I would rather go to Guantanamo than Disneyland. Thank God my parents had a grand total of one brief episode of total mind loss when they drug my siblings and I to Orlando Disney-whatever back when I was in the third grade. We didn’t go to Florida to visit Disney-whatever. It was a sideshow that lasted about two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes in my father said “F%$# this,” and we were gone. Crowds, lines, bad food, you know the things Americans seem to settle for more and more. Our family was never a tourist family, and we certain never fit in anywhere.
But here’s the thing. You aren’t in traffic. You ARE the traffic.
And this is how we have to look at tourism, which is one of the great takeaways from Paige McClanahan’s “The New Tourist: Waking Up To The Power And Peril Of Travel.” By now, we’ve all heard the stories of “overtourism,” and many of us have seen it first hand. Heck, I left Spain earlier this year days before tourists were being heckled at cafes. I was in Amsterdam weeks later when the Red Light District was shoulder to shoulder. Navigating around the puke and overly-tripping youth was a challenge in itself. And how can I forget those scantily clad national treasures tapping on the glass while waving a seductive finger at me to come closer and inspect the goods. I just kept thinking, “Too many witnesses.” And I can’t exclude myself from that title.
Tourism is most often ugly, but it’s also hugely profitable and a massive contributor to the overall world economy. McClanahan tackles successes and failures. New tactics and old trends that never die. Her take is that there are “old tourists” and “new tourists,” and the hope is that the new eventually pushes out the old. But there are numerous roadblocks.
I twist this my own way by saying we have “inward” tourists and “outward” tourists.
The first group travels for the experience and education, and their own personal human form is far in the background. The second group, or the scum, travels with themselves as the centerpiece to any and all experience. The overshare crowd. The Instagrammers. The TikTok generation, who by the way, sight how their trip will trend as the number one driving factor as to where they travel. In my opinion, we simply won’t survive this reality. Dumb, selfish, and greedy does not bode well for any future. If travel is an escape from reality, as she mentions, then I wonder why we need to escape from our reality?
McClanahan also tackles the changes to the guide book culture, doom tourism, tourist traps, and the numerous ways in which companies and individuals are attempting to find ways to offset the massive carbon problem caused by everyone getting on a plane for any reason at any time. I hear Greta coughing now. At times I felt bad for the author because as a species we’ve “let ourselves go,” a bit. There are mountains to climb, but perhaps we must do so virtually. The real ones have been paved over so more people can come see the gift shop.
I don’t know if the author knows it, but it feels like this will become her life assignment. Something she will not be able to extract herself from because the impact of tourism is having such a monumental impact on the planet. There are so many connection points, and she is right smack dab in the middle. Get it, read it.
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We recently went to Barcelona. I had heard about tourists being sprayed with water pistols as a demonstration of the local’s issues with over-tourism (probably not the worst fate in the summer heat but point taken). Having lived in France for the last two years, I have learned the power of a simple Bon Jour when entering any establishment- it is not really optional; you forget to do so at your peril. Before going to Barcelona, I learned to say “please” in Catalan (Si tu plau). Though many locals speak English, it was a delight to see their faces light up when I used those simple words. They are not a backdrop to your selfies people, it is their f#$*ing country.
Author
For sure. How you treat people is key. When I see tourists doing stupid stuff, which I see plenty in Santa Fe, it just shows how disconnected they are.
I just spotted this book and bought it for my upcoming leisure reading time. I was hoping it would be good so I could recommend it to you.
The locals being pissed off about tourism won’t go away. Paris was like that in the 70’s, but current generations have embraced it much more for the money it brings in. I would imagine the newer hotspots in France like Marseilles are feeling the same sentiments of Paris did back then.
And it’s no longer just the “ugly American” — though we do our part. As airfares have gotten consistently lower compared to income, travel has become much more of a thing. Then other disruptors have gotten into the game and cut out middlemen all over, like short-term rentals, taxis, and booking services. Travel used to involve a travel agent and guidebooks, now it’s all available on your phone.
But the two largest agents of change I’ve seen are (1) climate change. There’s urgency to see the best of the world before it’s gone. (2) The growth of the middle class in formerly poor countries. I travel a lot in SEAsia, and though certain spots always had a Spring Break vibe going on (ie Phuket and Bali) there were many places to just get away from it all. That is less and less the case now that more people can afford to travel and have decided to do so en masse. There is a lot of racism towards the chinese in the closer Asian countries, and it’s easy to see the cause by the sheer numbers. Chinese tourism in Bali doesn’t seem to be a thing yet, but the government there is trying to find a way to disallow Russians. Cultures are clashing.
I’m an off-season traveler, so the worst of this rarely hits me, but there isn’t really an off-season closer to the equator. But you are all correct: a nod and a respectful greeting is so important. And especially in VN, a genuine smile goes a long way.
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Yes, doom tourism. Gotta see the glaciers before they are gone. She touches on that quite a bit actually. Getting away from crowds is very difficult now. And so is traveling to places that aren’t 20-30 degrees above normal.
I live in a place heavily invaded by tourism. It has even become a problem, affecting both nature and society. It’s not just that people come to a hotel and then leave; no, what actually happens is like packs of predators flocking to the trendiest spots to take the most “trendy” Instagram photo, destroying everything in their path. It even creates issues in the housing market because accommodations are limited, and the alternative they choose is “Van Life,” which, when done responsibly, is not an issue.
But these people camp in places not designated for that purpose, and, amusingly enough, sometimes right in front of hotels. Can you imagine a hotel and, in its parking lot, a huge camper with people living there for weeks, sometimes even months?
In the end, it’s like Dan’s previous post—these people are like influencers, but instead of influencing, they copy bad habits.
Author
They are like locust. They come to Santa Fe for the fall colors because some dipshit went on IG and said Santa Fe is the closest place to LA to get fall colors. This is the quality intellect floating around IG. They come and they block roads, they shit in the forest and leave their trash everywhere. The sheriff’s department has to come to cordon off sections so they can pose without ruining the landscape. They are scum. And when you hear that fifty percent of these nitwits sight “how their trip will trend,” as their primary motivation for a destination, you know how far we have sunk as a species.