When I go on motorcycling trips I don't like to think of myself as a tourist. A lot of tourists travel only to get pampered, or to go shopping. Now that's OK by me, and I have been a tourist myself plenty of times. But what I think is wrong is if tourists come back knowing nothing of the places they visited. For me the fun is learning about a place. Actually, it's more than just fun, it's kind of an obligation. Not just visit the landmarks, but be exposed to the problems too. That way people become more broad minded, and make better decisions about such things as "Should we bomb Lower Slobbovia?". (The answer is always no, if you have visited there and took the time to learn something about it and meet some people)My very first trip anywhere bigger than Baie Comeau was to England. That definitely set my taste in travel experiences. I was ten years old, and I had never seen a city. We drove to Quebec City which included a few ferry rides and a lot of gravel, as the road was not really complete, but you could still get through. Then a couple of days in Quebec City, and a 7 day trip on an ocean liner.
My next big trip was ten years later, when I was a CUSO volunteer in West Africa. I think we were expected to learn something about our host countries. Even in the first interview they were asking me what I knew about Africa. So again it was not exactly like being a tourist. I stayed for three years, I had a job and a home there. Tried to learn some local culture. I found out that very few Muslims are suicide bombers.
It was in Africa that I got my first motorcycle and learned to ride. Although I never rode out of Sierra Leone, I did explore within the country. Returning to Canada, I developed a taste for motorcycle trips, to the point where I don't particularly like any other kind of travelling any more. Although I have been on some "tourist" trips where I go by plane and stay at a resort, and I go on guided tours and buy souvenirs.
When I travel by motorcycle, I think people are a bit more friendly. I especially like motorcycle rallies with tent camping, where you get to meet a lot of people. Some of my favourite motorcycle rides are with local people I meet at rallies. They always know the best local roads and places to go by bike. For example I was at one rally in North Carolina, and some locals invited me out for a ride. I thought, of course, we're going to do the Blue Ridge Parkway. Sort of, but not exactly. These people knew some of the "old" Blue Ridge Parkway that had been bypassed by new sections of the road. That was really a lot more interesting. And while we were there we stumbled on a film crew on the set of the film "Forrest Gump".
Meeting people is more interesting to me than stopping to see "The world's largest ball of twine" or "The world's largest crucifix" which by the way is in Effingham, Illinois. I've seen it from the road, but I don't have the picture myself, so I do what I usually do and Google one up. Whatever I've seen is probably on the internet multiple times.
So I encourage anybody who can, to go travelling. Avoid war zones, but if you do go somewhere that later becomes a war zone, I hope you will at least vote against bombing it back to the stone age.
The picture is my last trip to Port Dover, October 7th. No, I didn't meet anybody at all, but what can you do? At least I don't want to bomb it.
I'm extremely ambivalent about the subject of 'travel.'
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it's valuable to visit other cultures, to be exposed to other ways of life, to appreciate the quality of life here in Canada through contrast with other countries.
I most certainly value the years I spent working and living in other countries in my younger days. Without those experiences I would, for example, have had an entirely different sense of the problems in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
However, as you suggest, much (if not most) of what people consider 'travel' these days consists of cloistered experience in 'resorts' and guided tours. Generally with a total lack of opportunities to meet the 'locals' on any real terms.
Thus, in a significant proportion of cases, travel by Canadians consists simply of temporarily relocating to a warmer climate where they can be waited upon hand and foot - as a reward for ???
The explosion of air travel in the past several decades has been a major contributor to the green house effect. Plagued with externalities the 'real costs' of air travel are masked.
Some studies indicate that air travel contributes 15% of greenhouse gases each year, with air passengers producing almost 200 times as much greenhouse gas as passengers on ships.
What exacerbates the problems is that gases emitted at altitude have a much higher impact than those emitted at ground level.
It strikes me that in our culture, where most people feel they deserve to jet away for at least one winter 'getaway' each year, we need to rethink things just a bit.
In the 1960s, a trip abroad, especially to Europe, was a 'big thing - in many cases rated as a 'once in a lifetime' experience. The explosion of cheap air travel in the past decades has not only debased the experience for the traveler, but is a growing threat to our environment.
On the other hand, I suspect that not only will the direct costs of fuel increase the price of travel, but that sooner or later, many of those externalities will come to be factored into the price of an airline ticket, bringing to an end the current profligate levels of air travel.
Perhaps there remains hope that 'travel' will some soon recover some of the value it once had.
On re-reading it, I think I actually agree with you. I started writing the blog against travel, and the more I wrote, the more it turned into a blog promoting travel! I guess the key thing is if travel promotes peace, then it may be worth it. I'm afraid travel does not do much to promote peace in many, if not most cases. It may even directly promote war. One example might be tours of Israel, if their aim is to boost international support for the Israeli occupation Palestinian land.
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