The Travel Spectrum
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Travelers come in many different varieties, from the once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon tripper to the vagabond who has spent years on the road. One thing travelers across this travel spectrum share is the traveling tale. How you tell your story can reveal a lot about what kind of traveler you are. But perhaps more revelatory is how you listen to the stories of other travelers. Four years ago I joined the ranks of International Traveler. I spent four days in London living in a hostel and two weeks in Croatia learning about my ancestors. When I returned home I was happy find my official World Traveler membership kit waiting in my overstuffed mailbox. Inside was a membership card that looked like a passport (clever!), a pocket sized photo album capable of holding 14,000 of my favorite travel photos to share with anyone I meet, and a small rucksack to carry my newfound travel elitism. I could hardly wait to put on my white shortsleeved shirt, black necktie and pants, and go door-to-door and recruit new members. Along the way I was greeted with a variety of responses. Some were interested in hearing my stories and looked at each of my 14,000 photos. Others seemed to not be interested at all and slammed their front doors in my face. The worst ones of all were people who had also been on trips, but not trips that I thought were as interesting as mine. In most cases, they could not stop talking about the Caribbean cruise they took ten years ago or the all-inclusive resort where they were waited on hand-and-foot. The World Traveler Club surely must not recognize these sorts of trips as membership-eligible, I thought, and returned home to read the Rules and Regulations. After a few hours of reading I was dismayed to find nothing disqualifying dime-a-dozen trips from the Club. I called customer service and was quickly connected with an operator. “I want to complain about something in your Rules and Regulations. I don’t think that a luxury cruise or package vacation at a resort should qualify for membership.” “Why not?” she asked. “Because it is not real travel. You aren’t doing anything you couldn’t do in Florida or California. These people are just lying around and if they are lucky, they disembark the ship a few times to buy souvenirs of the sights they didn’t have time to see.” “Did you read your Rules and Regulations?” “Yes. I read everything.” “Well you must have skipped over the Travel Commandments section. The last one is: If thou are a teller of travel stories, thou must listen and feign interest in all travel stories told unto you.” I hung up the phone and knew she was right. “Yeah, I apologize for that. I’m back because you didn’t get to finish your story about your cruise to the Bahamas.” “Oh right, so where was I…so then we got all dressed up and had dinner in the banquet hall of the ship, and it was really a great meal, and my husband smiled like I had never seen him smile before. And after dinner it was time for dancing and karaoke and I sang ‘Love in an Elevator’…” I smiled as I stood on the porch. “Would you say that this cruise changed you as a person?” I asked. “I would say so. Jim and I had never been outside of the country and it was nice to expand our horizons. Every time we see a hurricane alert I think about the poor people that live on those islands.” I listened for awhile longer and thanked her for her story.
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I always try to be completely understanding (tolerant?) of people who choose to travel in ways different from me. For me, it always boils down to how I travel, how I look at things. I am not defined by my budget or my luggage, but by my eyes- if they are open, I will experience something new. If they are looking for the familiar that takes me back home, I won't have moved away.
Great story - I admit I have felt the same way about people whose overseas travel experiences consist of cruises or package tours that speed them through 17 countries in 3 weeks. And even though I would never want to travel that way, they were at least open-minded enough to leave the country and exposed themselves to things they wouldn't have if they had never left home.
Interesting one. I often wonder if I come off as too arrogant when discussing my travels, like "my way is the only way to go." It's just hard to take a step back when you're so excited about the places you've visited.
Nice post - it's easy to diss the cruise crowd, but any bubble break is better than nothing.
What a great post! The fact that someone dares to leave the confines of their bubble should be applauded, and not snubbed.
I loved this, thank you! Every time I hear someone re-hashing the old tourist versus traveler thing, I feel like they are trash-talking my grandma. Which is uncool.
"...and a small rucksack to carry my newfound travel elitism." That's gold.
Different travel strokes for different traveling folks, for sure. I liked this post, too, and also agree with Lola...we should applaud anyone and everyone who travels. But I do think that there is an important difference (not one to be derided, but one of which it's worth being conscious) between traveling and trying to replicate your own culture/life/experiences and traveling and trying to be comfortable with your own ambiguity, ambivalence, discomfort, and wonder in meeting people/things/experiences so distinct from what's familiar to you.