No to Tourism, Yes to Travel

Home Away From Home

It's never been enough to simply see.
We can look at a book, but what good does that do if we don't also seek to understand, to get to know the characters and their personalities?

We can look at a plate of food, but what good does this do if we do not also taste, to savor each unique flavor as part of a whole?

The examples could continue on, but the point remains: popular "sightseeing" or otherwised named simply "tourism", is nothing more than what it's called: a tour of sights - a sort of, "this building here, that statue there" type of experience. But what good does this do, for us or for a native culture?

Understandably, tourism is a large economic industry for many countries. But why must everything be about making money? The consequence, then: overly crowded landmarks, often beauties of nature, where the grass is worn down from the tourists' feet, and somewhere along the way, the magic is lost, if ever so slightly. Goodness, one can barely take a photo without a few dozen tourists in the foreground.

So then, what's the solution?

Don't follow the beaten path. There's something more pure out there.

And I'll leave it at that.