea and really highlights the exploitative practices of tourism, especially by the country's former imperial oppressors. Also been to Seychelles. I went after I took that class, so I did a lot to avoid being a bad guest but also did a lot to observe and appreciate the cultures I found Great video!
Hi, this is so interesting. Could you share some names of books or papers that you have used to study? I would be very interested in reading something about this topic :)
@@gorwew Oh man, it's been like 10 years... Sally Ness was the professor, but I don't see her on the UCR faculty page anymore. She has some publications and books though
On top of the harm to the local populations, I can't even say most travel is good from a selfish perspective. I did the classic travel around India and SE Asia for 6 months. I have since advised many against the experience. You are sold this idea that it will be deep and you will immerse yourself in a different culture, that it will change you for the better at some sort of fundamental level. I found this to be not the case in the slightest. Most days I found myself wandering around, seeing temples, markets and beauty spots and then getting very drunk every evening. Every day felt like a Saturday. While this was quite fun and novel for a while, it quickly becomes repetative and vacuous. In most of these places, the tourists are pretty removed from the locals. The vast majority of people I spoke to were Europeans, Australians and North Americans. You move around so quickly and frequently that you never really get to know anyone or anywhere. You have the same conversations over and over. Its not even great for a night out, because most tourist places play generic music that will appeal to the largest number of people (I travelled in 2016, so I heard a LOT of Justin Bieber, brostep and tropical house) I liken it to getting laid vs having a partner. Getting laid is great; not going to knock it; however, a one night stand is never going to change you like a deep and long relationship (romantic or platonic). If you really want to learn about a place and have it change you, you probably need to stay there for at least 6 months, probably a year or longer.
I agree that those seeking a deeper connection will likely not get it from brief visits. True cultural exchange and such will take far more immersion. Thanks for sharing your experience!
@@Andrewism I feel the whole of travel culture favours variety over depth and can feel like a tick box exercise. You see endless lists like "100 places to see before you die". Once you've been to a place once, you have done it and next time should be a new place. This is what happens when we view the world and experiences through a consumerist mindset.
I once spent about a month in Mexico, of which I spent about half of it on buses and trains. And I learned from the experience. I decided that when I travel, I would rather see more of fewer places. I would stay in the same place for longer and not make it a goal to cover as much territory as possible. I feel like it takes about a week to really even know where I am. Am I staying in a real neighborhood, or a tourist zone. Staying in a tourist zone can be ok for part of a trip. . It's nice to have everything set up to meet your wants and needs. But you should at least know that is where you are, and it is not always clear at first. And then, one day, you notice that they only locals around you are the ones serving things to you and other travelers. Of course, turning the world into a moving frat party is not a great way to learn about the world. If you spend a large part of your trip high and or drunk, you will pretty much just learn what it is like to be high and or drunk in a different climate. You are also likely to learn what it is like to be robbed, and possibly arrested, by people who speak a different language, enabling them to plan their actions against you right in front of you without you understanding them. Being alcohol and drug free makes that kind of thing much less likely to happen. It also makes your money stretch further.
Be invested enough to seek an invitation, and bring the tools you need to work your art when you go. That way you can share with your hosts, and others who are made to share with you (whether they like it or not.)
Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” made me question so many things as someone who once aspired to travel extensively. I’m still sitting with a lot of those questions years later, so I’m glad you’re talking about this!
I had one classic American style “vacation” in my life, mom worked hard for me and siblings, it was a cruise to Bahamas. I couldn’t stand it. Rich, rude drunk people on a boat, constantly overindulging, no desire to meet people or explore and learn, just stay at the “inclusive experience” and “cute authentic” tourist traps, plus many were outright hostile to ship staff and locals. My mom also said something I’ll never forget. *“I wonder if all these YT folks (on the ship with us) think these brothers and sisters are down here with a whole ahh country just to serve them”* And now after this video and looking back, I really do think that. Look at Jamaicans not accessing their own beaches, Haiti is in crisis, Cuba is technologically 40 years behind, Puerto Ricans not having say over their own land, it goes on. Hopefully this will change
I feel like this articulates some subconscious reservations about international travel I've had for a while; was asked recently to travel to a place I wanted to go, but found myself emotionally reluctant to commit to going; the best way I could put it was that I just wasn't ready to confront that relationship between tourist and destination yet. would still like to go someday, but then and there, in that moment, the thought of me going, as I am rn, made me feel like a leech
It’s a throwaway moment in the video, but: I hate the “fat American tourist” stock photo. Either you’re a fat person and you get the message that you’re doubly unwelcome, or you’re thin and you get to distance yourself from those “bad” tourists. The worst tourists I’ve encountered as a local and as a fellow tourist were thin rich twenty-somethings. I’ve definitely had tourist experiences that have felt more reciprocal-usually those experiences weren’t as burdened by the time limitations that are also the cause of all those “all-inclusive” resorts. When you’re not in a rush back to work to earn money to leave again, you can approach travelling more as a mutual exchange.
Ever noticed that the bulk of stereotypes tend to pull from the poorest of that group? Both of economic class and any culture or nationality. Most rich Americans are those 20 something's with a stick up their arse and bad manners at some point. But why is it the less common (as a tourist) fat poor person likely traveling for the first and last time because they need to work to live and they saved for a decade or more to do so.
I think maybe it's just an outdated caricature of American Tourism, based in a generation that had much wider spread wealth and the price for travel was less burdensome. Now there's only the trustfund kids because their parents probably already have properties all over anyways, and this is just a fun "finding yourself" moment to them. Also the idea of Americans and overconsumption lends itself to the low hanging 'fat'. Maybe the physical traits we used to stereotype aren't as present in the privileged classes, but the disregard for their indulgence is just the same.
@@seapeajones you won't see a lot of poor people traveling the world let alone a vacation. As most poor people in America can't afford a vacation inside the country let alone traveling. Most jackass tourists are rich compared to the average and "average" Americans. But the stereotypes remain despite most average people never getting to travel once in their life outside the country.
One of the things that makes me feel better if I want to travel to a certain country is if I already know a local there (either from an online space or perhaps someone I met in my own country who's from a different country) and can visit them rather than just staying at a hotel. This of course is not easy and accessible for everyone but I appreciate being guided through the host country by someone who I already have a connection with and am able to build a reciprocal relationship with from the get-go. There are many countries I wouldn't feel comfortable traveling without being invited there because else it feels exploitative, especially if I don't know a lot about the country. This is of course not to say you should seek out random people from random countries you wanna travel to and befriend them for that sole purpose. But if you happen to befriend people from different cultures where you are right now, it can be the start of a beautiful reciprocal relationship of cultural exchange (and also facilitate learning about their culture and language).
i like to travel just to ride the trains in the area and visit rail museums, so my idea is just to not make a mess of things, and i should be relative fine. I think having an existing interest in the place will help in making the most of your trip. i think i should take advantage of the Internet more to speak to locals about what to do aswell. also remember to explore your home first it can be cheaper and more accessible. with the rise of holidaying abroad many uk seaside towns are struggling or practically dead as the old practice of getting a train and bus to the seaside for a day has reduced or died out. all said i am dreaming of the day i get to ride the Florence Rome direttissima and i hope to do so in a polite and respectful manner.
Years ago, I was in a wedding on Nassau Bahamas. The taxi driver who took us to our hotel had a whole spiel providing the history of the islands. At one point, my partner and I asked for more information about one of the locations he'd mentioned and he was caught short. It became apparent that for however many thousands of tourists he'd driven from the airport, we were the first to ask follow up questions. We were already planning on doing so, but we tipped heavy that trip.
organisations like workaway and couchsurfing allow us to travel with a give and take model, they're focused on cultural exchanges. couchsurfing is built on the basis that if you are staying with hosts around the world, you will offer your home up to guests as well. i've done it and its an amazing way to get to know a country in a much more genuine deep way
Personally, I try to travel by bike and train. I dont do the enviroment much damage and experience a countries scenery on a way deeper level than traveling by car. I havent found a good solution to try interacting with locals, since I know most people are nice, but I am personally very anxious. And this is only really a good solution for those, who live on continents they want to explore and are healthy enough. I personally live in europe and since it is so diverse, I enjoy exploring it. To visit asia, maybe someday I can travel there by train. But to america? I dont know. And I understand US- citizens. The Us is diverse, but in the end, if you want to explore other countries, you basically have to fly there
Being from an island, unfortunately trains aren't an option for me, but I wish more places had them! And I wish we had more environmentally friendly ferry options as well.
@Andrewism YES! ferries mentioned! also, it's an unfortunate trend in many places that their railways were built for colonial resource extraction and were left in such disrepair that they weren't able to be repurpoused for serving the local community before it was too late. but for hope you need only look at the herculean effort by the Indian people in transforming their network with over 20,000km! of gauge conversion and over 90% electrification! no matter how bad it seems there is much hope for a better future.
@@VonRibbitt Depends on type and granularity of diversity. Geographically the contiguous U.S. (not including Alaska, Hawaii, and other territories) encapsulates seven climates and is nearly the same size as Europe. The least interesting geography is probably the flat, empty, and mostly tree-less midwest but in that area we have 423 national park sites. While a lot of people think the U.S. has little to no culture it's important to remember the living descendants of the original people of North America and their impact on it still very much exists. Native American art, music, and religion still exist and are preserved by their descendants. Culturally the U.S. while often containing mainly immigrants from other countries has developed it's own culture. As an example Jazz grew from a mix of African folk and French Impressionist music, but is ultimately a reflection of the African-American populations of New Orleans where it originated. This process has continued with the US being a very large cultural exporter in music, film, and other media. There are plenty of dishes that got their start in the U.S., one that's commonly associated with exotic food in France is steak tartare but it was actually made in the U.S. but fell out of favor here. People from all over the globe immigrate, but mainly to larger cities. In my small home town (population 4,000) I've known immigrants from the Phillipines, Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, Germany, and two from the UK (one from Scotland the other from England). Language wise, while our dominant language is English, you can't go to far in the U.S. without encountering Spanish in some capacity. In fact with given population statistics and growing Hispanic populations it may one day be the more common first language. A lot of people imagine the US as complete cultural homogeny, but regionally they are plenty of differences. Between say Georgia and North Carolina, two very close states, there's quite a bit of variation. While both are broadly southern US with all the implications of that, there are nuances. For example NC puts vinegar on pulled pork barbecue where Georgia uses a ketchup base (Florida uses mustard base if I recall). The local produce is different thus what is in season and local dishes are influences. A lot of my friends from up north are disgusted by things like pear salad which is not something they eat up there. There's also accent variation, people from NC talk pretty nasally compared to other southern states, whereas the southern accent many think of is a deep texas accent. The common vernacular is also very different if you ask about certain things like what the strip of grass between a sidewalk and the road is called. Sorry for the long reply, tldr the US is big, and full of 330 million people, don't take for granted local culture and definitely don't forget the indigenous Native Americans and their descendants. The country is not a Hollywood Anywheresville.
If somebody could set up airship tourism in the next few decades (if anyone thinks that's absurd, look up what Sergey Brin is doing right now) they could make a fortune. Call me a tinfoil hat enjoyer, but I think the hindenburg disaster set more sustainable tourism back by about 90 years.
Not a big trip but I'll be crossing the border for a couple days in a while and I wanted to see this video. As a Greek, I've seen how tourism affects people and especially how hard it's lack shook the economy during the pandemic. But I've also experienced the negative part. Giant parts of our culture and areas aren't even "Greek" anymore, but just a huge playground for tourists. It has become fake and made up, rather than an actual place with value. There are huge "cities" only made to attract tourists and foreigners, and hotels and cities like that eat up a LOT of water and electricity that the locals need. My grandparents that live in a highly touristic area often don't even have running tap water because of the nearby hotel. It's insane. Thank you for the vid. Bravo!
I live in canada, and much of this is the same where I live. The rich are making it difficult to live and pushing all the people who live and working here out of our homes. They are aggressive and make the environment the same as well with bigger vehicles and more pollution in the air. They are not nice either and have zero regard for the environment around them, usually causing the fires that displace a lot of animal and human life. A lot of these people are aggressive both with their vehicles and in person to themselves and the locals. Usually, these people have a home here that is not in use year round wasting land and housing. The government is pushing this and creating another America clone. It is really gross, and it gives me little hope to succeed in my goals.
I’m a student studying regenerative tourism and without a doubt cultural tourism is the way of the future! The goal is tourism should always be to improve the quality of life in a destination, though that has not been the case unfortunately
That's interesting! What are some researchers/organisations you would recommend checking out? I'm also studying regenerative/degrowth tourism and been into many of Higgins-Desboilles' papers. Thanks!
I'm not much of a traveler, what few trips I did make were back when I was in college and were for educational purposes. I did live for several years in an area that had a lot of tourists, the easiest ones to deal with came from Japan, the worst from our own country, the U.S. I tend to do my traveling via the internet now or by visiting local woodlands within walking or biking range, I personally find towns and cities to be unattractive and stressful. I would have liked at one time to have been able to visit rural Asia or Europe just to observe the farming and gardening practices but that was always beyond my financial means and seeing as I'm somewhat of a hermit I don't think that I would have handled the boat trip very well. Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful week.
I love traveling but I hate being a tourist. I try to behave as a guest, to be mindful of customs and my surroundings, to learn at least some basic phrases, to be open towards locals yet not expecting that they return the favor. In short, I try behave like a decent human being. Just like I try at home. And of course, one can make mistakes. I sure did... But I try to learn from them. Why do so many people refuse to look beyond themselves for just a second. Then again, we can extend that question to nearly every problem we humans experience on a personal and grander scale. Honestly, it makes me freeze up. I do not want to contribute to all the bad. I guess that too can be extended to many things.
I lived in the south of Mexico making art for almost two years, and became friends with a local artist. We would often hang out at his self proclaimed “tourist trap” art taqueria and often talked about this. And he was very clear: don’t stop coming, don’t stop buying and don’t stop pestering the local authorities to improve the infrastructure and conditions for everybody. Engage with local issues and try to support. The authorities are more than happy to collect taxes and revenues, but rarely fed it back into the strained local community. His advice for me to pass on was to always eat and shop as locally as it goes, and that something looking small and dingy might be a good thing because the service level would be higher, the prices lower and 100% of the profit would go to the family running it, rather than seeking comfort at resorts owned by international corporations.
I have only ever traveled with a non-profit organization that has us perform volunteer work with local conservation and biology groups: weeding a decorative, invasive grass that has taken root among the Andes, identifying individuals in migratory sea turtle populations, replanting forests in the Scottish Highlands, and lots of trail work in a variety of places to repair the damage done by tourists. It's hard work, and fulfilling, and you get to see some stunningly beautiful locations.
Thanks for uploading this video, perfect timing. My family is taking me/I'm going on holidays to Fiji later this year, so I'm very glad to have seen this, so I can be better informed on the reality of tourism. Ideally I'd even be able to minimise my part in this exploitation too (hopefully, hoping for the best).
Thanks for the video, I remember the dread I felt from visiting the Bahamas there was a certain tension I just couldn’t shake off. So much luxury amidst stagnation if not outright underdevelopment.
anotha brilliant video! long(ish) story short: "East Africa" with a capital E and A is a european exonym that's political, whereas eastern Afrika with a lower case e is purely geographical. longer story: i am a luo from kenya, and would like to point out something subtle yet important: when u mention our region, u say "East Africa". i prefer to write eastern Afrika, as the descriptors North Africa, West Africa, and u guessed it, South Africa, plus further afield North Wales, North America etc. are all exonyms, which are legacies of the activities of eurocentricist imperialists. ❤
In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord talks about "vacation" as representing a place that exists outside of time and production, a place that the wealthy can visit to disconnect from the realities of their exploiting while laborers dream of vacation as a short break from our brutal lives. I think for him, and I see you touching on this as well, the vacations represent this exotic "other" that we can always visit for "a taste of paradise" so that we don't challenge the hegemonic forces where we live. The whole time, the vacation economy wreaks havoc on the locals, who become a parody of their own culture for watching observers. In Everything For Everyone by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, they propose the alternative of the "sojourn" where people travel as part of a process of connecting with far away communities, working there, sharing knowledge, building connections. I think that provides a worthwhile alternative. Because as you're noticing, vacations are not sustainable for economies, people, or our planet.
I moved from Georgia in the US to Yantai, China for college then worked there for 4 years. i studied and practiced a ton and became fluent in Mandarin, making cross cultural freinds was incredible. I found a great jou in connecting when my language skills were subpar was through cooking. I would cook for my friends and show them the foods i grew up with and they would return the favor and show me incredible local things. Now, back in America with the benefit of a great crew of friends around the world i usually just go visit a friend when i want to see a new place in the world. I think learnign a language and the cultural exchange assocsiated helped me open my mind, empathasize with people more, and forced me to rethink so many things i took for granted. The cost was not small menatlly, im struggling to find community and dealing with the culture shock of coming back to the US after 8 years in China. Id still recommend learning another language and going to school in another country but dont underestimate the culture shock.
Thank you so much for taking about this, i have not watched the whole thing but I am always very self concious when I travel because its hard to really get an idea of the "impact" you have whenever you do. I will enjoy this for sure!
What is ethical tourism? Where is ethical tourism? Adventurers and explorers? People are going to be tourists. I want to get out of the city. Isn't it better to attempt to be ethical? Speaking idealistically, I would like to cooperate with anyone who wants to start an ethical tourist company. I like this channel, but I sometimes struggle with the theoretical vs the practical/realistic aspects of what is being said. Are there sources for learning more about ethical tourism?
I take offense to the characterization of US tourists as being the worst. It's clearly us Brits that are the worst behaved. We've gone on a lot of drunken rampages in other people's countries, we deserve the title.
I mostly went on holidays to Europe, and I never really liked staying on a resort. I'm more of a home-body by nature, but I love reading about other places more than anything else. I didn't really understand the full ethical issues of tourism (beside the usual issues with gentrification and so on). This was a beautifully written video; I learned a lot, thank you very much
I consider myself to not be a tourist. The closest thing I can get to that is biking fifty miles out of town to simply be alone for a few days at an old cemetery that marks where my family used to live. And now Verbo is gentrifying those woods. Nobody can afford to live there anymore. It's all short term rental.
My tourism as an adult has mostly been local trips and flights home to the Midwest, USA. I come from a tourist town there so I already kind of know what's annoying to experience as one of the locals. I didn't understand the draw as a local because all of the pleasant months out of the year I was working overtime and the only reprieve was the cold, dark unemployed months of the winter. If you were productive in the summer, you wouldn't be reduced to ramen and peanut butter sammiches in the winter. Now that I go back with a few nickels to rub together and a couple weeks of summer off, I totally get why they come. I hope in the future we come to more equitable system.
I love your videos, they are very helpful... Up to where you say post pandemic. We are still in a pandemic, and i know this acutely, because i was disabled by it. Pandemic protection should be part and parcel for this movement. I got further disabled by my last infection. We won't have a chance to implement any of this info if we are all too disabled to care for each other.
100% I have Covid19 right now and there are new variants all the time, we are definitely still in a pandemic. Even if it's starting to wind down, it's still not over :(
I could never travel but ended up doing travel and tourism in college. EVERY essay I did was about my rage at unethical tourism. It was so funny being so angry when everyone else was talking about rivers in Venice
Both for environmental and financial reasons, I’ve become a big fan of “local travel.” I’ve yet to explore all the parks, museums, and historical sites within a couple hours from me. And I live in Ohio, which is not exactly known for its tourism lol. Even within my own city, there’s always more to explore a bus ride away.
(semi-)subliminal usufruct! 💗 In my adult life, I've only really traveled to places with a more-or-less-similar economic status... so I, too (13:55), haven't gone down the path where some of the issues you talk about here are in stark relief. And yet, I've still endeavored to live similar ideas to 13:05... gifting, sharing, exchanging... 💝
To be perfectly honest, I wanted to meet equals and avoid exploitation as much as I could. But still, I'd like to meet as many people as possible and local people as well. Just as trying to learn a bit of the language. I still felt like I exploited people. And I experience it as well in for instance Amsterdam (my country). So I don't travel at all any more. But that limits the views as well.. So, thanks for this great video and I hope (really sincerely hope) things change, because I'd like to go places again ....
stay with locals its such a big difference in quality of your trip, and the money goes to a family that you form a relationship with rather than a hotel chain.
Recent experience I've had regarding this topic: I went to Tenerife for a week with a friend and we were mostly staying in small hostels in less visited areas of the island but for one night we went to playa de las americas and it was HELL. The whole coast there consists of ugly hotel blocks, side by side, never ending, every 10meters on the street someone starts talking to you selling you cheap shit from china, SO much trash everywhere, tons of party tourists growling aroung and peeing on the deck chairs on the beaches at night and doing lines and lines of cocine on them, then during daylight the all-inclusive-families come out and enjoy their beach day on these. It was awful, and we saw lots of "ghost towns" that were built just for rich people from abroad to spend 2 months in winter there, 90% of them just empy while we were there out of high season. I felt bad just being there and probably supporting all that just because I have flown there and increased demand by doing so. However, it was really important to me to still be as good of a tourist as I can, we stayed at small hostels that belonged to locals, so we had to get in touch with them, use some of our Spanish skills because not everyone knew English, got food only at local supermarkets or restaurants. I was also happy that the hostels were just regular houses that didn't alter the city in an unnnatural way like the hotel blocks did. And we ended up being sorry for all the all-inclusive-tourists who probably didn't see a fraction of the REAL island and its people and landscape/cityscape as we did because they get to stay in their hotel and have everything they need right there. But in the end, the amount of tourists is the issue, small hostels wouldn't be able to provide enough space and it also wouldn't work the way some tourists behave when theyre on vacation ... I think often times we should limit the number of tourists at some point if the place just can't sustain it, but yea capitalism won't let that happen. Also - slow travel. Like student exchanges etc, REALLY force you to get in touch, learn the language, culture, get to know the people and their ways.
I feel like this video needed to bring up all the ways tourism exists and give a genuine way on how to do it ethically, if you're briefly engaging with a culture and country the expectation of learning a language is way too high, if you plan to see a couple countries on the same continent, there's no way to possibly learn all the languages or create in depth relationships with locals. locals do not want to be your best friend when you've just met, it's weird and infantilising, no one is owned a connection that is earned and gained over a long period of time, tourists cannot make these connections. also you did not mention other ways people stay and get to countries. in the EU you can drive take a ferry and backpack to everypart no plane required, also did not mention domestic tourism. I feel like you could mention more that the people who can travel to all inclusive hotel in a fancy plan with all planned itinerary ARE RICH. the avg tourist is skewed very much to the rich, most don't get to travel past their neighbor countries if even that, with the cost of a visa and passport+ food, shelter etc
"A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid is an amazing and short book that deals with a lot of these ideas. One of the quotes has always stuck with me: "That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives-most natives in the world-cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go-so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself."
i think the loneliness epidemic exacerbates this. if your interactions outside your closest loved ones are often limited to economic ones within your own community (customer-service worker, employee-employer), then what hope do you have of authentic connection somewhere else? in a way, we're relegated to tourists in our own homes. society is structured around consumption, not connection. we are left with little incentive or opportunity to forge relationships at all.
I live in a car-centric hellhole, and since I would only travel out of state via bicycle or train, I'm stuck. But I did have an interesting 26 mile walk during the pandemic.
I live on the very tourist-centric Cape Cod. The Cape is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the US, but the road infrastructure here simply cannot handle it. There are two bridges over the canal onto the Cape for a total of four lanes each way; this cannot support the tens of thousands of people who come and go every day in the summer. Bumper-to-bumper traffic jams over five miles long are an everyday occurrence here. There are plenty of other problems too; not least of which is how the tourism industry jacks up the cost of living. Massachusetts is already an incredibly expensive state to live in but the Cape is far worse. Housing is expensive because all of the available housing is being snapped up to convert into AirBNBs or bought up by wealthy out-of-staters to use as a summer home, everything else is expensive because store owners have realized they can charge tourists an arm and a leg for basic necessities and they'll still pay, so even the locals get to pay the tourist tax. Tourists are also all-to-often rude, reckless, and inconsiderate, leaving trash all over our beaches and driving like lunatics down residential streets (many streets down here have a sign on them saying something to the effect of "drive like your kids live here; mine do"). I think it's an inevitable result of being in a place you have no long-term stake in. I'm always told about how good tourists are for local businesses, and maybe that's true to some extent, but you'll be hard-pressed to find an unskilled job around here that pays more than minimum wage (I.E. the same you'd make doing that job in Boston, or Springfield, or Taunton, or Fall River, or any other place in Massachusetts), so it doesn't seem like a whole lot of that tourist money is trickling down. I'm sure the owners and shareholders of the businesses here love all the revenue they rake in by fleecing tourists but the rest of us aren't seeing very much of it (with the possible exception of restaurant workers, who do make very good tips on the Cape, at least during the summer). Factor in the higher cost of living and the absurd price of housing and I think most people would be economically better off without tourism. Would be lose some jobs? Yeah, maybe, but considering how many people on the Cape during any given year aren't permanent residents, maybe we have a glut of unnecessary jobs anyways. Of course I don't really want to ban tourism; before my family moved to the cape, we lived in Taunton and visited here quite regularly. That made US tourists. But tourist-trap areas need higher minimum wages, better transport infrastructure (toll roads where locals can get discounted passes for example), and more housing, especially lower-income housing, along with perhaps stronger housing subsidy programs.
Coming from a place of priviledge that many may not have, I would like to say that I think when and where possible it would be a good idea to stay in places for an extended period of time to better facilitate the cross-cultural communication and understanding. Living in a foreign country for a year + will force you to engage with life on new terms and see the place you're visiting from a lens other than that of a tourist. The key is to break out of the bubble of others from your same culture who may also be living there, and make friends with and truly try to understand the locals. Once again, not everyone has this opportunity, but if you do get it, please embrace the chance and don't let fear of the unknown get in your way. It will certainly enrich your life and foster new ways of understanding others if you allow it to.
I've been on an all inclusive vacation once when I was a kid, and that was a flight to Crete, but honestly I much prefer going on camping trips. Why would I want to leave Europe, or even my own country when there's so much diverse culture and beautiful landscapes to enjoy within driving/train distance?
Tourism is a blessing and a curse. I love that the now very popular movie, No Hard Feelings has as one of the backdrops, the issue of locals being driven out and outpriced of their homes because of outsiders who came as tourists wanting to purchase retirement and holiday homes there, without any consideration to the long-time locals there. The same happens in our Caribbean islands.
Wow the first 2:30 of this video could have been some other creators entire video. You are very good at communicating, thank you for putting this out. It is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but I did not understand it at this depth
I live in a tourist town in Florida. A large number of attractions are staffed by unpaid high school kids doing required service hours. I got so sunburned teaching tourists the sting-ray shuffle and cleaning the trash they left on the beach.
I am genuinely glad to not have been sucked into either mass tourism or party tourism ... in case of the former, growing up traveling with just my two parents when we did travel (usually having as much issue with big tourist groups as other people trying to go about their business), as well as very early being given the lecture of "photigraphing a person as the focus of an image without their permission is illegal" when as a kid I was wanting to document home. For the second part ... I've recently gone abroad for studies to a country famous back home for its holiday locations in a different area to where im studying. With that I've met both the group of other exchange students here and a collection of insanely friendly and sweet local students, in part by being rather shy around other exchange folks. It was somewhat horrifying though getting glimpses of their experiences ... for example 3 months in people discovering a common payment method that you would find out about if you ate at campus with a local even once. I didn't even know the local language much (which is rather shameful .. I learned rather intensively beforehand bt then so much was happening that I fell out of practice, hard). The second bit of horror was uhh in a groupwork not having heard from a certain groupmate in weeks of attempted communication ... to get sent a picture of them having a drunk evening in one of the tourism spots of the country. The one other experience has been interacting with informal settlements in person for the first time (which in this case beyond slightly worse and less regulated contruction seem ro share common standards of living here). As much of a foreign experience as it has been, I have no photos of the places, nothing but my stories to convey my experiences and impressions (as someone easily able to take 100+ photos in one hour of visiting a tourist attraction). Because it felt wrong. I've only walked through those spaces twice because they feel semi-private to those living there. I don't have a good reason to disrupt that. I don't know the languages enough to be anything but a foreigner. And I most certainly don't get to make an attraction out of the residents' lives. It feels wrong to photograph beyond architecture, nature, or sites specifically set up for public presentation (like zoos or museums). Lastly, it was interesting becoming the attraction myself at times. So many photos now exist of me that I will never get to see, made by people that didn't pick up on the idea that I had business I was going about before they called out to me. It's been a uniquely dehumanising experience. Idk how to sum this up since it kinda just devolved into facets of tourism as I've experienced it recently
Most ASEAN countries are dealing with this too. Many of our 3rd/4th world countries and regions are overly dependant on Tourism despite being rich in natural resources.
I appreciate your perspective and the information of your videos! Your message deserves to reach a larger audience, and I think you'd draw more engagement if you showed your face in your videos. Either way, I've been a longer time subscriber and will continue to watch your videos! Keep up the good work :D
@andrewism I remember you were asking in a community post a while back if we ever see ads when we watch your videos, I just saw one now, it was inserted after the 2 nd chapter,but it's for fundraising (that save Brachi campaign)
It's not directly related to this video's topic, but the reference you made to the exploitation involved in sex tourism reminded me of a topic I'd be very interested in seeing explored in a future video: how people should view and engage with the sex industry as it currently exists. All of the discourse I've heard around SW deals with the topic from either a purely theoretical perspective or through the lens of structural changes that could be made so that those who want to do that kind of work are free to do so without anyone being coerced into it in one way or another. But it's been incredibly difficult for me to find perspectives on how the sex industry should be treated in the here-and-now, where those structural changes don't exist. And when I ask other leftists who support full decriminalization how I, as a potential client of SWers, should view the power dynamic that currently exists between myself and SWers given current conditions, so far the most common answer I get is a resounding "...Huh. Idk actually." (For the record I say this as someone who supports full decrim and destigmatization of SW)
I think this kind of ethical consequentialism is particularly absurd given the atrocities tied up in our global supply chains. As long as you're not committing crimes and not being a dick while on holiday, your tourism is perfectly ethical.
10:40 “Bad manners” is so disturbingly euphemistic a to describe that, I found myself cringe laughing. This is still happening, sadly. There are some very “Ill-mannered” tourists in Palestine and Ukraine.
Tangential but oh my god “under capitalism, you have to accept all the cookies.” or more simply “you have to accept all the cookies” is now in my vocabulary this phrase really needs to be popularized
I notice that the people who talk the most about "ethical tourism" are the people who travel the most. It seems like a way to distance themselves from the other tourists who are there doing the same thing. Don't act like you're vacation is more ethical than someone else because you are a more experienced traveler. Feels to me like it's one group of (usually wealthy) people saying "I travel a lot and see the world and that's a good thing when I do it. When other people do it, they do it wrong. Therefore they should probably stay home and leave the vacationing to the more civilized, worldly or experienced travelers. Saying that "I interact authentically with the locals" doesn't impress me any more than a guy who says "I had a great conversation with the bar tender at the resort" Sometimes it might be more respectful of a culture to stay within the bounds of a normal travel package. Maybe locals and tribes don't want you going into their land and trying to "authentically interact" with their family and culture and take photos of them. Maybe just stay with the tour group. If they want to interact with tourists maybe they will go see the tourist.
While i travel, i try and fix one thing in each place I stay. I don't do it as often as I'd like to, but thats my goal. Sometimes its just a wobbly chair, but it makes me feel useful and more equal to my hosts.
The Masai thing is real. In my country, if you're seeing an "aithentic Masai" performing for and sellong uou wares, you aren't seeing an authentication Masai doing those things. They refuse to engage eith foreigners and we locals know this.
I'm kind of on a couple year stint of not flying and I wanna keep that going. Issue is if you limit the radius which you can travel that might limit your horizons. Given most people don't fly at all maybe this is not rly a problem tho. Idk
I like to meet the locals when i travel, if they'll have me. Ill try to learn the language to at least a basic conversational level before I go, and use local amenities/services and transportation. I love learning about the history of places; so when i travel, at least a couple of days are just me walking around the places, going to a museum if there is one. And if i find a local willing to chat to me about the place, asking them directly. The people ive met around the world are so friendly to me, and usually happy to share their stories. And i always take that as a privilege. I am only ashamed that as a tourist the most i can offer in exchange is my money, which feels impersonal and transactional. I would love to participate in other ways, to give back to the community. But without feeling like a white saviour, or belitelling the culture and disrespecting it, I dont know how yet. Maybe my own stories are enough, but ill never know.
Sincerest apologies for the editing mistake at 10:54🙏🏽 otherwise, hope you all enjoyed the video!
Jumpscared my ass.
It scared the shit out of me ngl
jeez that shit was creepy and i first thought it was some kind of style choice. great jumpscare indeed.
Nice the CC can fill the blank.
it got me paying attention as i was dozing off while drawing tbh
It's really such a shame that AIRBNB has been ruined by the property investors. It used to be a nice way to imerse yourself in s place and give your money to a local rather than a random hotel.
It's honestly funny how Airbnb has gotten so bad that it makes the hotel industry look good and ethical in comparison(hotel industry is still bad in case that wasn't obvious)
I still don't get why it's called bnb. Real bnbs give you breakfast
True. At least you'd hope the hotels would improve, but no, not really.
@@TheMysteryDriverisn't the bed and breakfast made of air?
Such immersive/authentic options existed before and still do, but they aren't easy to find, which AirBnB solved indeed really well
I grew up in a tourist trap and learned to hate them pretty quickly, but as an adult who travels that makes it easy to remember that the people in these quaint little villages are people too. Be nice, be considerate, and always remember that you are a guest.
If it wasn't the same 5 villages of any type it would be much more bearable.
We have one campground and maybe 50 beeds among 5k residents and I could easily bare more people visiting but less than 5km up and 20km downstream there are towns with a much worse ratio (20/80 allredy is uncomfortable, not to mention things like Mediterranean islands or thise in the Pacific)
I live on one now, often one so expensive that it's employees cannot afford to live there. I live in my car to afford the rest of the lifestyle it affords me. All because people care more about the real estate prices than the employees trying to live there and contribute long term.
I currently live in a tourist trap and have lived close to one before. tourists make the worst customers, especially when they go to normal stores that aren't part of the theme park or resort. This is Walmart, not Disney world. We don't bend over backwards to make your day perfect. It's amazing how people dehumanize locals when they travel.
Torons = Morons + Tourists
Especially in towns with tourism as their main industry, visitors there are under the impression that - like Disney Land - all of this exists _for them_. They confuse hospitality for entitlement.
Whenever we went to visit family and stay with aunts and uncles, our parents always sat us down and gave us this speech: "Hospitality is a two-way thing, not a one-way thing. The role of the courteous and humble guest contributes as much to the visit as that of the gracious host. "
Which translates to "I know you don't pick up your towels or offer to wash the dishes at home but you better G.D. do it while you're here" lol
But it's a lesson I take with me whenever I travel.
I remember very vividly two American women walking down the street when I was coming from school, hitting me over the head with a flower bouquet, and not even turning their heads to apologize. I've seen tourists take pictures of people living their lives without their consent, like we are zoo animals, like our way of life is somehow so special and different and exotic. I've seen the city become more and more design to appeal to tourist's sensitivities instead of our own. The rents become unlivable because of gentrification. Everything gets more and more expensive. And while tourists enjoy the wonders of travel, we struggle with child labour, homelessness, lack of access to water and food, and they just don't see it because they stick to the "aesthetic" parts of the city, and those that do see it rarely ever care. It's like they are hitting all of us with that metaphorical flower bouquet. Sometimes I don't think they even see us as people...
You know they don't see us as people. We're there for their entertainment and if they move there they say terrible comments such as how it would be better if we didn't exist. As the years go by you see their vision become reality and see less and less of your kin folk. And the remaining kin folk you do see are impoverished and broken.
Sigh,
Sigh,
Sigh!!!
Ironically, as am American who grew up in a touristy city (Hollywood) I would frequently notice typically Asian tourists taking pictures of me and other stereotypical California American girls (tall and blonde). Objectification by tourists can affect anyone, so I always grew up very aware of how to act when traveling as to not be like all the tourists I’d experienced
Your culture is exotic to most people on Earth.
@@xaviercopeland2789 who cares? doesnt make too much of a difference
I think it can someone make a difference. I was on holiday in a country that does Halloween in a big way (not the US or UK), unlike my own culture. There were loads of families out late with kids in adorable costumes, and it was tempting to take pictures. But a) those are other people’s children, not a public spectacle, and b) it wouldn’t be fair for me to create the feeling in these kids that they are a commodity in their own homes. With adults it may be different, especially if you have the language skills to ask first ( “Your clothing looks wonderful. Is it for a special occasion? May I take a photo so I can remember it?”) but I’ma guest in their city and it felt important to be polite.
As someone who was visibly not of the same ethnicity as them, if anything I was the spectacle! A few people started but no one took photos of me.
6:39 Thank you for bringing that up! I’m from Greece, and the situation with hyper tourism is very infuriating. Our country has basically become a giant playground for all manners of foreign visitors that will come here, visit the same three or four famous landmarks, go to the same three or four famous islands and are basically just trying to party as hard as they can, ignoring the local way of life or the local culture. Places like Santorini or more infamously Mykonos, don’t even really feel “Greek” anymore. They are just a caricature of what a tourist believes “Greece” is. Wage slavery is just the tip of the iceberg. I remember a case from that summer, where in one Greek island, they couldn’t find a house for the new schoolteacher, since almost all houses are rooms-to-let!
The situation is more serious with the local “beach mafia” as I’ll call them: businessmen that create shops in beaches (beach bars and restaurants) and they would fill the beach in front with deck chairs and umbrellas. Now, Greek law says that in such cases, 50% of the beach is reserved for use of the shop, and the rest is free for anyone else to use. Unfortunately, most businesses just ignore that and fill the entire beachfront with chairs and umbrellas (that you need to pay to use) and are often driving away locals that want to go the beach. In another case, a beach bar owner had his security men throw an elderly couple off the beach, despite the fact that they were using the “free” part of it. I think the old gentleman hurt his arm in the process and had to be hospitalized.
Thankfully, among other things, a new social movement arose against such practices, the “Towel Movement” (Κίνημα της Πετσέτας) where people would occupy beaches with their towels and drive off the big businesses. There were even some confrontations between them and the police.
All in all, things in Greece are pretty shit right now. Prices to travel in certain regions of the country are so high, that many local people that may have families there cannot visit them as often. As we say over here: “Greece is a country where everyone has fun except for the Greeks”. All in all, I hope “untourism” becomes more of a thing, and replace all that bullshit that goes on.
That beach example sounds very reminiscent of the situation in Jamaica. Business owners everywhere gobbling up and privatizing the commons however they can
@@Andrewism yea,it's basically like that.The right to roam has been almost completely trampled over by private interests.
That all sou ds horrible. To solve it, that seems like a failure of the government. Tourists themselves can't actually fix local issues.
Know the feeling, in Cornwall whole small village’s have become nothing but air b&bs, and I’ve heard horror stories of entire city centres becoming air b&bs in tourism heavy city’s. I really think governments need to step up and bring in legal restraint’s to air b&bs and the amount of property they can hold, it’s getting ridicules
I hate to read it. I love Greece. My girlfriend was from Athens. And I try to learn a bit of Greek as well (at least I can read it 😂). But yeah, same things in the Netherlands, but than 100x worse in Greece. And after being exploited by EU banks and the drop in living standards, it's a gorgeous country with great people in a pretty shit situation...
"We have ceased to be what we are; we are becoming what we seem" oh holy crap. and it's true of so many of us.
Italy was manufactured by it's gov in like the 50s. It's not a new phenomenon and sometimes it's used to create a cultural identity
During the pandemic, in a tourism-focused Eastern European capital city, a whole host of people had to sell their homes in the middle of the city and move to the outskirts because it was too costly for them. A lot of these homes have been bought up by companies that work with AirBnB, Booking, and other short-term rental sites. Literally watched so many places around me get snatched up (and we're considering leaving ourselves once we can find another pet-friendly rental).
And it was kind of miserable before that happened: You can barely walk through the pedestrian areas without having to yell at a tourist group to get out of the way (and there's, like, 10 or more 30+ people tourist groups being led around at any given time, just standing in the way so that they can learn about this plaque to Mozart). There's nothing except dozens of souvenir shops (which I have no idea how they *all* survived during the pandemic other than the fact they have to be money laundering schemes), convenience marts, and restaurants. The nearest grocery store is designed primarily for tourists, and everything else so so far away. Bars upon bars and constant shouting and fights in the evening. Disruptive and misogynist stag-dos constantly harassing local women, particularly after they've gotten off the mobile party beer-cart. All those absolutely ridiculous tourist buses taking up all the walking spaces. Being yelled at by (mostly) British and French tourists for "getting in the way" and "ruining their picture" while I'm just trying to *go to work*. And all of the trash and broken bottles everywhere, especially in the morning after all the tourists have gone partying.
Hell, the fact that the city has basically crowded tourists into *one* area and not making people engage in the whole of the city.
It's so tiring all the time, I swear.
Prague?
@@raphaelbosco8333my thoughts exactly
Which city? Budapest?
That's so awful! To be fair, British and French people are still a-holes even when you're a tourist visiting _their_ country lol
Everytime I hear someone bring up tourism to diversify the economy I grown internally.
I always say Trinis are truly blessed to not have to put up with an influx of tourists upon which we'd be economically dependent. Just imagining our landmarks overrun with disrespectful visitors makes my skin crawl
@@Andrewism I am curious about how it is during Carnaval. Is there an influx of tourists then, or is it mostly local? An American, I went to T&T in April of 1983 or so and it was lovely. I went with a Trini expat and stayed with his family and we were just Soca fans together, meeting everyone we could, seeing everyone perform that we could.
@@ginkgobilobatreeCarnival always brings in a large number of tourists. There aren’t any official statistics (that I’m aware of) which show how they’re divided but they tend to be members of the diaspora, friends of the diaspora and interested persons. The problem that we face with carnival as well is that the commodified parts of it are the ones that are packed to capacity. The traditional events have been dwindling in size for years, but there seems to be a growing interest in some of them (due in part to increased youth participation and engagement.
Aren't groan & grown different words?
@spaghettiisyummy.3623 is this really all you got from this comment dude?
I try to make it a point to give my money to the locals, going to their businesses and attempting to live among them. I don't care to have the bougiest experience when I travel, and the last thing I want to do is go into someone else's home and ruin something. I want to live as the locals do, so long as they'll have me. As a backpacker, thank you for this video.
Stingy backpackers are one of my pet peeves. When they are determined to pay the same as a local or give out endlessly about being overcharged for something. First, its small change to you, let it go. Second, your on holiday, go spend you money and have fun!
@@AlG214people having a problem with how other people live their lives when it has no effect on them is one of my pet peeves, lol. There’s certainly a line, but OP doesn’t seem near it. What’s wrong with paying the same for anything as a local?
@@AlG214this is an interesting take. I understand the tourist tax for areas that are catered to tourism. I lived in nyc and was able to access certain spaces for free because I was a resident. My taxes and money in general went directly to the local economy.
And as someone who travels for long periods of time, not necessarily on holiday, I’m aware of the restaurants with local and tourist menus (usually their food is… not great, so I avoid in general), venues and parks with different prices for residents. Again, I get it… for smaller nations, a lot of money for tourism does not reach the local economy, so people try to capitalize when possible. Tourist pay the tax for ease and convenience in other countries, and many locals can’t afford to live in tourist areas.
Being able to travel is a privilege and comes with alot of assumptions. With that said, I understand the frustration and exhaustion in feeling singled-out and up-charged due to your nationality and assumed ignorance of the culture and local economy. There are certain situations that are acts of extortion and scams. So I think it’s contextual.
At the end of the day tho, connecting with communities, having respect and knowledge tends to decrease the chances of those types of interactions.
@@5hirtandtieler Sorry, reading back, my post came across as more shady towards the OP than intended. I was actually agreeing with her and adding to it as she said "I try to make it a point to give my money to the locals". I was talking about backpackers who seem to do everything in their power to give as little as possible to the locals.
@ariesmry Also to make it clear, this only really applies when rich people travel in poor countries. When you go to say, India, you are getting everything for a fraction of what you would pay in the EU/US, so why argue about a few cents difference?
@@AlG214 Context is a funny thing - in that light I can see what you were originally trying to say. In that case I agree! I’m glad you clarified :)
As someone with a weak passport, international travel itself is prohibitive for me and others like me, on top of the costs involved. I at least have the privilege to financially afford travel, I am thankful for it. But I think free movement that is also ethical and sustainable would be a welcome change.
On the bright side, many of us do have history, culture and nature in our backyards (so to speak) that we may have never explored, so that might be a more affordable, accessible option that also is less impactful on the environment. Travel local just like you shop local, I guess?
Yes!!! Local travel is wonderful. I can't really afford international travel but I love going to the local museums and landmarks and all that.
But 4 hr flights instead of 2 month boat ride lmao. I'd be down for the boat ride
My Mexican husband can not visit the us because he’s married to me.
He has to be a citizen to set foot in the us.
@@FernandoTorrera I'm a Mexican too and can confirm. Getting a VISA is jumping through hoops and after months of wait they can still deny it to you for no reason lol
I used to live in Moscow and it would be cheaper and easier to fly to Europe or Thailand than to many beautiful parts of Russia. Consumerism sucks but it's also not very fun when you can't visit a place unless you know someone who can navigate this particular wilderness, and even proper accomodations might have a privy outside
One easy way to change the way you travel in privileged areas - doesn't work so well in "tourism colonies" - is through the various "volunteering for food and a roof over head" deals you can find on workaway, helpx and the like. A few years ago I travelled for 6 months staying in a place 1 month at a time, truly meeting people, learning languages and local spots, and actually helping! I don't think I could go back to snapping pictures any more.
thank you! this was very helpful and is exactly the kind of experience i've wanted to have with travel. i had no idea this stuff existed ❤ you're a lifesaver fr
I have a friend who is a traveling nurse all over the world. She has some crazy adventures all while helping people. I think this is the idea to have.
I live in a tourist town. On a typical weekend or town of 300-400 can double on size during shopping hours. During special events we are outnumbered by far. A lot of effort goes into the locals trying to cordon our private spaces off from the public facing spaces. Some of that is for our mental health, and privacy. Some is environmental. So on one side it is advantageous to locals to trod the established paths. "Stay on trail" and all that. But at the same time, going to resorts and never actually experiencing the culture and people that live in a place is really not the point of travel. In order for travel to actually break down barriers between people, we cannot go to the disnified versions we pay the wealthy capitalists for. We need to have the freedom to explore, within set limits. Yaya nuance. Nothing is simple, Yada Yada Yada.
People don't want to stop flying unfortunately yet that is a major problem for the world. We know about climate change but people don't to want to minimize plane traffic or military traffic.
Yada
Your last point about improving our own spaces so we feel less need to escape them for other people's reminds me of a bizarre contradiction I've often heard discussed in urbanist spaces. North Americans love the dense, walkable spaces with good public transit they find in Europe but oppose moves to make North American cities denser and more walkable or to improve their public transit. Obviously, the dynamics of visiting Europe are different than those of visiting poorer nations. It's just on this last point that I see an interesting connection.
I think you may have misinterpreted that people in North American (US and Canada) want more walkable cities but won’t try to make it happen. Many of us do try. But the efforts aren’t usually noticed or they are on a very small scale.
This is because it is a massive uphill battle working against NIMBYism, decades of unsustainable infrastructure development, decades of lack of infrastructure maintenance, and the never ending desire of people wanting to drive everywhere (includes places where they don’t have to). It is immensely difficult working against these forces since they are so grained into the culture.
I can personally attest that it is exhausting trying to be the change you want to see in the world.
@@MightyFineMan oh I don't deny those people exist. I'm one of them. I just also recognize there are people who love walkability abroad but oppose it at home.
@@allanjmcphersonoh ok, the wording of your initial comment was unclear to me; thanks for clarifying.
And yes, unfortunately I too have experienced people like what you described.
@@allanjmcpherson I absolutely wish we had better public transportation here in the US. It's a big reason I want to move to a city somewhere in Europe. I hate driving and feel personal vehicles are excessive, I'd much rather take public transportation, or walk.
Yes I absolutely agree with that. I live in the Midwest in a rural area, so I think it's a little different because 90% of the people around have never been to Europe, but they still would oppose public transit. There used to be trains that ran all over from town to town, now the nearest bus is like 10 miles away. I have a car and I like it, but I wouldn't use it nearly as much or might share it with a bunch of people if I could get on a train and busses.
Took a class in undergrad called the Anthropology of Tourism. Talked about everything you mentioned. One of the films we watched that has stuck with me is called Cannibal Tours. It's on YT. Takes place in Papua New Guinea and really highlights the exploitative practices of tourism, especially by the country's former imperial oppressors.
Also been to Seychelles. I went after I took that class, so I did a lot to avoid being a bad guest but also did a lot to observe and appreciate the cultures I found
Great video!
Hi, this is so interesting. Could you share some names of books or papers that you have used to study? I would be very interested in reading something about this topic :)
@@gorwew Oh man, it's been like 10 years... Sally Ness was the professor, but I don't see her on the UCR faculty page anymore. She has some publications and books though
On top of the harm to the local populations, I can't even say most travel is good from a selfish perspective. I did the classic travel around India and SE Asia for 6 months. I have since advised many against the experience. You are sold this idea that it will be deep and you will immerse yourself in a different culture, that it will change you for the better at some sort of fundamental level. I found this to be not the case in the slightest.
Most days I found myself wandering around, seeing temples, markets and beauty spots and then getting very drunk every evening. Every day felt like a Saturday. While this was quite fun and novel for a while, it quickly becomes repetative and vacuous. In most of these places, the tourists are pretty removed from the locals. The vast majority of people I spoke to were Europeans, Australians and North Americans. You move around so quickly and frequently that you never really get to know anyone or anywhere. You have the same conversations over and over. Its not even great for a night out, because most tourist places play generic music that will appeal to the largest number of people (I travelled in 2016, so I heard a LOT of Justin Bieber, brostep and tropical house)
I liken it to getting laid vs having a partner. Getting laid is great; not going to knock it; however, a one night stand is never going to change you like a deep and long relationship (romantic or platonic). If you really want to learn about a place and have it change you, you probably need to stay there for at least 6 months, probably a year or longer.
I agree that those seeking a deeper connection will likely not get it from brief visits. True cultural exchange and such will take far more immersion. Thanks for sharing your experience!
@@Andrewism I feel the whole of travel culture favours variety over depth and can feel like a tick box exercise. You see endless lists like "100 places to see before you die". Once you've been to a place once, you have done it and next time should be a new place. This is what happens when we view the world and experiences through a consumerist mindset.
I once spent about a month in Mexico, of which I spent about half of it on buses and trains. And I learned from the experience. I decided that when I travel, I would rather see more of fewer places. I would stay in the same place for longer and not make it a goal to cover as much territory as possible.
I feel like it takes about a week to really even know where I am. Am I staying in a real neighborhood, or a tourist zone. Staying in a tourist zone can be ok for part of a trip. . It's nice to have everything set up to meet your wants and needs. But you should at least know that is where you are, and it is not always clear at first. And then, one day, you notice that they only locals around you are the ones serving things to you and other travelers.
Of course, turning the world into a moving frat party is not a great way to learn about the world. If you spend a large part of your trip high and or drunk, you will pretty much just learn what it is like to be high and or drunk in a different climate. You are also likely to learn what it is like to be robbed, and possibly arrested, by people who speak a different language, enabling them to plan their actions against you right in front of you without you understanding them. Being alcohol and drug free makes that kind of thing much less likely to happen. It also makes your money stretch further.
Everyone wants sugar and nobody wants to eat their vegetables.
@@AlG214this!!
Be invested enough to seek an invitation, and bring the tools you need to work your art when you go. That way you can share with your hosts, and others who are made to share with you (whether they like it or not.)
Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” made me question so many things as someone who once aspired to travel extensively. I’m still sitting with a lot of those questions years later, so I’m glad you’re talking about this!
Im an unethical tourist, I have laser eyes and a Hawaiian button up shirt
don't forget the fanny pack and disposable camera
@@Andrewism Okay I do have a fanny pack but thats because I put my diabetic supplies in there... No no no Im type 1 diabetic XD
I had one classic American style “vacation” in my life, mom worked hard for me and siblings, it was a cruise to Bahamas.
I couldn’t stand it. Rich, rude drunk people on a boat, constantly overindulging, no desire to meet people or explore and learn, just stay at the “inclusive experience” and “cute authentic” tourist traps, plus many were outright hostile to ship staff and locals.
My mom also said something I’ll never forget.
*“I wonder if all these YT folks (on the ship with us) think these brothers and sisters are down here with a whole ahh country just to serve them”*
And now after this video and looking back, I really do think that. Look at Jamaicans not accessing their own beaches, Haiti is in crisis, Cuba is technologically 40 years behind, Puerto Ricans not having say over their own land, it goes on.
Hopefully this will change
I feel like this articulates some subconscious reservations about international travel I've had for a while; was asked recently to travel to a place I wanted to go, but found myself emotionally reluctant to commit to going; the best way I could put it was that I just wasn't ready to confront that relationship between tourist and destination yet.
would still like to go someday, but then and there, in that moment, the thought of me going, as I am rn, made me feel like a leech
It’s a throwaway moment in the video, but: I hate the “fat American tourist” stock photo. Either you’re a fat person and you get the message that you’re doubly unwelcome, or you’re thin and you get to distance yourself from those “bad” tourists. The worst tourists I’ve encountered as a local and as a fellow tourist were thin rich twenty-somethings.
I’ve definitely had tourist experiences that have felt more reciprocal-usually those experiences weren’t as burdened by the time limitations that are also the cause of all those “all-inclusive” resorts. When you’re not in a rush back to work to earn money to leave again, you can approach travelling more as a mutual exchange.
Ever noticed that the bulk of stereotypes tend to pull from the poorest of that group? Both of economic class and any culture or nationality. Most rich Americans are those 20 something's with a stick up their arse and bad manners at some point. But why is it the less common (as a tourist) fat poor person likely traveling for the first and last time because they need to work to live and they saved for a decade or more to do so.
I think maybe it's just an outdated caricature of American Tourism, based in a generation that had much wider spread wealth and the price for travel was less burdensome.
Now there's only the trustfund kids because their parents probably already have properties all over anyways, and this is just a fun "finding yourself" moment to them.
Also the idea of Americans and overconsumption lends itself to the low hanging 'fat'.
Maybe the physical traits we used to stereotype aren't as present in the privileged classes, but the disregard for their indulgence is just the same.
@@chey7691I think that's just mathematical norms at work. Most are overweight poors, few are slim rich.
@@seapeajones you won't see a lot of poor people traveling the world let alone a vacation. As most poor people in America can't afford a vacation inside the country let alone traveling. Most jackass tourists are rich compared to the average and "average" Americans. But the stereotypes remain despite most average people never getting to travel once in their life outside the country.
One of the things that makes me feel better if I want to travel to a certain country is if I already know a local there (either from an online space or perhaps someone I met in my own country who's from a different country) and can visit them rather than just staying at a hotel. This of course is not easy and accessible for everyone but I appreciate being guided through the host country by someone who I already have a connection with and am able to build a reciprocal relationship with from the get-go. There are many countries I wouldn't feel comfortable traveling without being invited there because else it feels exploitative, especially if I don't know a lot about the country. This is of course not to say you should seek out random people from random countries you wanna travel to and befriend them for that sole purpose. But if you happen to befriend people from different cultures where you are right now, it can be the start of a beautiful reciprocal relationship of cultural exchange (and also facilitate learning about their culture and language).
2:38 Ah Yes, Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, one of the gorgeous cultural landmarks of the Bahamas 😌
Woofing is a reciprocal way to travel. You work in an organic farm, learn things, are sheltered and eat for free.
i like to travel just to ride the trains in the area and visit rail museums, so my idea is just to not make a mess of things, and i should be relative fine.
I think having an existing interest in the place will help in making the most of your trip.
i think i should take advantage of the Internet more to speak to locals about what to do aswell.
also remember to explore your home first it can be cheaper and more accessible. with the rise of holidaying abroad many uk seaside towns are struggling or practically dead as the old practice of getting a train and bus to the seaside for a day has reduced or died out.
all said i am dreaming of the day i get to ride the Florence Rome direttissima and i hope to do so in a polite and respectful manner.
Years ago, I was in a wedding on Nassau Bahamas. The taxi driver who took us to our hotel had a whole spiel providing the history of the islands. At one point, my partner and I asked for more information about one of the locations he'd mentioned and he was caught short. It became apparent that for however many thousands of tourists he'd driven from the airport, we were the first to ask follow up questions. We were already planning on doing so, but we tipped heavy that trip.
organisations like workaway and couchsurfing allow us to travel with a give and take model, they're focused on cultural exchanges. couchsurfing is built on the basis that if you are staying with hosts around the world, you will offer your home up to guests as well. i've done it and its an amazing way to get to know a country in a much more genuine deep way
Personally, I try to travel by bike and train. I dont do the enviroment much damage and experience a countries scenery on a way deeper level than traveling by car. I havent found a good solution to try interacting with locals, since I know most people are nice, but I am personally very anxious. And this is only really a good solution for those, who live on continents they want to explore and are healthy enough. I personally live in europe and since it is so diverse, I enjoy exploring it. To visit asia, maybe someday I can travel there by train. But to america? I dont know.
And I understand US- citizens. The Us is diverse, but in the end, if you want to explore other countries, you basically have to fly there
Being from an island, unfortunately trains aren't an option for me, but I wish more places had them! And I wish we had more environmentally friendly ferry options as well.
@Andrewism YES! ferries mentioned!
also, it's an unfortunate trend in many places that their railways were built for colonial resource extraction and were left in such disrepair that they weren't able to be repurpoused for serving the local community before it was too late.
but for hope you need only look at the herculean effort by the Indian people in transforming their network with over 20,000km! of gauge conversion and over 90% electrification!
no matter how bad it seems there is much hope for a better future.
The us is anything but diverse lol
@@VonRibbitt Depends on type and granularity of diversity. Geographically the contiguous U.S. (not including Alaska, Hawaii, and other territories) encapsulates seven climates and is nearly the same size as Europe. The least interesting geography is probably the flat, empty, and mostly tree-less midwest but in that area we have 423 national park sites.
While a lot of people think the U.S. has little to no culture it's important to remember the living descendants of the original people of North America and their impact on it still very much exists. Native American art, music, and religion still exist and are preserved by their descendants.
Culturally the U.S. while often containing mainly immigrants from other countries has developed it's own culture. As an example Jazz grew from a mix of African folk and French Impressionist music, but is ultimately a reflection of the African-American populations of New Orleans where it originated. This process has continued with the US being a very large cultural exporter in music, film, and other media. There are plenty of dishes that got their start in the U.S., one that's commonly associated with exotic food in France is steak tartare but it was actually made in the U.S. but fell out of favor here. People from all over the globe immigrate, but mainly to larger cities. In my small home town (population 4,000) I've known immigrants from the Phillipines, Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, Germany, and two from the UK (one from Scotland the other from England).
Language wise, while our dominant language is English, you can't go to far in the U.S. without encountering Spanish in some capacity. In fact with given population statistics and growing Hispanic populations it may one day be the more common first language.
A lot of people imagine the US as complete cultural homogeny, but regionally they are plenty of differences. Between say Georgia and North Carolina, two very close states, there's quite a bit of variation. While both are broadly southern US with all the implications of that, there are nuances. For example NC puts vinegar on pulled pork barbecue where Georgia uses a ketchup base (Florida uses mustard base if I recall). The local produce is different thus what is in season and local dishes are influences. A lot of my friends from up north are disgusted by things like pear salad which is not something they eat up there. There's also accent variation, people from NC talk pretty nasally compared to other southern states, whereas the southern accent many think of is a deep texas accent. The common vernacular is also very different if you ask about certain things like what the strip of grass between a sidewalk and the road is called.
Sorry for the long reply, tldr the US is big, and full of 330 million people, don't take for granted local culture and definitely don't forget the indigenous Native Americans and their descendants. The country is not a Hollywood Anywheresville.
If somebody could set up airship tourism in the next few decades (if anyone thinks that's absurd, look up what Sergey Brin is doing right now) they could make a fortune. Call me a tinfoil hat enjoyer, but I think the hindenburg disaster set more sustainable tourism back by about 90 years.
Not a big trip but I'll be crossing the border for a couple days in a while and I wanted to see this video. As a Greek, I've seen how tourism affects people and especially how hard it's lack shook the economy during the pandemic. But I've also experienced the negative part. Giant parts of our culture and areas aren't even "Greek" anymore, but just a huge playground for tourists. It has become fake and made up, rather than an actual place with value. There are huge "cities" only made to attract tourists and foreigners, and hotels and cities like that eat up a LOT of water and electricity that the locals need. My grandparents that live in a highly touristic area often don't even have running tap water because of the nearby hotel. It's insane. Thank you for the vid. Bravo!
I live in canada, and much of this is the same where I live. The rich are making it difficult to live and pushing all the people who live and working here out of our homes. They are aggressive and make the environment the same as well with bigger vehicles and more pollution in the air. They are not nice either and have zero regard for the environment around them, usually causing the fires that displace a lot of animal and human life. A lot of these people are aggressive both with their vehicles and in person to themselves and the locals. Usually, these people have a home here that is not in use year round wasting land and housing. The government is pushing this and creating another America clone. It is really gross, and it gives me little hope to succeed in my goals.
I'm Canadian too, which area is this happening in?
I’m a student studying regenerative tourism and without a doubt cultural tourism is the way of the future! The goal is tourism should always be to improve the quality of life in a destination, though that has not been the case unfortunately
That's interesting! What are some researchers/organisations you would recommend checking out? I'm also studying regenerative/degrowth tourism and been into many of Higgins-Desboilles' papers. Thanks!
I'm not much of a traveler, what few trips I did make were back when I was in college and were for educational purposes. I did live for several years in an area that had a lot of tourists, the easiest ones to deal with came from Japan, the worst from our own country, the U.S. I tend to do my traveling via the internet now or by visiting local woodlands within walking or biking range, I personally find towns and cities to be unattractive and stressful. I would have liked at one time to have been able to visit rural Asia or Europe just to observe the farming and gardening practices but that was always beyond my financial means and seeing as I'm somewhat of a hermit I don't think that I would have handled the boat trip very well. Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful week.
I'm not American, but your experience of difficulty with American tourists certainly rings true with my own experience with them as well
I love traveling but I hate being a tourist.
I try to behave as a guest, to be mindful of customs and my surroundings, to learn at least some basic phrases, to be open towards locals yet not expecting that they return the favor.
In short, I try behave like a decent human being. Just like I try at home. And of course, one can make mistakes. I sure did... But I try to learn from them. Why do so many people refuse to look beyond themselves for just a second. Then again, we can extend that question to nearly every problem we humans experience on a personal and grander scale.
Honestly, it makes me freeze up. I do not want to contribute to all the bad. I guess that too can be extended to many things.
I lived in the south of Mexico making art for almost two years, and became friends with a local artist. We would often hang out at his self proclaimed “tourist trap” art taqueria and often talked about this. And he was very clear: don’t stop coming, don’t stop buying and don’t stop pestering the local authorities to improve the infrastructure and conditions for everybody. Engage with local issues and try to support. The authorities are more than happy to collect taxes and revenues, but rarely fed it back into the strained local community. His advice for me to pass on was to always eat and shop as locally as it goes, and that something looking small and dingy might be a good thing because the service level would be higher, the prices lower and 100% of the profit would go to the family running it, rather than seeking comfort at resorts owned by international corporations.
10:54 that fucking scared me omg but great video
I have only ever traveled with a non-profit organization that has us perform volunteer work with local conservation and biology groups: weeding a decorative, invasive grass that has taken root among the Andes, identifying individuals in migratory sea turtle populations, replanting forests in the Scottish Highlands, and lots of trail work in a variety of places to repair the damage done by tourists. It's hard work, and fulfilling, and you get to see some stunningly beautiful locations.
What nonprofit is that? If you're comfortable sharing of course. Those conservation efforts sound pretty great, specially the turtles one
@@elpretender1357Conservation Volunteers International Program (sp?). They used to partner with REI pre-pandemic.
Thanks for uploading this video, perfect timing. My family is taking me/I'm going on holidays to Fiji later this year, so I'm very glad to have seen this, so I can be better informed on the reality of tourism. Ideally I'd even be able to minimise my part in this exploitation too (hopefully, hoping for the best).
Thanks for the video, I remember the dread I felt from visiting the Bahamas there was a certain tension I just couldn’t shake off. So much luxury amidst stagnation if not outright underdevelopment.
Man I knew I had good reason to feel uneasy on my trip to Jamaica. Thanks for shedding light on this.
anotha brilliant video!
long(ish) story short: "East Africa" with a capital E and A is a european exonym that's political, whereas eastern Afrika with a lower case e is purely geographical.
longer story: i am a luo from kenya, and would like to point out something subtle yet important: when u mention our region, u say "East Africa". i prefer to write eastern Afrika, as the descriptors North Africa, West Africa, and u guessed it, South Africa, plus further afield North Wales, North America etc. are all exonyms, which are legacies of the activities of eurocentricist imperialists.
❤
In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord talks about "vacation" as representing a place that exists outside of time and production, a place that the wealthy can visit to disconnect from the realities of their exploiting while laborers dream of vacation as a short break from our brutal lives. I think for him, and I see you touching on this as well, the vacations represent this exotic "other" that we can always visit for "a taste of paradise" so that we don't challenge the hegemonic forces where we live. The whole time, the vacation economy wreaks havoc on the locals, who become a parody of their own culture for watching observers. In Everything For Everyone by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, they propose the alternative of the "sojourn" where people travel as part of a process of connecting with far away communities, working there, sharing knowledge, building connections. I think that provides a worthwhile alternative. Because as you're noticing, vacations are not sustainable for economies, people, or our planet.
I moved from Georgia in the US to Yantai, China for college then worked there for 4 years. i studied and practiced a ton and became fluent in Mandarin, making cross cultural freinds was incredible. I found a great jou in connecting when my language skills were subpar was through cooking. I would cook for my friends and show them the foods i grew up with and they would return the favor and show me incredible local things. Now, back in America with the benefit of a great crew of friends around the world i usually just go visit a friend when i want to see a new place in the world. I think learnign a language and the cultural exchange assocsiated helped me open my mind, empathasize with people more, and forced me to rethink so many things i took for granted. The cost was not small menatlly, im struggling to find community and dealing with the culture shock of coming back to the US after 8 years in China. Id still recommend learning another language and going to school in another country but dont underestimate the culture shock.
Thank you so much for taking about this, i have not watched the whole thing but I am always very self concious when I travel because its hard to really get an idea of the "impact" you have whenever you do. I will enjoy this for sure!
What is ethical tourism? Where is ethical tourism? Adventurers and explorers? People are going to be tourists. I want to get out of the city. Isn't it better to attempt to be ethical? Speaking idealistically, I would like to cooperate with anyone who wants to start an ethical tourist company. I like this channel, but I sometimes struggle with the theoretical vs the practical/realistic aspects of what is being said. Are there sources for learning more about ethical tourism?
I take offense to the characterization of US tourists as being the worst. It's clearly us Brits that are the worst behaved. We've gone on a lot of drunken rampages in other people's countries, we deserve the title.
I hope you enjoyed my hidden Gibraltar joke then😉
@@Andrewism Oooooh yeaaah!
You and your channel are a genius! Philosophy, statistics, real world scenarios. You're the complete package of an intelligent youtube channel.
I mostly went on holidays to Europe, and I never really liked staying on a resort. I'm more of a home-body by nature, but I love reading about other places more than anything else. I didn't really understand the full ethical issues of tourism (beside the usual issues with gentrification and so on). This was a beautifully written video; I learned a lot, thank you very much
Thank you Andrew, free the whole Caribbean from tourist colonization.
The benefit of chronic digestive issues is that travel gut feels both inevitable and just another bad butt day to deal with.
I rest easy knowing I'm too poor to be a tourist at all.
I consider myself to not be a tourist.
The closest thing I can get to that is biking fifty miles out of town to simply be alone for a few days at an old cemetery that marks where my family used to live.
And now Verbo is gentrifying those woods.
Nobody can afford to live there anymore.
It's all short term rental.
My tourism as an adult has mostly been local trips and flights home to the Midwest, USA. I come from a tourist town there so I already kind of know what's annoying to experience as one of the locals. I didn't understand the draw as a local because all of the pleasant months out of the year I was working overtime and the only reprieve was the cold, dark unemployed months of the winter. If you were productive in the summer, you wouldn't be reduced to ramen and peanut butter sammiches in the winter. Now that I go back with a few nickels to rub together and a couple weeks of summer off, I totally get why they come. I hope in the future we come to more equitable system.
Personal mente soy un guerrero pero tu labor también es importante gracias desde Puerto Rico
I was silenced by everyone I ever addressed this issue to. Thank you for this video , I knew I couldn’t be the only that noticed this.
I love your videos, they are very helpful... Up to where you say post pandemic. We are still in a pandemic, and i know this acutely, because i was disabled by it.
Pandemic protection should be part and parcel for this movement. I got further disabled by my last infection. We won't have a chance to implement any of this info if we are all too disabled to care for each other.
100%
I have Covid19 right now and there are new variants all the time, we are definitely still in a pandemic.
Even if it's starting to wind down, it's still not over :(
I could never travel but ended up doing travel and tourism in college. EVERY essay I did was about my rage at unethical tourism. It was so funny being so angry when everyone else was talking about rivers in Venice
Both for environmental and financial reasons, I’ve become a big fan of “local travel.” I’ve yet to explore all the parks, museums, and historical sites within a couple hours from me. And I live in Ohio, which is not exactly known for its tourism lol. Even within my own city, there’s always more to explore a bus ride away.
i live in ohio too! if you look hard enough there’s quite a bit to do
(semi-)subliminal usufruct! 💗
In my adult life, I've only really traveled to places with a more-or-less-similar economic status... so I, too (13:55), haven't gone down the path where some of the issues you talk about here are in stark relief. And yet, I've still endeavored to live similar ideas to 13:05... gifting, sharing, exchanging... 💝
wow its crazy that this dropped while im on holiday
To be perfectly honest, I wanted to meet equals and avoid exploitation as much as I could. But still, I'd like to meet as many people as possible and local people as well. Just as trying to learn a bit of the language. I still felt like I exploited people. And I experience it as well in for instance Amsterdam (my country). So I don't travel at all any more. But that limits the views as well.. So, thanks for this great video and I hope (really sincerely hope) things change, because I'd like to go places again ....
Tourism does not require air travel.
stay with locals its such a big difference in quality of your trip, and the money goes to a family that you form a relationship with rather than a hotel chain.
Recent experience I've had regarding this topic: I went to Tenerife for a week with a friend and we were mostly staying in small hostels in less visited areas of the island but for one night we went to playa de las americas and it was HELL. The whole coast there consists of ugly hotel blocks, side by side, never ending, every 10meters on the street someone starts talking to you selling you cheap shit from china, SO much trash everywhere, tons of party tourists growling aroung and peeing on the deck chairs on the beaches at night and doing lines and lines of cocine on them, then during daylight the all-inclusive-families come out and enjoy their beach day on these. It was awful, and we saw lots of "ghost towns" that were built just for rich people from abroad to spend 2 months in winter there, 90% of them just empy while we were there out of high season. I felt bad just being there and probably supporting all that just because I have flown there and increased demand by doing so.
However, it was really important to me to still be as good of a tourist as I can, we stayed at small hostels that belonged to locals, so we had to get in touch with them, use some of our Spanish skills because not everyone knew English, got food only at local supermarkets or restaurants. I was also happy that the hostels were just regular houses that didn't alter the city in an unnnatural way like the hotel blocks did. And we ended up being sorry for all the all-inclusive-tourists who probably didn't see a fraction of the REAL island and its people and landscape/cityscape as we did because they get to stay in their hotel and have everything they need right there.
But in the end, the amount of tourists is the issue, small hostels wouldn't be able to provide enough space and it also wouldn't work the way some tourists behave when theyre on vacation ... I think often times we should limit the number of tourists at some point if the place just can't sustain it, but yea capitalism won't let that happen.
Also - slow travel. Like student exchanges etc, REALLY force you to get in touch, learn the language, culture, get to know the people and their ways.
I feel like this video needed to bring up all the ways tourism exists and give a genuine way on how to do it ethically, if you're briefly engaging with a culture and country the expectation of learning a language is way too high, if you plan to see a couple countries on the same continent, there's no way to possibly learn all the languages or create in depth relationships with locals.
locals do not want to be your best friend when you've just met, it's weird and infantilising, no one is owned a connection that is earned and gained over a long period of time, tourists cannot make these connections.
also you did not mention other ways people stay and get to countries.
in the EU you can drive take a ferry and backpack to everypart no plane required, also did not mention domestic tourism.
I feel like you could mention more that the people who can travel to all inclusive hotel in a fancy plan with all planned itinerary ARE RICH.
the avg tourist is skewed very much to the rich, most don't get to travel past their neighbor countries if even that, with the cost of a visa and passport+ food, shelter etc
"A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid is an amazing and short book that deals with a lot of these ideas. One of the quotes has always stuck with me:
"That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives-most natives in the world-cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go-so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself."
i think the loneliness epidemic exacerbates this. if your interactions outside your closest loved ones are often limited to economic ones within your own community (customer-service worker, employee-employer), then what hope do you have of authentic connection somewhere else? in a way, we're relegated to tourists in our own homes. society is structured around consumption, not connection. we are left with little incentive or opportunity to forge relationships at all.
If you speak Spanish, I recommend a documentary available on RUclips called "Salvar Tenerife" ("Saving Tenerife").
I live in a car-centric hellhole, and since I would only travel out of state via bicycle or train, I'm stuck. But I did have an interesting 26 mile walk during the pandemic.
This was a fantastic video, I've subscribed
I live on the very tourist-centric Cape Cod. The Cape is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the US, but the road infrastructure here simply cannot handle it. There are two bridges over the canal onto the Cape for a total of four lanes each way; this cannot support the tens of thousands of people who come and go every day in the summer. Bumper-to-bumper traffic jams over five miles long are an everyday occurrence here. There are plenty of other problems too; not least of which is how the tourism industry jacks up the cost of living. Massachusetts is already an incredibly expensive state to live in but the Cape is far worse. Housing is expensive because all of the available housing is being snapped up to convert into AirBNBs or bought up by wealthy out-of-staters to use as a summer home, everything else is expensive because store owners have realized they can charge tourists an arm and a leg for basic necessities and they'll still pay, so even the locals get to pay the tourist tax. Tourists are also all-to-often rude, reckless, and inconsiderate, leaving trash all over our beaches and driving like lunatics down residential streets (many streets down here have a sign on them saying something to the effect of "drive like your kids live here; mine do"). I think it's an inevitable result of being in a place you have no long-term stake in.
I'm always told about how good tourists are for local businesses, and maybe that's true to some extent, but you'll be hard-pressed to find an unskilled job around here that pays more than minimum wage (I.E. the same you'd make doing that job in Boston, or Springfield, or Taunton, or Fall River, or any other place in Massachusetts), so it doesn't seem like a whole lot of that tourist money is trickling down. I'm sure the owners and shareholders of the businesses here love all the revenue they rake in by fleecing tourists but the rest of us aren't seeing very much of it (with the possible exception of restaurant workers, who do make very good tips on the Cape, at least during the summer). Factor in the higher cost of living and the absurd price of housing and I think most people would be economically better off without tourism. Would be lose some jobs? Yeah, maybe, but considering how many people on the Cape during any given year aren't permanent residents, maybe we have a glut of unnecessary jobs anyways.
Of course I don't really want to ban tourism; before my family moved to the cape, we lived in Taunton and visited here quite regularly. That made US tourists. But tourist-trap areas need higher minimum wages, better transport infrastructure (toll roads where locals can get discounted passes for example), and more housing, especially lower-income housing, along with perhaps stronger housing subsidy programs.
Coming from a place of priviledge that many may not have, I would like to say that I think when and where possible it would be a good idea to stay in places for an extended period of time to better facilitate the cross-cultural communication and understanding. Living in a foreign country for a year + will force you to engage with life on new terms and see the place you're visiting from a lens other than that of a tourist. The key is to break out of the bubble of others from your same culture who may also be living there, and make friends with and truly try to understand the locals. Once again, not everyone has this opportunity, but if you do get it, please embrace the chance and don't let fear of the unknown get in your way. It will certainly enrich your life and foster new ways of understanding others if you allow it to.
I've been on an all inclusive vacation once when I was a kid, and that was a flight to Crete, but honestly I much prefer going on camping trips. Why would I want to leave Europe, or even my own country when there's so much diverse culture and beautiful landscapes to enjoy within driving/train distance?
Tourism is a blessing and a curse. I love that the now very popular movie, No Hard Feelings has as one of the backdrops, the issue of locals being driven out and outpriced of their homes because of outsiders who came as tourists wanting to purchase retirement and holiday homes there, without any consideration to the long-time locals there. The same happens in our Caribbean islands.
Wow the first 2:30 of this video could have been some other creators entire video. You are very good at communicating, thank you for putting this out. It is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but I did not understand it at this depth
Down with the resorts up with the hostels!
The static interruption scared the shit out of me dude
This video is filled with beautiful wisdom and I am so glad your channel was recommended to me. I have subscribed so I can learn more. Thank you!!
I live in a tourist town in Florida. A large number of attractions are staffed by unpaid high school kids doing required service hours. I got so sunburned teaching tourists the sting-ray shuffle and cleaning the trash they left on the beach.
I am genuinely glad to not have been sucked into either mass tourism or party tourism ...
in case of the former, growing up traveling with just my two parents when we did travel (usually having as much issue with big tourist groups as other people trying to go about their business), as well as very early being given the lecture of "photigraphing a person as the focus of an image without their permission is illegal" when as a kid I was wanting to document home.
For the second part ... I've recently gone abroad for studies to a country famous back home for its holiday locations in a different area to where im studying. With that I've met both the group of other exchange students here and a collection of insanely friendly and sweet local students, in part by being rather shy around other exchange folks. It was somewhat horrifying though getting glimpses of their experiences ... for example 3 months in people discovering a common payment method that you would find out about if you ate at campus with a local even once. I didn't even know the local language much (which is rather shameful .. I learned rather intensively beforehand bt then so much was happening that I fell out of practice, hard). The second bit of horror was uhh in a groupwork not having heard from a certain groupmate in weeks of attempted communication ... to get sent a picture of them having a drunk evening in one of the tourism spots of the country.
The one other experience has been interacting with informal settlements in person for the first time (which in this case beyond slightly worse and less regulated contruction seem ro share common standards of living here). As much of a foreign experience as it has been, I have no photos of the places, nothing but my stories to convey my experiences and impressions (as someone easily able to take 100+ photos in one hour of visiting a tourist attraction). Because it felt wrong. I've only walked through those spaces twice because they feel semi-private to those living there. I don't have a good reason to disrupt that. I don't know the languages enough to be anything but a foreigner. And I most certainly don't get to make an attraction out of the residents' lives. It feels wrong to photograph beyond architecture, nature, or sites specifically set up for public presentation (like zoos or museums).
Lastly, it was interesting becoming the attraction myself at times. So many photos now exist of me that I will never get to see, made by people that didn't pick up on the idea that I had business I was going about before they called out to me. It's been a uniquely dehumanising experience.
Idk how to sum this up since it kinda just devolved into facets of tourism as I've experienced it recently
Most ASEAN countries are dealing with this too. Many of our 3rd/4th world countries and regions are overly dependant on Tourism despite being rich in natural resources.
All those natural resources are taken for the foreign conglomerates and oligopolies of the global north
I appreciate your perspective and the information of your videos! Your message deserves to reach a larger audience, and I think you'd draw more engagement if you showed your face in your videos.
Either way, I've been a longer time subscriber and will continue to watch your videos! Keep up the good work :D
@andrewism I remember you were asking in a community post a while back if we ever see ads when we watch your videos, I just saw one now, it was inserted after the 2 nd chapter,but it's for fundraising (that save Brachi campaign)
It's not directly related to this video's topic, but the reference you made to the exploitation involved in sex tourism reminded me of a topic I'd be very interested in seeing explored in a future video: how people should view and engage with the sex industry as it currently exists. All of the discourse I've heard around SW deals with the topic from either a purely theoretical perspective or through the lens of structural changes that could be made so that those who want to do that kind of work are free to do so without anyone being coerced into it in one way or another. But it's been incredibly difficult for me to find perspectives on how the sex industry should be treated in the here-and-now, where those structural changes don't exist. And when I ask other leftists who support full decriminalization how I, as a potential client of SWers, should view the power dynamic that currently exists between myself and SWers given current conditions, so far the most common answer I get is a resounding "...Huh. Idk actually."
(For the record I say this as someone who supports full decrim and destigmatization of SW)
14:20 excellent use of some of the lesser known painting of Dr Seuss.
Wonderfully produced video. Thanks for sharing your insightful observations
I think this kind of ethical consequentialism is particularly absurd given the atrocities tied up in our global supply chains. As long as you're not committing crimes and not being a dick while on holiday, your tourism is perfectly ethical.
10:40 “Bad manners” is so disturbingly euphemistic a to describe that, I found myself cringe laughing. This is still happening, sadly. There are some very “Ill-mannered” tourists in Palestine and Ukraine.
thank you so much for sharing this knowledge and perspective
Tangential but oh my god “under capitalism, you have to accept all the cookies.” or more simply “you have to accept all the cookies” is now in my vocabulary this phrase really needs to be popularized
I notice that the people who talk the most about "ethical tourism" are the people who travel the most. It seems like a way to distance themselves from the other tourists who are there doing the same thing. Don't act like you're vacation is more ethical than someone else because you are a more experienced traveler.
Feels to me like it's one group of (usually wealthy) people saying "I travel a lot and see the world and that's a good thing when I do it. When other people do it, they do it wrong. Therefore they should probably stay home and leave the vacationing to the more civilized, worldly or experienced travelers. Saying that "I interact authentically with the locals" doesn't impress me any more than a guy who says "I had a great conversation with the bar tender at the resort"
Sometimes it might be more respectful of a culture to stay within the bounds of a normal travel package. Maybe locals and tribes don't want you going into their land and trying to "authentically interact" with their family and culture and take photos of them. Maybe just stay with the tour group. If they want to interact with tourists maybe they will go see the tourist.
Commenting for the algorithm ❤️
While i travel, i try and fix one thing in each place I stay. I don't do it as often as I'd like to, but thats my goal. Sometimes its just a wobbly chair, but it makes me feel useful and more equal to my hosts.
The Masai thing is real. In my country, if you're seeing an "aithentic Masai" performing for and sellong uou wares, you aren't seeing an authentication Masai doing those things. They refuse to engage eith foreigners and we locals know this.
I could listen to you all day.
Thank you for this video. I've been thinking about making one about realisations I have after traveling related to socioeconomic realities.
Great vid. Subscribed right away
I'm kind of on a couple year stint of not flying and I wanna keep that going. Issue is if you limit the radius which you can travel that might limit your horizons. Given most people don't fly at all maybe this is not rly a problem tho. Idk
The more I think about the effects of tourism on the locals, the more I suspect that ethical travel is impossible
I like to meet the locals when i travel, if they'll have me. Ill try to learn the language to at least a basic conversational level before I go, and use local amenities/services and transportation. I love learning about the history of places; so when i travel, at least a couple of days are just me walking around the places, going to a museum if there is one. And if i find a local willing to chat to me about the place, asking them directly. The people ive met around the world are so friendly to me, and usually happy to share their stories. And i always take that as a privilege. I am only ashamed that as a tourist the most i can offer in exchange is my money, which feels impersonal and transactional. I would love to participate in other ways, to give back to the community. But without feeling like a white saviour, or belitelling the culture and disrespecting it, I dont know how yet. Maybe my own stories are enough, but ill never know.
the only tourism I've done was in my own country.