 Travelling, or just wasting time? |
|
|
| introducinlyric |
 Apr 2 2008, 04:14 AM
|
Rolling Stone
Group: Local Expert
Posts: 4902
Joined: 24-May 07
From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 56605
|
Article below is by Ben Groundwater and i found it to be a great read plus the question at the end could create interesting discussion
I've got a mate, Dan, who hates backpackers. Actually, the whole concept of backpacking seems to drive him nuts.
He can't walk past a hostel in the city without having at least a little rant.
"Look at these lazy bastards," he'll say, pointing at the lightly scuffed hostel dregs lounging around the front rolling themselves ciggies. "They really think they're travelling, don't they?
"They'll make it home from a year overseas and everyone will be like, 'What did you do?'
"'Oh, you know, I hung out in Sydney for a while, got stoned with some guy called Magnus, lived off packet noodles, went fruit picking for six months. You know, real travelling, man.'
"What a load of crap."
And with that, Dan will walk away, muttering, "Wankers" under his breath.
Dan's jealous, basically. He never did the backpacker thing when he was young, and he knows he probably never will. He knows he's missed the joy of sitting around in the sun in a foreign city, jobless, with your only worry being where you're going to get your next beer from.
But in some ways, Dan's got a point. You only have to walk past any hostel to know this city is filled with tourists doing bugger all - just as pretty much every other major city in the world is filled with Australian tourists doing exactly the same thing. (Or lack of things.)
So are those backpackers really "travelling"? Can you say you've done Australia after a 12-month Bondi to Coogee pub crawl? Or, similarly, that you've done Europe having got drunk at Oktoberfest, stoned in Amsterdam, and bored working at the Putney Slug and Lettuce?
There's a fair bit of personal preference involved here. Some travellers are just "doers". They're the types who land somewhere, guidebook often in hand, and set about "doing" everything in their allotted time.
They don't feel right if they're not on the move. They line up at the museums to see the important pieces, take the open-topped bus tour around the city to get their bearings, climb all the things that are there to be climbed, see all the things that are supposed to be seen, and, if they do all that, walk away thinking "mission accomplished".
Other travellers are what I call "watchers". I'm a watcher. Watchers could be construed as being lazy bastards, but mostly, it's just how they take things in.
I could spend a whole afternoon in one cafe, sipping coffee after coffee (or beer after beer), chatting to people, and watching the city's life go by. I'm not much of a map person, either - I'll wander aimlessly through cities, occasionally coming across a little gem of a cafe or a little hidden square; but more often than not just walking around nondescript suburbs looking at not very much.
But that doesn't mean the lazy backpackers sharing ciggies outside the local hostel are watchers - most of them are just here for want of something better to do.
You know the type. They've finished school and don't want to go to uni, so they head overseas for year. They're sick of their job and don't know what else to do, so they hop on a plane.
They're the third kind of traveller, I guess: the wanderer. They don't have any real purpose for travelling, it's just another place in which to do what they want to do at home - ie, hang out, get drunk, lie in the sun. But as Seinfeld would say: not that there's anything wrong with that.
So the three groups - doers, watchers and wanderers - have three very different approaches to travel; but that does that mean either group can walk away saying they've "done" a place better than the other two?
Personally, I'd rather spend an afternoon chatting to a barman in a smoky dive than lining up behind a tour group for three hours to look at a painting I've never heard of. But that's not to say there's not some merit in taking in a city's tangible culture. And there's plenty of fun to be had just hanging out with fellow travellers.
As long as you're enjoying yourself wherever you are, and at least seeing something of a place, then I reckon you're doing travel right. And you won't feel the need to complain about the others.
How do you like to travel? Are you a doer, a watcher, or a wanderer? What do you have to do to say you've "done" a destination?
--------------------
Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ScottWoz |
Apr 2 2008, 06:01 PM
|
Rolling Stone
Group: Local Expert
Posts: 6674
Joined: 24-December 04
From: Thailand to Cambodia
Member No.: 124
|
Can of worms doesn't even come close mate. Great thread! Immediate thoughts? Ben Groundwater's a great writer. Totally encapsulating, and without the bullS*$#. I'd always had myself down as the 'third kind', but then I got thinking. What about the fourth kind? What about those of us whose clock is ticking faster than ever, those of us who should 'know better'? Those of us who haven't got the safety net of a twelve month countdown with a brand new pre-arranged comfort zone to slip in to at the other end, or an 'emergency fund' to call on when the beer money runs out and a plane 'home' is suddenly applicable now? We may be a bit of a concern to the greater picture after all. As for being a doer and/or a watcher? I think I'm a bit of both, but from the description Ben gave I'm probably, generally, more of a watcher. While I'm very much an all or nothing kind of bloke, I can't exactly say I'm a list ticker. But I'm definitely a people man, whether I like it or not, and this is voiced to me more often than not by others. For me, more than anything else, it's all about the people. Which is why I can easily spend an afternoon or evening talking to randoms over a few brews or watching the world go by, soaking up the environment and feasting the senses. I get as much - if not more - out of doing that than cramming in a tick-list filled itinerary. More often than not I'm happy to go with the flow, but above all I'm 'open' to it all, and tend to put myself in positions where things can happen, which is why I end up taking paths or doing things that I otherwise wouldn't have expected, especially if it involves spontaneous random adventures with randoms - can't beat it! I'm with Suse on the whole balance thing and (sigh) the 'doing' of a place. The very nature of the words, the fact that people even say it. How exactly do you do a place? Who are these people? Probably the ones who've just 'ticked' DONE. Great topic BTW.. 
--------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
| starlagurl |
Apr 3 2008, 08:38 AM
|
Rolling Stone
Group: TP Staff
Posts: 14434
Joined: 5-November 07
From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Member No.: 103914
|
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, yeah this is a crazy post, very interesting, more people should read it!
I'm not sure where I fit in. I definitely AM a list ticker, I can't help it, I do it for everything, movies, books, places, food, etc. etc. etc. I'm just addicted to lists in general. It's the obsessive compulsiveness in me I guess... My lists aren't that detailed. Like, my latest place list that I am "working" on is visiting every province/territory in Canada and I'm almost done! That's pretty exciting... hahaha... to me anyway...
I also hate the term "I did" Paris or whatever, but really, life is too short to argue semantics. I say I "did" Italy all the time! Not because I actually "did" a place (like *ahem* Debbie???) I know it sounds ridiculous, but I dunno, it's just a short form for saying "OK, I've been there and had a great time, now I want to go somewhere else", don't you think? It's coarse and ignorant sounding, but it really gets the point across without saying that whole above-mentioned phrase.
That being said, I have no idea where I fit in in this article, because I almost never go on guided tours, but I follow the tour guide books a lot. Everytime I go somewhere, I usually only have one thing that I really want to do, then I do it, and the rest is just randomness... So...where does that make me fit in?
--------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
| starlagurl |
Apr 3 2008, 02:03 PM
|
Rolling Stone
Group: TP Staff
Posts: 14434
Joined: 5-November 07
From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Member No.: 103914
|
Arg! Yeah, when I talk to my British and European friends I'm SO JEALOUS. They always have so much time off! That's awesome for them...but not so much for me...It's good for people, it's good for the (tourism) economy, I don't know why Western and Japanese governments don't embrace longer vacation times! Makes no sense to me....
Yeah, I agree you're never really "done" anywhere, because that would be impossible, but for practicality's sake, I say "done" because it's a short way of saying that this place is no longer at the top of my list of immediate destinations, you see what I'm saying?
--------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
| introducinlyric |
Apr 3 2008, 06:13 PM
|
Rolling Stone
Group: Local Expert
Posts: 4902
Joined: 24-May 07
From: Sydney, Australia
Member No.: 56605
|
QUOTE(starlagurl @ Apr 3 2008, 02:03 PM) 
Arg! Yeah, when I talk to my British and European friends I'm SO JEALOUS. They always have so much time off! That's awesome for them...but not so much for me...It's good for people, it's good for the (tourism) economy, I don't know why Western and Japanese governments don't embrace longer vacation times! Makes no sense to me....
Yeah, I agree you're never really "done" anywhere, because that would be impossible, but for practicality's sake, I say "done" because it's a short way of saying that this place is no longer at the top of my list of immediate destinations, you see what I'm saying?
i get what louise is saying here but at the same time if you use the term "done" to imply its no longer on your list of places to go why not say ive "been to" paris rather than "done" paris... not that it really matters but if you believe you can never really "do"/ "done" a destination how can you turn around and say you have..its a contradiction
--------------------
Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?
|
|
|
|
|
|
| sianeth |
Apr 4 2008, 04:27 AM
|
Jet Setter
Group: Local Expert
Posts: 2602
Joined: 9-June 07
From: Stirling, Scotland
Member No.: 60100
|
QUOTE(starlagurl @ Apr 3 2008, 08:03 PM)
Yeah, I agree you're never really "done" anywhere, because that would be impossible, but for practicality's sake, I say "done" because it's a short way of saying that this place is no longer at the top of my list of immediate destinations, you see what I'm saying?
Comprehende, I agree with this. So many places, such little time, gotta prioritise... I hate wasting time in general, let alone in an amazing place with so much to do/experience. But what really counts as wasting time? Sitting, watching the world go by, contemplating - superficially that may be wasting time, but sometimes it can be the most profound experience of all. I'm not really into all this classifying, I just think at the end of the day, if you've had a good time, met some amazing people, grown from the experience and made sure you have no regrets, then thats all that matters. In that sense I think alot of how I behave when travelling is just spontaneous - going with the flow as it were, and whatever feels right at the time. |
|
|
|
|
|
| peacefrog |
Apr 9 2008, 05:41 PM
|
Pathfinder
Group: Members
Posts: 475
Joined: 23-March 06
Member No.: 581
Nominate me as a Local Expert
|
Having had all the leisure to wonder about all this, taking myself and others as subject of that reflection, I came to the conclusion that it's better that people get their arse out there anyway...
Who knows, the doer might get tired and learn to take things in as they come, the watcher might decide it's time to throttle up a bit cause that world is big, and the wanderer might find out that questions that were not answered home won't find their answer elsewhere either...
Sure it's a shame that people just go away and don't see all there is to be experienced... but then who can? Back to the unreachable definition of "doing" a place. But still, whatever the way, traveling is always a chance for exposure to new things.
That was my positive thinking while travelling, remembering that I progressed in travelling thanks to more experienced travellers, "good" ones and "bad" ones ;-)
All these questions are good for judging yourself, and totally pointless, if not nocious, when applied to others
--------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 User(s) are reading this topic (1 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:
|
i loved how you ended your post "How exactly do you do a place? Who are these people? Probably the ones who've just 'ticked' DONE." totally brill and couldnt agree more. 
