Whether a tourist or a traveller, just show some respect!

It may simply be one of those time-of-the-year phenomenons, but for some bizarre reason I’ve had about five blog entries in my feed-reader this week covering the old discussion tourist vs traveller and which nationality does them best.

Navel-picking

Most of the entries only got a smile or a shake of my head out of me, but one titled The Worst Tourists in the World and the comments left there really got my blood boiling. The author spends most of the article slating Brits for stereotyping other nationalities but ironically (which the author half-acknowledges) ends up making no point other than displaying a stereotypical view of the British.

Before someone says it, no I’m not British, but honestly name me one nationality that does not have a stereotypical view of at least one other nationality! The comments left by readers of the article certainly seem to prove the British are not the only ones guilty of that crime! Before you head over to read the comments, I have to warn you that many of the comments are the most simple, narrow-minded, navel-picking comments I have seen for a long time.

What really bothered me about the article and the comments was this whole I’m-so-much-better-at-travelling-than-you-are attitude, which leads me on to the good-old tourist versus traveller discussion.

Tourist versus traveller

I have to admit that more often than not I use the word traveller on this blog, simply because of the stigma associated with the word tourist. While I’m declaring my sins, I also have to admit that in my backpacking youth I saw myself as a traveller and considered any journey of less than a month to be for tourists not real travellers.

My simplistic view changed when the luxury of 6-month journeys was replaced by a 25-week annual leave, and while I long for the longer journeys, 2 weeks are the most I can do nowadays.

But it is not just the time restriction that has made me rethink my traveller over tourist attitude. Travelling with my partner as opposed to my solo-travelling youth has taught me a lot. While my partner gets a buzz out of reading everything (and believe me, I do mean everything) there is to know about, say a building, I get more of a buzz out of talking to the person taking my entrance fee. But neither of us is a better traveller than the other, as long as we do whatever it is we enjoy about travelling with respect to the place we’re visiting and its people.

Essentially that is all you are, a visitor, whether you call yourself a traveller or a tourist. The only thing that matters in my book these days is that you show some respect to the place you’re visiting, to its people and to your fellow visitors.

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