I’m Not a Tourist. I’m a Traveller.

Firstly, may I offer anyone saying this phrase a genuine and heartfelt, ‘Fuck off’.

Now that my feelings on this have now been made explicitly clear, let me offer an explanation.

I want this blog to be a safe space where people who want to be more conscientious in their travelling patterns can come to a judgment-free space in which they can learn and share their experience as travellers, using that word in the literal sense that they are people who are partaking in the act of travelling. However, I am only human and just like everyone else there are certain things that just piss me off. I find these grating topics exceedingly difficult to speak or write about in a non-judgmental way; so, with this topic I decided to go all in and not even try to hide my dislike of it. If you’re still reading at this point, then I’m going to make the bold assumption that your feelings and thinking on this subject match mine. Or you are my friends, Kristen and Hannah, or my step-mum, Delia, who patiently read everything I write out of support or pity. Either way, thanks for sticking with me up to this point. On to trying to justify why I find tourists who refuse to acknowledge that they are tourists infuriating.

I find that buzzwordy phrases and words like the one in the title above seem harmless on the surface but, in actuality, allow people to describe damaging behaviours in a way that lets them to take little to zero responsibility for their actions. I believe this is heightened when we travel. Labelling ourselves as ‘traveller’ or ‘tourist’ creates a basic ‘us and them’ style grouping, allowing people to place themselves in the group that they perceive to be more collective, accepted, and less annoying.

No one is perfect. We will all make social and cultural faux pas when exploring other countries and cultures. We are human, we are flawed, and we will make mistakes. It is unavoidable but it is ok. As long as we take responsibility for those mistakes, reflect on why we made them in the first place, and make a pointed and conscientious effort to be better next time. And herein lies my biggest problem with the phrase, ‘I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveller’.

Tourists get a bad reputation, and that reputation is not always unjustified; it is one of the reasons that I chose not to call this blog The Conscientious Tourist — I am fully aware of the negative connotations associated with the word ‘tourist’ compared to the word ‘traveller’, just as I am brutally aware of the irony of the title of this particular article being written under the pen name ‘The Conscientious Traveller’ – I do love a bit of irony.

Globally, destinations are having to deal with the damages caused by visitors; it can be painful, expensive, and problematic for locals to deal with the actions and behaviours of tourists. This does not mean all tourists are horrible or disrespectful. The vast majority of visitors behave well and are respectful but, unfortunately, we get judged as a group by the weakest or most problematic of our species. In travelling terms, this means we are all judged based on the behaviours of the most problematic tourists. And I think that’s fair; hopefully, it makes more tourists strive to prove that we are collectively better than that worst behaviour.

Alternatively, within tourism, the term ‘traveller’ comes with vastly different connotations and images attached. We imagine free-spirited, friendly, easy-going types that aren’t beholden to societal norms and accept all people for who they are. They wear a lot of hemp and linen. They love a good chai mate tea or naan bread. They will tell you about it in great detail and at length despite never being asked to do so. They are perhaps a wee bit annoying and up-their-own-arses but ultimately quite decent and harmless. They definitely don’t piss in the Treve Fountain, pretend to wank off the Eiffel Tower in photos, or demand loudly that the locals speak English. That would be those pesky tourists, you’re thinking of.

The two terms, ‘tourist’ and ‘traveller’ come with such vivid differences in imagery due to how media write about each group – the word ‘tourist’ is often used in newsworthy behaviour, which usually means problematic enough to make headlines, and ‘traveller’ is used in more artistic, fictional pieces to elicit ideas of free-spiritedness. When we hear these terms, our brains just put the words and pictures together to form an opinion. That’s how we hear and interpret the terms. I’m concerned, here, with how people use and say them.

I have found through years of travelling and working in the tourism industry that the type of people who like to separate themselves from bad tourist behaviour (very vocally) by claiming that they are a different breed of globetrotter altogether by labelling themselves as ‘travellers’ tend to be the ones who are often problematic. Their behaviour reflects a need to be seen living a certain lifestyle and adopting a caring, citizen-of-the-world image rather than making the effort to actually care for the locals or places they visit. I have always found this enraging and I see it akin to going into someone’s house as a guest and doing whatever the fuck you want while telling everyone back home you’ve been the perfect houseguest. I find it a damaging and disrespectful façade, cosplaying as a decent human being rather than just being one. I have extraordinarily little time for that.

If you thought that was a strong and unfair opinion, then I completely understand. I am passionate about people being mindful and respectful when they are guests in other people’s countries and when I see shitty behaviour it rubs me up the wrong way and I tend to vocalise that. Quite loudly and with, perhaps, a little less decorum and subtlety than I would usually be prone to.

With all that being rather aggressively said, I genuinely don’t believe that those who like to loudly refer to themselves as travellers rather than tourists are bad people – I genuinely believe that some of them are worse than bad, full-blown arseholes beyond saving  - but that most of the them are just a wee bit misguided or unaware of how they come across. I’m loathe to demonise that second group; they just need a mild roasting to gain a bit of perspective and, perhaps, learn how to not take themselves too seriously.

Ultimately, that is what this space is all about – learning how to be more conscientious while exploring as much of what our wonderful, varied world has to offer as possible. So with that being said, I say this directly to our hemp-wearing, matcha-drinking, I’m-a-citizen-of-the-world saying traveller friends: it’s ok to be a bog-standard tourist, doing silly (but not harmful) little touristy things and enjoying the privilege that comes with having the ability to travel. You don’t have to take yourself quite so seriously. Stop being such a wanker and just enjoy being a tourist.

As always, happy travels!