The Traveler vs. Tourist Debate and Why I Don’t Give a Crap
“I am not a tourist.”
This is the tagline for a tour company's latest campaign, where they are trying to inspire people to begin traveling differently.
Now, I’m all for inspiring people to travel. I’m also all for trying to convince people to travel outside of their comfort zones in order to experience places more deeply. It’s good to get “off the beaten path” sometimes.
But I have to be honest – I kind of take issue with the whole “I am not a tourist” campaign.
The traveler vs. tourist debate is certainly not a new one. For years, travelers and tourists have been defined and delineated, being separated from one another and placed at two ends of an invisible travel spectrum.
“Tourists“ are the ones who wear fanny packs and Aloha shirts. They’re the ones piling out of big buses to strike stupid poses in front of all the tourist sites. They are the ones eating at McDonalds because they’re afraid of “weird” food. They are the close-minded ones worthy of ridicule.
“Travelers“ are the ones who tote backpacks and only 3 pairs of underwear around the world. They use local transportation and thrive on living in hostel dorm rooms. They eat at street stalls and interact with locals as much as possible. They are the adventurous ones worthy of envy.
At least, these are the definitions we’ve been presented with – that tourists are “bad” and travelers are “good.”
But you know what? Those definitions are a bunch of crap. They’re nothing more than narrow stereotypes, and it bothers me when they are pitted against one another, as if one is more desirable than the other. When a big tour company tells people to “take travel back from the socks-and-sandals tourist crowd,” it makes it sound as though the evil tourists are ruing travel for everybody.
Which isn't true, of course.
I don’t care how you travel. I don’t judge where you go. I don’t label the “tourists” and the “travelers,” because, at the end of the day, those are stupid labels anyway. Not all “tourists” are buffoons, and not all “travelers” are saints. People are people, regardless of their travel style. I'm just glad they're traveling at all.
And yet, we are still confronted with the tourist vs. traveler debate time and time again.
My main question is: why does it have to be one or the other? Can’t a tourist also be a traveler, and vice versa?
What would you call a person who books a spot on a guided tour, but who spends their free time chatting with locals and getting lost in new cities? What would you call a person who backpacks around Europe, but only stays in places with Western amenities? Is one of these people “better” than the other? Of course not.
The truth is, there are some travel styles that just do not fit into either the “tourist” or “traveler” category. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I am proudly a little bit of both.
If I stuck my nose up at “touristy” things, I would have never…
…climbed the Great Wall of China…
…visited the Grand Canyon…
…watched a sunset on Waikiki Beach…
…cruised through Milford Sound…
…or climbed to the top of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Some of these “touristy” experiences have been some of my favorites. I have great memories from all around the world of being a tourist, taking lots of photos, and just enjoying the sites that everyone comes to see.
At the same time, if I refused to be a “traveler,” I would have never…
…went hiking on a glacier…
…road tripped across the United States…
…climbed sea cliffs in New Zealand…
…seen one of the world’s rarest birds up close…
…or traveled solo.
These, too, are some of my favorite travel experiences. And I never would have had any of them if I’d been too afraid to leave the guided tour behind.
But, looking back on all of the amazing travel experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have, it becomes clear to me that it’s not about being a “traveler” as opposed to a “tourist.” It’s more about taking advantage of opportunities and doing the things that appeal to me.
I don’t travel for anybody else, so why should I let somebody else tell me “the right way” to travel?
Because here’s a not-so-secret secret: there is no “right way.” There's no “wrong way,” either. There’s only the way that works best for you. And sure, maybe your style is different than the next person’s, but that doesn’t make it okay to apply those “tourist” and “traveler” labels.
Screw those labels. And screw the people who use them in a derogatory way.
I’m going to keep traveling the way I want to travel, no matter what you call me. And I hope you'll do the same.
READ NEXT: Am I a Lame Traveler?
What do you think of these labels? Do you have to be one or the other? How do you feel about the “I am not a tourist” campaign?
Amanda Williams is the award-winning blogger behind A Dangerous Business Travel Blog. She has traveled to more than 60 countries on 6 continents from her home base in Ohio, specializing in experiential and thoughtful travel through the US, Europe, and rest of the world. Amanda only shares tips based on her personal experiences and places she's actually traveled!
Great post. As the founder of Touristlink.com I thought about this a lot but still think its a great brand and one we are proud to stick with even if some people would maybe get the wrong idea about our site. Living in Asia I dont think that the term has the same connotations as it does perhaps in the United States. A lot of the great tourist attractions are great for a reason.
My philosophy is to not really care what other people think – I actually like being a “tourist” in a new city!
I just had the precise traveler/tourist experience I think of when this question arises. I’m in göreme, turkey right now and walked 1.5km to the open air museum this morning. I was a little late, arriving an hour after they opened, and everything there was to see was inundated with bus loads of Japanese tourists. They would monopolize rooms (cave churches in this case), ignore the “no photo” signs and instructions, and ignored the fact that other people not in their group were trying to see. They ignored polite “excuse me” requests, but did look up when I spoke. When I raised my voice and aggressively said “MOVE!” they hopped out of the way quickly, so it’s clear they understood.
The experience was properly summarized by an Australian guy who was there, after they left.. “annoying little bastards, aren’t they?”
So I’d say that tourists are the mobile annoyances you time your day to annoy, and travelers are the people you chat with, and with whom you occasionally exchange contact info.
Oh the Japanese tour group… doesn’t it suck sometimes how people live up to stereotypes?
Indeed. The good thing is that as soon as you want to do something that can’t involve a tour bus they are not around. In fact they are never in town either. They tour from hotel to site to hotel and never see anything that isn’t prearranged. So they are mostly not in the way. Except on occasion when they are the stereotypical PITA.
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To me I dont care whether you’re a tourist or a traveller, I more care about if you travel sustainably or not. I want to see tourists/travellers consider their impact on the environment, the people around them (both host and guests) as well as how they choose to spend their money. Everyone can have the holiday they want and be the type of “tourist/traveller” they want to be and still make positive sustainable travel choices. Another factor from the social science perspective, “tourist” is the government/UN term to analyze and categorize the movement of all people, whilst traveler is the romantic notion of wandering and travelling. All of it completely subjective though 🙂
Great post!
I definitely agree with you on the sustainable travel point — it’s a big topic of interest for me, too, and I’m going to be doing quite a bit this year to try to focus on it a bit more.
The tourist/traveler debate though certainly is subjective, though, as you pointed out!
Here’s some words in a video. I don’t know if you follow Sonia Gil at all. I like her videos while acknowledging that there’s something about them I don’t like.
Nonetheless, in this one she has some good words in the traveler/tourist contrast. If you’re really impatient, skip forward to about the 30-second mark…
http://youtu.be/vhgeAHLFY24
Thanks! And yes, I do follow Sonia a bit, and totally agree with you on her videos…
Lots of comments on this post! I just ran across a not entirely irrelevant quote:
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G. K. Chesterton
Interesting quote! There certainly are enough of them that cover this topic, eh?
Rob , are you saying travellers have absolutely no expectations what to see when they decided to go to another country? are you saying tourists would not see anything more than what they plan to see. if so, it is ridiculous. cos G. K. Chesterton comments and ideas are really pretentious.
The traveler v. tourist debate is one worth having. But it’s not about where you go. It’s about how you behave and how you treat others. This is a prime example of the tourist at his worst:
http://widk.com/2012/01/10/human-safari-tourists-pay-to-encounter-african-tribes-treat-them-like-animals-in-a-zoo/
Wow… that example is horrible! Going on a “human safari” is not something a traveler OR tourist does — it’s something a very ignorant, reprehensible person does.
Great post Amanda, I completely agree. It shouldn’t matter which way you choose to experience the world, whether you want to discover for yourself or be shown, just feel bloody lucky you’re able to do such a thing in the first place! Life is too short and the world too big a place to be fussing over that.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Charley! And I agree that realizing how lucky we are to be able to travel is very important!
[…] wonders.In December, Amanda Williams over at A Dangerous Business, wrote a piece entitled “The Traveler vs. Tourist Debate and Why I Don’t Give a Crap”, which examined G Adventures recent You’ll Never Forget It campaign (in which I’d played a […]
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Preach it, sistah! I wrote a similar post once about how “I’m not a backpacker and I don’t like solo travel.” Any travel you do–any travel at all–automatically expands your mind. Who gives a shit about how you do it?
Exactly! Travel is travel, no matter what your style is, and all of it can be worthwhile, educational, and even life-changing!
No, fair enough. People should be encouraged to travel, more thought needed with campaigns like that.
I haven’t heard of that campaign but it truly sucks. I enjoy doing both, from getting excited about seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa and staying in nice hotels (part of my inter railing honeymoon) to going to remote villages in northern Sierra Leone which I did in February this year.
I guess the campign is created by travel snobs, exactly how you described, 3 pairs of underwear. I met some if these ‘up their own arse hippy’ types when travelling in South Africa in 1999. I was asked how I was travelling to which I replied The Bas Bus and thru immediately turned their noses up at me. Tossers.
Enjoyed the piece, I am currently blogging about past and future travel plans http://www.stephendcook.blogspot.com , my latest blog is entitled ‘How Travelling Changes You’
Ciao
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the folks at G Adventures travel snobs. I think they truly do want to convince people to travel. I just don’t think they’ve gone about it in the right way with this campaign.