Tourist vs Traveler?
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: This is our last full day in Paris (for now—it’s one of those cities I’ll never get enough of). Tomorrow we’re taking the train to a village in Provence, where we’ve rented an apartment for the next four weeks.
Tourist vs Traveler?
When I was nineteen, I spent a summer on a study-abroad program with my small private women’s college. We were housed at a baptist seminary in Switzerland and a convent in London—perhaps that tells you a bit about who we actually were? We were an insular group, and oh-so-young. But did we know all those glaringly obvious things about ourselves at the time? Of course not. We were in Europe for the summer; we were smart and sophisticated and worldly, in our own minds.
As we wandered around Europe’s most famous attractions, guidebooks in hand and purses firmly strapped to our bodies, we pitied the mere tourists, buzzing through, seeing only the highlights, dutifully obeying their guides and being driven around in luxury busses. We were real travelers—using our Eurail passes and buying picnic supplies at the market and actually wearing the espadrilles and sweaters that we picked up at cheap souvenir stands. We took ‘serious’ photos of Michelangelo’s David, we rode the Tube, we drank warm beer and cheap wine because we could. We were practically locals, for Pete’s sake!
We called all those other guide-book toting tourists tourons, with all the haughty condescension a nineteen-year-old can muster—which is a lot. [A quick Google search tells me that we didn’t invent the word—it’s a mash-up of tourist and moron that developed in reference to bad behavior in American national parks. I had no idea—in our smug youthful superiority, we assumed it was our own brilliant witticism.]
Nowadays, though, I like to think I’ve matured at least a little bit. I’ve come to really enjoy the company of other tourists.
There’s a huge caveat to that, of course—if a destination (looking at you, Paris) is completely glutted with tourists, they begin to get on my nerves. I could do without the lines at the museums and the annoying influencers clogging all the good views.
But plop me down in a place like Uzbekistan, or Kenya, or southern India, and I’ll happily talk with any and every tourist, wherever they’re from, who can dredge up a few words (or more) or English. We hung out with a couple in our hotel in Tashkent and had a great time chatting with them, for several hours, two days straight. We traded notes about things to do, places we’d been, wine travel, food travel, and Miami (where they and Lee are from). They recommended a restaurant in Khiva (our last stop in Uzbekistan) that ended up being our favorite in the whole country.
When we were on a houseboat in India, we met a couple of British guys who were staying on another boat, and when our boats tied up for the night, we went over to theirs for an extended and particularly joyous cocktail hour. On a group boat ride in Botswana we met a solo traveler (a German guy who lives in Miami now) and the three of us agreed to rent the private boat together for the next few days, and pick our own route and schedule. We had a blast chatting, and were lucky to see hundreds of elephants that we wouldn’t have, had we not decided to have that little adventure together.
Tourists, it turns out, are interesting people. They’re the people who decided to go somewhere. They’re the people who wanted to see this thing, whatever it is, that I also wanted to see. We have that in common. Other tourists tend to be as curious and interested as I am. They tend to be open to learning about other cultures and people.
Yesterday I chatted (just briefly—I’d have happily stayed longer and peppered them with questions) with a couple from New Hampshire. We’d all three been winding through the maze of alleys and dead-ends that is the ancient city of Khiva. The setting sun was hitting the bright turquoise dome of a mausoleum just so, and they, like me, were trying to find a spot where they could see and photograph it in that gorgeous golden light. We all marveled at our serendipity, and this unexpected marvel. It was a moment of extraordinary beauty, made all the more special for having shared it and connected. I told them about our youngest child (see Lane—I DO mention you sometimes!) living in New Hampshire during the pandemic. They told me where else their tour had taken them, and we agreed that Khiva was more special than any of us had expected.
The thing I like about tourists, it turns out, is that they’re tourists. And I’m one too.
Take care,
Lisa
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