Tourist
Over the past hundred years, travelers have become tourists. This is a phenomenon of our times. We almost seamlessly emerge from our everyday world into a strange, exotic, magical world. We usually do this without having embarked on a journey in the true sense of the word. We can reach almost every location on earth within a day and take possession of it. We complain about the floods of tourists we inevitably get roped into without recognizing that they are also made up of us, that we are a part of the avalanches that roll through the alleys of the World Heritage cites.
And yet it is always the others who become a plague for the true travelers. If we become aware of it and search for remote paths and places, we believe ourselves to be on the side of the wise, those true travelers who want to dive deeper into foreign worlds and cultures. But as long as we do not live there and experience our everyday lives, it remains merely the inhaling of exotic atmospheres. Whether we refuse to accept it or prepare by speaking the language of a distant country, we always are and remain tourists, blocking other tourists’ views. We take our place in the foreign country, as if it were very natural, by taking a selfie there. Our “home,” our friends and relatives always seem to travel along with us.
I do not denounce mass tourism, I observe it. In the end, it is our fundamental need to see and experience what is foreign to us. Travelers who leave their homeland and everyday surroundings often discover more than just exotic, unusual places or ways of life; they also reveal parts unknown and unfamiliar within themselves.
And yet it is always the others who become a plague for the true travelers. If we become aware of it and search for remote paths and places, we believe ourselves to be on the side of the wise, those true travelers who want to dive deeper into foreign worlds and cultures. But as long as we do not live there and experience our everyday lives, it remains merely the inhaling of exotic atmospheres. Whether we refuse to accept it or prepare by speaking the language of a distant country, we always are and remain tourists, blocking other tourists’ views. We take our place in the foreign country, as if it were very natural, by taking a selfie there. Our “home,” our friends and relatives always seem to travel along with us.
I do not denounce mass tourism, I observe it. In the end, it is our fundamental need to see and experience what is foreign to us. Travelers who leave their homeland and everyday surroundings often discover more than just exotic, unusual places or ways of life; they also reveal parts unknown and unfamiliar within themselves.