When travel turns toxic
Posted Thursday, July 31, 2008, 4:07 PM by Lonely Planet
'You can't have too much of a good thing.'
Oh no? What about beer, or chocolate, or... You get my point. You can have too much of anything and that, dear blogees, includes us - travellers.
I am convinced that there is a tipping point in travel when the introduced species, the traveller, becomes a pest species, and the 'ecosystem' of the host destination is unalterably changed. Examples: Bali, Canary Islands, Paris, Prague...
People agonise over the difference between a traveller and a tourist. But in focusing on qualitative differences they miss the point: the difference is quantitative. A single visitor is a traveller; a visitor among a ten thousand is a tourist. Wear what you will to stand apart from the horde, you're a part of it.
In this gilded age of mass travel, of Googling and globalism, city breaks, career breaks, gap years and flashpacking - on this shrinking planet - have we reached a global tipping point? Have we, by sheer weight of numbers and spending power, refashioned the world to make it safe and palatable for the likes of us? I wonder...
-Michael Day is a Lonely Planet author who's working inhouse
Oh no? What about beer, or chocolate, or... You get my point. You can have too much of anything and that, dear blogees, includes us - travellers.
I am convinced that there is a tipping point in travel when the introduced species, the traveller, becomes a pest species, and the 'ecosystem' of the host destination is unalterably changed. Examples: Bali, Canary Islands, Paris, Prague...
People agonise over the difference between a traveller and a tourist. But in focusing on qualitative differences they miss the point: the difference is quantitative. A single visitor is a traveller; a visitor among a ten thousand is a tourist. Wear what you will to stand apart from the horde, you're a part of it.
In this gilded age of mass travel, of Googling and globalism, city breaks, career breaks, gap years and flashpacking - on this shrinking planet - have we reached a global tipping point? Have we, by sheer weight of numbers and spending power, refashioned the world to make it safe and palatable for the likes of us? I wonder...
-Michael Day is a Lonely Planet author who's working inhouse
Labels: gap year
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5 Comments:
you took the words right out of my mouth...
too much of a good thing can't be good for you.
it's a shame how this world has become so small and it is too easy to travel to far destinations only to snap a few photos. there is only a few adventurous spots left to explore. too many places have been exploited by tourism and have lost their originality. let alone the prices that got inflated due to tourists/travelers that don't know any better but to pay prices that they are used to from back home... whatever happened to haggling?
Nice post and am still confused between traveler and tourist...well thanks to inserting interesting things ob blogs.
I have a five year test. Whenever I've gone back to a place after a five year break, I come back disgusted with the changes - specially the commercialism and homogenization - which are promoted by local governments supposedly to increase tourist flow.
Interesting how this reflection on traveling tipping point and difference between a traveler and a tourist is on a Lonely Planet Blog.. Lonely Planet guidebooks are one of the main contributors to "the tipping point".. making "off the beaten track" destinations known to (too many) people, including the "bad" tourists.. If i have to choose I have more chance to find some "hidden" place on the 47th result on Google than on that Lonely Planet bookguide owned by 90% of the tourists/travellers around me..
worse case better trust 100s of reviewers on tripadvisor (to mention one) than 4 reviewers on the bookguide printed every 6 months at the fastest..
Happy Travels,
http://www.flashpackerguide.com
http://tuxinbackpack.blogspot.com
I haven't heard the term 'flashpacking', perhaps that's what I did - 12 countries in a month. I blame my Y Gen upbringing - too much choice :-)
LM
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