Who could argue with the legendary Mark Twain?
Here's what the famed wanderer had to say about travel's significance:
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth..."
If only this could be said for all who travel. Sadly, as travel can now be done with unprecedented ease, such epiphanies often allude the traveling masses. Rather than decreasing prejudice, modern travel may actually worsen it. Travel has become about the spectacle - the arrival in new places and photographing of its strangeness, only to tell people about it back home, and hardly to understand it. Thus, those who travel can be subdivided into two key types: the tourist and the traveler.
Perhaps G.K. Chesterton stated it best: "The traveler sees what he sees...the tourist sees what he has come to see." The difference, after all, between a tourist and a traveler is in their perspectives. Travelers embrace experiences, and grow from them, versus being a passive observer to the images of a place. American writer, Miriam Beard, has also done well to define this key element to authentic travel. She states, "travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." Travelers see life with renewed vision everywhere they go. They do not take with them preconceptions or prejudices about what they will witness and experience. There is not any single, correct 'way of life,' after all. The traveler's mind is constantly expanding with every place experienced. Tourists, on the other hand, simply observe 'sights' - not life - through a superficial lens, ignorant of any insights revealed.
To better understand this difference, consider the following story:
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The tourist versus the traveler: A tale of a two villages.
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First, her father visited Africa.
He was there on business, as usual. In fact, he boasts what an international man he is, jetting off to major international cities every other week. Some say he is quite the tourist. He is, after all, an international financier. This time, his work had taken him to Ethiopia's bustling capital. It was his first time in Africa. And, on a rare day off from meetings, he felt obligated to see some sights. Upon his return, his wife and daughter would surely ask a million questions. They are especially curious about his visits to underdeveloped places. But he never quite feels like explaining to them what it is like, and never takes them there on vacations. He prefers clean, developed places with a certain set of standards. So, instead of trying to explain his visits - he can hardly find words to express them anyway - he finds it better to simply take back a few good photos.
As far as he is concerned, once you have seen one impoverished place, you have seen them all. And he has seen a lot of them. Each country has a few minor distinctions but, at the end of the day, he finds visits to any of them to be too demanding. They are all so filthy; so overcrowded; and, so very poor. Worst of all, the people in these places are so hard to understand. It is not only language that impedes his understanding. He can not understand their behaviors. They are clearly guided by an entirely different set of values. The bartering. The hassles with even the most minor transactions. It exhausts him and does not make any sense. The corporate businessmen he understands, though. And it is with them that he prefers to spend his time. Regardless, this one afternoon, to appease his family at home, he hired a car to take him around the dizzying city and into the expansive countryside. When he was sure that he had taken a few good photos, after visiting a few interesting villages, he was thrilled to be returning to the comforts of his hotel.
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Her father's trip photos inspired her. So much so that she pursued a Degree in Cultural Anthropology. She was fascinated by cultures around the world, but especially those in developing countries. The life these people lived seemed so far removed from the one she knew, and she longed to understand it. In fact, shortly after her father's trip to Ethiopia, she accepted a summer internship there. Ethiopia's photos had really struck her, and spurred what would become a life devoted to cultural awareness and travel. She would become quite the traveler after that.
For the nearly three months that she lived there, she says her senses were truly heightened. She lived in a remote village and experienced life amongst the villagers. Her village, like most in rural Ethiopia, was miles from a major city. It was miles from regular car traffic, let alone drivers. It was miles away from hot, running water. And it was certainly miles away from high speed internet, let alone wireless and cell phone signals.
To communicate with her family and friends back home, she could use the one phone in the volunteer coordinator's office, or the one computer with an archaically slow, dial-up connection. To wash her clothes, she followed the villagers down to the local stream. There was no soap. There was no hot water. There was no spin cycle. She had only her own hands, and a washing board gifted to her by a village elder. But this was how people there lived, and how they still do. It was not the illusion of a place one gets when briefly passing through. It was not a simple, yet colorful snapshot brought back from a brief tour through such a village. This was life, as it was lived there. And it was how she lived too, for three months.
She brought back many vivid mental snapshots of rural Africa.
She does not dwell on her actual photos. When she looks at her few real photos though, and even those taken by her father, she sees much more than a collection of colorful people and places. She sees life portraits. Not a woman, but beautiful hands that wove colorful village costumes. Sacrificing, tireless hands that carved her washboard. Joyous, intense lips that led the community through festive nightly song. Loving, gracious families whose hearts were overflowing. Yet, when she explains this - the absolute truth and beauty of their lives - to her father, he still does not understand. He still sees these photos as like museum specimens, or even spectacles: somewhat interesting, but far removed from his modern life.
And this is the fundamental difference between the tourist and the traveler. The one sees while the other can not.