Don't Just Travel
Some time ago, a FB friend posted this article: Why 'Don't Worry About Money, Just Travel' Is The Worst Advice Of All Time; to which I added a comment:
"I love travelling, but the more I travel, the more I find it a lie. At the end of the day, you go home. You face the same four walls you call home. There's the same job, the same commute, the same friends, the same enemies, the same problems; you're stinking broke and can't wait to travel again. When you do travel, you feed some of your money into that tourism machine. You bought some bangles at a village that might provide a paltry meal for a family. A lot of it is manufactured. You can never help the people you want to, like the road-side stall Aunty selling flowers in New Delhi. No matter how well I take a photo of some scenery, it can never replace the magic of the place when you're there. Looking at the picture again just makes you sad, because you're not there and the people you're with are not there with you. Or worse, some petrol company has decided to drill for oil there or it has been cleared to build more condos.
So, after much thought, I decided to not travel unless someone asks me to. It's more for them, than for me. If you can move to another country, that would be better. The semi-permanency is a lot more real. The experiences you have become more real. And you can definitely make more friends when you're there that much longer. – a well-travelled middle-class person"
Today, my friend posted this: 17 Bucket List Items Ruined By Real Images, with her own take:
"Traveling - a business that very successfully sold itself to everyone as a desirable "lifestyle". The older I get, and more I travel, the less I see the allure of it. I wanted to see the world, turned out I was destroying it with everyone else, who had the same idea."
Yup. I remember visiting the Great Wall Of China and didn't believe I was there; I was a privileged 10-year-old. After much contemplation, I realise it's because there were too many tourists, unsightly litter, and the air was not exactly fresh. All of that took the magic away; I coudn't even visualise a period battle scene if I wanted to. In fact, I was more interested to check out how clean/dirty the toilets were.
However, there are still places I wish to travel to, the ones that hold more meaning in this fleeting world, the ones that aren't exactly on everyone's bucket list. Okay, maybe except the Stone Henge and Big Ben :P
"I love travelling, but the more I travel, the more I find it a lie. At the end of the day, you go home. You face the same four walls you call home. There's the same job, the same commute, the same friends, the same enemies, the same problems; you're stinking broke and can't wait to travel again. When you do travel, you feed some of your money into that tourism machine. You bought some bangles at a village that might provide a paltry meal for a family. A lot of it is manufactured. You can never help the people you want to, like the road-side stall Aunty selling flowers in New Delhi. No matter how well I take a photo of some scenery, it can never replace the magic of the place when you're there. Looking at the picture again just makes you sad, because you're not there and the people you're with are not there with you. Or worse, some petrol company has decided to drill for oil there or it has been cleared to build more condos.
So, after much thought, I decided to not travel unless someone asks me to. It's more for them, than for me. If you can move to another country, that would be better. The semi-permanency is a lot more real. The experiences you have become more real. And you can definitely make more friends when you're there that much longer. – a well-travelled middle-class person"
Today, my friend posted this: 17 Bucket List Items Ruined By Real Images, with her own take:
"Traveling - a business that very successfully sold itself to everyone as a desirable "lifestyle". The older I get, and more I travel, the less I see the allure of it. I wanted to see the world, turned out I was destroying it with everyone else, who had the same idea."
Yup. I remember visiting the Great Wall Of China and didn't believe I was there; I was a privileged 10-year-old. After much contemplation, I realise it's because there were too many tourists, unsightly litter, and the air was not exactly fresh. All of that took the magic away; I coudn't even visualise a period battle scene if I wanted to. In fact, I was more interested to check out how clean/dirty the toilets were.
However, there are still places I wish to travel to, the ones that hold more meaning in this fleeting world, the ones that aren't exactly on everyone's bucket list. Okay, maybe except the Stone Henge and Big Ben :P
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