Nobody wants to be a tourist. We all want to be travelers. Wander worn vagrants with dust on their hiking boots and compass tattoos on their forearm. We want to immerse ourselves in the culture and come home with stories about the interesting people we met. And I get it. Being a traveler is a much more romantic aesthetic. It's a more beautiful thought. That is why you can put "traveler vs tourist" into your favorite colorful search engine and come back with a dozen blogs dedicated to the subtle differences between the two. From what I can tell the difference is just that, subtle, and primarily image based. It seems like being a traveler really means being a tourist but not looking like a tourist.
Image, or aesthetic, matters a lot to people. The way we look, dress, and carry ourselves communicates who we are and our attitudes long before we ever get the chance to introduce ourselves. That includes when we are traveling.
One of the best compliments I ever received was on my second day in Oxford. I was totally lost but walking purposefully down a road in the direction I thought I needed to be going. A man walked up to me. A very well to do looking British man. Someone I might consider a local. "Excuse me miss. Can you tell me where (insert building I still don't know the location of) is?"
"Um... I think it is a few blocks that was."
He shocked back. "You're not from here?"
"Dude, I'm still jet-lagged."
That is a proud moment in my life. I looked like I belonged. This man picked me out of hundreds, if not five, possible people to ask for help because I looked like I fit. Make no mistake though, whether I look like I fit or not I am a tourist.
I am a tourist because I want to see it all and do it all and take pictures of everything. I don't have to live there. And I don't want to let the fact that something is a "tourist trap" stop me from seeing and experiencing it. I want to see Machu Picchu and the Eiffel Tower, I want to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, and do whatever else there is to do without the inhibitions of being from there. Yes, I want to immerse myself in the culture and get dirt from all over the world ground into my hiking boots and talk to locals but I also realize that I might never have the opportunity to be there and see that again and I don't want to waste those opportunities for the sake of aesthetic or wander snobbery. Tourism is actually an attitude I like and am trying to incorporate more into my everyday life rather than removing it from my travel life. When you are a tourist you make a point of seeing as much as you can with thew knowledge that you are leaving soon.
Maybe we all hate tourists so much not because they don't respect culture but because they get to experience our homes in a way we never do. We miss the must see locations in our towns and don't approach them with excitement because they are there every day. If you don't believe me ask your friends who live in LA when the last time they went to Venice Beach was or your friends from New York if they have ever been to Ellis Island. I drive by the Space Needle at least once a week, why would I pay $50.00 to actually go up and see it? The fact is you might not live in that place forever, as much as it seems like it now, and the opportunity to see those things might not always be available. We miss out on so much by refusing to bring a sense of wonder into our home explorations.
I do not want to miss out on anything just because it is close to me of conveniently easy to get to so I have been working on integrating being a hometown tourist into my lifestyle.
The first thing I did to transform from bored homebody to hometown tourist was throw my inhibitions out, not as easy as I just made it sound. Seriously, do what you have to to get rid of them. Inhibitions are useless. They tell you that you live here and that you'll have to interact with these people for the foreseeable future, but if you are someplace only tourists go how true can that be?All inhibitions and worrying about other people judging you do is get in the way of you living the life you want to be living. Throw them out.... or at least don't pack them in your adventure bag.
And don't be afraid to stop and take pictures, this goes a long with throwing out inhibitions. The best photography advice I ever received was to take pictures. Yes, take pictures of things you want to remember but also take pictures of everything you don't want to forget, even if it is something you see everyday. Take pictures. Some of my favorite memories are distilled in quick snapshots of me and my friends. It's okay, take pictures. Nobody is going to be upset if you find a library ladder in that old bookstore and you climb up to take a classic Belle picture or if sliding down a banister makes you feel like a Disney Princess, so long as you are polite and don't break anything. In fact, everybody else wants to take that picture too they were just afraid to. It seems silly to stop and take a picture of that funny sign you walk by every day but do it, its your life, don't you want to remember it?
Another important thing to do when incorporating tourism into your daily life is to just get to know your area; it's a cool place, it likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. I know you know your town pretty intimately, you know all of the back streets and which grocery store has the best produce but what else is there? I make a lot of lists so I got a pen and paper out and wrote down everything there was to do around me and what restaurants were featured on the travel channel and found all of the local museums and just started working on doing those things. Maybe just one a month or two or three on a Saturday where I was feeling extra intrepid. Or go take a walk until you are lost and stop into the first cool thing you see, which is what I did for most of my month in London and Oxford. The internet is a great tool so use it, you would if you were going to another country. The best part is, unlike when you are on vacation you don't have a time limit.
We often look down on being a tourist because it is an easy way to see everything without experiencing anything. I think that is only partly true. Being a tourist is easy and you get to experience so much.
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