the complex of travel.

13 Octobre 2018

National Park Jacques Cartier. Québec. Canada.

Since my 18 years old, i love travelling. When i had every time the chance i took a flight ticket and travel where i could. But i have the feeling travelling 10 years ago was more challenging, less easy, and less people was travelling than now. I feel like a crisis in my life, because travelling since 10 years was my reason to live. Exploring culture, living different things, hearing others languages, being lost in a city, were for me all of the joy of travelling. Kind of old school but with such happiness.

And today, everybody travels, and everywhere. Everybody goes to the same place, everybody eats the same things, the mobile applications let no place for being surprise : everything is placed, ordered in your interactive map, that you cannot missed the « touristic places ». But it’s not what i want, but soon as i get off my « country » i am considered like a tourist and it’s expected from me to act like a tourist, to like all of touristic things, to eat like a tourists. And it’s not what i want. And more, i better remember the travels when i got lost, and did really surprising things as when everything was clear and controlled by the machine (Smartphone).
I feel like using all of these tools make the life senseless, that we are all the same, wearing the same clothes, living the same travels, that there is no more place for individuality, except for the color of the smartphone.

That’s why travelling makes less sense for me. I remember when i was 16 i made a list of all the countries i want to get to, i decided to become a photograph at first that i could catch every moment i will live in every countries, all of the smile of the people, or their tears, or the war. Not for being a tourist but for being a person. On my list were : Kenia, Japan, Australia, New-Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Ethiopia, Mozambique … As you all probably now, these places are suffering for mass tourism, and i am less motivated to see these places. I got in a lot of places, i travelled a lot, in so many countries. i didn’t become a photograph, instead i became a nurse, with the dream to travel 6 months and to work 6 months with differents NGOs. I didn’t do that either. Because at this moment, when i took all of these decisions, travelling was hard, travelling as a « Globe trotter » was not easy, and was not for everybody. When i got older, and when i saw how easy was to travel, because of all of these airlines companies which make cheap fly, because of the Air Bnb’s craziness and all of the cheap hotels, i was at first happy. Happy that travelling was not just for privileged people, or people who really wants in complicated ways to travel, it was for everybody. Was a nice feeling, the feeling of liberty. But then came the other feelings : guilty - for destroying the world with mass tourism, losing the individuality - because as i already said, travelling just became « instagramming the perfect touristic spots », losing the sense of the intercultural trading. This last point must be good understood, because the word « trading » can mean very bad thing.

The intercultural trade, is for me a way to speak with other cultures, with other people, not in an unfair relation : i am the rich tourist and you are just the poor guy who lives here.. No ! I want to discoverer you, as a person, as an unique person, with your point of view about my culture, and your point of view about your own culture, and your point of view about the world, and what makes our relationship in this time, on this moment so special ! Unfortunately i never got this kind of experience, and i was very often frustrated when i got home to have missed this possible conversation. I recognized very easy what was the problem : Mass tourism.
Mass tourism is one of the worst thing that could happen in the world. Free time is good, and it was hard to have social rights as free time, but today free time and travels are seen as mass consuming and mass tourism. Living more with less it’s not anything with is seen as a « normal » opinion, it’s still seen as a « hippie opinion », well i accept to be seen as a hippie. But i still believe that is not normal. I still think that living more with less it’s possible and in a way it’s the future. Less clothes, less travels, less pictures, less food. everything in less but with better quality. People do make list, about how many countries they visited in their life, i have to admit i did it once. And then as soon as i did it i recognized, « but that doesn’t say anything about this need to show that me too i’m destroying the world ? ». Have been in 50 countries and having no experience, no significant experience, (when we don’t count the Instagram pictures), does that make any sense ?

Of course that’s just my opinion, and i still love to travel. But i decided to travel better, for me. I don’t want to judge people who doesn’t share my opinion, of course not, but i would like for the people who will read this article, to think if their next trip, in a resort hotel, or when they will go to places where everybody got, does make sense. If it’s socially right, if it’s ecologically right, if it’s consuming right. It’s time that all of the people decide to make changements in their life, to say «mass consuming, mass tourism IS NOT GOOD! ».

See you soon !