Responsible Tourism: Rediscover Why You Travel

Why Do I Travel?

Unlike a lot of people, I cannot say I’ve always had the dream of becoming a full time traveller.

As a child I was obsessed with nature, insects and dinosaurs and wanted to become a palaeontologist, and then later an entomologist.

After graduating from high school I tried to launch a career in photography, but still found that drive to get back to nature, so I spent a few months in South Africa and earned a Field Guide Diploma, in the hope that I could merge both photography and my love for the wild into one. Suffice to say that also didn’t work out. 

I ended up working in a large outdoor and travel retail store for a few years, and that’s where Ana and I met.

With that meeting also came a new way of seeing the world around me, and a realisation of what I had been looking for all those years, something that at first I just couldn’t put my finger on.

I realised that what all of those things I was so passionate about since I was a kid had in common:

They all would have taken me around the world!

Mass Tourism

My main drive to travel is the need to explore and discover new cultures and experiences, and in a world governed by social media and what is popular vs what isn’t, I feel like that sentiment is shared by fewer people every year.

All over the World, it seems that people no longer travel for the enjoyment of discovery, but because of word of mouth, all inclusive deals, and mostly because everyone else does the same. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t travel. The problem is not people travelling, the problem is millions of tourists focusing on the same destinations over and over because of cheap deals and massive online popularity, overwhelming the resources of the destination and neglecting to visit areas that are just as worthy of attention.  

This, and the fact that our planet is more interconnected than ever, has resulted in a level of mass tourism beyond anything we have seen so far, which means that the hot destinations had to adapt to the increasingly high demand.

Prices have dropped dramatically, increasing the competition, while culturally and naturally important areas have been pushed aside and destroyed in favour of giant hotels and resorts. Locals have been hired to work for foreign businesses, causing most of the profits to leave the country. Pollution levels have skyrocketed, thanks to both careless travellers and business practices. 

The pandemic

2020 came and everything stopped dead in its tracks.

One of the effects of the current pandemic has been to slow travel to a crawl, giving countries all over the world an insight in the way modern tourism has affected them, both in positive and negative ways. There is no denying that mass tourism is a hugely lucrative business. At the same time though, it is a double edged sword.

With the masses gone, dolphins have returned to the canals of Venice, the crowds at Everest Base Camp have disappeared and locals in Bali have started clearing up their rivers clogged with trash. We are now able to see the popular destinations in a new light:

Cleaner, quieter, and slowly regaining the charm and beauty they once had. 

The downside is that with many local and foreign operators going out of business or closing down properties, employment has been shot as well. In a way though, this is also a chance for countries to start reemploying local workers in local businesses, and to not rely so strongly on the influence and income of mass tourism. 

What Can We Do?

We now have a one in a lifetime chance to shift gears, and slow down.

With most of us stuck at home, we are giving countries that rely heavily on tourism a chance to reorganise and perhaps change their ways as well. 

So how can we make sure we don’t fall back in the same old habits? 

Here are a few ideas:

• Travel off-season: Travelling off-season can give you the chance to experience a location and the culture in a more quiet and personal way, without crowds and at lower prices. It is also a good way to support the local economy during slow times, as you’ll probably be able to book locally owned stays.

• Don’t just go for the hot spots: Don’t just follow the crowd, go your own way. Give yourself some time for exploration, so just throw the map away and just pick a direction. Allowing yourself to get lost just makes the discovery of hidden gems even more exciting, while at the same time immersing you in the culture of the place!

• Choose eco-friendly transport and companies to travel: If you can, travel by train, bike, scooter or public transport, or even just walk! Make sure to book your trips with well reputed companies that have a smaller impact on the environment.

• Make sure you support the local businesses: If you can, choose a small local business over giant foreign chains. This will ensure that the money you pay stays and supports the country you’re visiting. The same goes for Airbnb. If you book one, try to go for local owned properties. The practice of foreigners buying cheap property in hot tourist destinations and then turning them into airbnb’s has the unfortunate effect of driving real estate prices through the roof, making things very difficult for the locals.

• Remember that you are a guest: Treat your destination like if you were in someone’s home and respect the environment, customs and traditions. Would you get drunk, throw tantrums and litter if you were someone’s guest? I think not, so no reason to do it anywhere else.

• Put the camera away: In the words of author James Thurber in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: “Beautiful things don’t ask for attention”. In a world of faces glued to phones and insta-famous pictures, we’re slowly forgetting to see with our eyes. Sometimes it’s good to put the camera down and take the time to enjoy what’s in front of us. 

A chance to make things better?

I have experienced first hand the effects of uncontrolled tourism.

As a child, my family and I often visited a small pond, hidden in a forest, that originated from a stream coming out of the opening of a cave that connected to a large system. It was an untouched hidden gem, and we treated it as such. We would spend hours playing in the freezing water, chasing after frogs and looking at the hundreds of tadpoles that swam in the water.

Years later, the area was ravaged when it was decided to open the cave system for public tours. I only realised what was happening when I visited the place for the last time. The trees were cut down and the land bulldozed. All of the frogs and tadpoles were gone.

I’ve been told that the situation has gotten better over the years but I still haven’t been able to bring myself to go back, out of fear of seeing the same scenario again.

What I experienced is in small scale what millions experience all over the world.

As travellers, we have the responsibility to try and make a difference, and we now have the opportunity to do so, at really no cost to ourselves.

Forgive me if by any chance I was too preachy in this article, as that was not my intention. This is a difficult and painful topic to discuss, so I can only hope that my point came across like I intended. 

So remember, we all have a chance to make a difference. 

Follow common sense, be respectful, and keep on travelling responsibly!

I’ll see you on the trail and until next time this is Luca, signing off.  

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