The Case Against Travel

[FINate]

I found this essay fascinating, interested in hearing thoughts from others:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel

Younger me bought the hype that travel expands our horizons, makes us into better people, blah blah blah. Yet after being a tourist a fair bit, older cynical me isn't so sure. Travel, especially the short-term touristy type, is very consumeristic. I think the author is correct that it  changes the locals more than the tourist. The carbon footprint of this delusion is enormous, and I'm not the least bit convinced that offsets work.

I dunno. Part of me still wants to travel because it's fun and memorable. But on the other hand we haven't been on a plane since before the pandemic and honestly, I don't miss flying. Guessing after the July 4th airline debacle there not a few people that regret their choices, lol.

What do you think? Is the author onto something, or just a scold?

[Dicey]

No time to read the article, because we're packing up the RV to head out in the morning. We haven't traveled by air since late February, 2020. Totally coincidentally, we bought the RV the following week. (We'd been searching for a particular used model for years, and it popped up a couple of days after we got back.)

I took my first plane trip at age 12 and did my first international trip a year later. Those trips exploded my view of the world. I have craved the travel experience ever since. I don't travel to boast about my experiences to my friends and family. I've gone on international friendship trips, National Park trips, an international mission trip, an amazing bucket list trip with a friend who had a terminal dx and died a week after we returned. I've attended lots of weddings and kissed new babies who now have children of their own. I've helped relatives move and I've helped clean out houses when people have died. I have visited 47 of 50 states. I have even taken an extended international bicycling trip. All have shaped my life and worldview in interesting and unexpected ways.

OTOH, I did way too many business trips, but even some of those were growing and bonding experiences (not often enough, but I really tried).

I let my passport expire during the pandemic. Not having a current one freaks me out a bit.

I look forward to reading the article later, but I would not want to be the person probably be I'd had I not been fortunate to spend time (and contribute) in places and cultures other than my own.

[bacchi]

That essay lightly touches on a lot of things but, in general, I agree. Travel is seen as aspirational and inspirational. We go to Prague, we visit the Bilbao, we ride the London Eye, and then we return home and tell our friends about it. Their reply is often, "Fun! We did that last year. Did you travel up to Edinburgh for the book festival? We did that when we were there."

I also can't count the number of times I've visited a place only to be let down, the Grand Canyon included. A lot of destinations are hyped up, either to sell a product (including eyeballs on a youtube channel) or to inflate the teller's importance.

Finally, the carbon spewed into the air can no longer be ignored.

I haven't flown since 2018 and will do so this year. I'm not looking forward to it. The whole airport/delays/crammed into seats gets old very quickly.

[Cassie]

I found the article interesting. I don’t expect traveling to change anything about me. I enjoy seeing new places and I have especially enjoyed the architecture and natural beauty of Europe. I know people that travel for months every year and I only like to be gone once every few years for 2 weeks.

I have also been to most of the states and national parks have been the highlights for me. We had a used motor home for 10 years that made it easy to travel with 4 dogs. I have also been on 6 cruises which were initially fun but got old by the end.  Some people hate to travel and to them I say just stay home. Approaching 70 I have seen the places that I have wanted to so not sure how much more I will do.

[GuitarStv]

I don't like 'travel' generally.  It takes months or years to really get a good feel for a different place, culture, different people.  You do not get that in a short period of time.  Jetting off somewhere for a week and running helter skelter from place to place before flying back home is a waste of time, money, and the environment.  People I know who are really into 'travel' are more into 'pictures of me with a different backdrop' and tend to be incredibly shallow people to talk to who are hoping that spending money on this is a way to be less boring consumers.

I feel different about slower travel largely under your own power (which I think can be made to work better), but the modern vacation style travel is unsatisfying and unhealthy any way I look at it.

[roomtempmayo]

Travel, especially the short-term touristy type, is very consumeristic.

An editor might have titled this article, "The Case Against Tourism," but it wouldn't have generated the traffic.

The distinction between going places for a purpose and tourism seems to be important:

To explore it, let’s start with what we mean by “travel.” Socrates went abroad when he was called to fight in the Peloponnesian War; even so, he was no traveller. Emerson is explicit about steering his critique away from a person who travels when his “necessities” or “duties” demand it. He has no objection to traversing great distances “for the purpose of art, of study, and benevolence.” One sign that you have a reason to be somewhere is that you have nothing to prove, and therefore no drive to collect souvenirs, photos, or stories to prove it. Let’s define “tourism” as the kind of travel that aims at the interesting—and, if Emerson and company are right, misses.

I think it's totally coherent to say that sightseeing in major tourist destinations is bankrupt and still think travel - going places for a reason - can be life changing. 

The conclusions are perhaps even easy to reach.  Don't take your 8 and 10 year old to Paris in August to see the city by tourbus, but support and fund their semester exchange with a regional French university ten years later.  Don't go on a resort vacation, but support your twenty-something who wants to work on a fishing boat based in Ecuador for a summer.  Go abroad when you have something to offer, but not to consume.

The practical problem is that if we boarder acceptable travel that way, most of the memory making family travel is ruled out.  And most of us don't like being told that our family picture in front of the Eiffel Tower is an ethical problem.

[Bartlebooth]

Flying blows, AirBnB and Turo are full of shady dealings, service sucks everywhere due to low unemployment.

When I do travel, my spouse expects me to have a plan for everything (doesn't actually plan anything themselves, except saying "we should do xxxx ridiculously expensive thing") and I would rather wing it and just walk around).  Every meal has the be the absolute best option within a 20 mile radius.  So then we argue and sit around.  Eventually after sleeping in late, they spend an hour getting ready for a 60 minute hike which for some reason requires 10 pounds of snacks and water in a backpack, we get out and have a good time (for 10 brief minutes), and they say "we should do this more often!".

I have plenty more interesting things to do at home.

[Askel]

Lately I've been enjoying this guy's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeauMiles

Particularly his films where he'll do something dumb like paddle a kayak or walk 100km to work.  He doesn't spend a ton of time on it, but he does get a bit philosophical about being able to have all the adventure and novel new experiences right at home vs getting on a plane to go bother a bunch of people who maybe don't want to be bothered...

And lately I've kind of been living that- finding all the weird and fascinating things right near me that I just need to take the time to go find.   

...which is interesting because I live in a pretty touristy area, it's probably not the number one industry in the area, but it's definitely up there.  I get a weird kick out of looking up people's random youtube videos and other social media trip reports and seeing just how surprisingly banal and kinda sad pretty much all of them are, pretty much just completing checklists of destinations/things/experiences while missing a lot of what actually makes this place special.   

And one sure fire way to diminish your appetite for tourism: deal with tourists in your home town. At best, they're a minor inconvenience, but I've been witness to some truly awful behavior by large groups of them (looking at you, snowmobilers).   

 

[FINate]

No time to read the article, because we're packing up the RV to head out in the morning. We haven't traveled by air since late February, 2020. Totally coincidentally, we bought the RV the following week. (We'd been searching for a particular used model for years, and it popped up a couple of days after we got back.)

I took my first plane trip at age 12 and did my first international trip a year later. Those trips exploded my view of the world. I have craved the travel experience ever since. I don't travel to boast about my experiences to my friends and family. I've gone on international friendship trips, National Park trips, an international mission trip, an amazing bucket list trip with a friend who had a terminal dx and died a week after we returned. I've attended lots of weddings and kissed new babies who now have children of their own. I've helped relatives move and I've helped clean out houses when people have died. I have visited 47 of 50 states. I have even taken an extended international bicycling trip. All have shaped my life and worldview in interesting and unexpected ways.

OTOH, I did way too many business trips, but even some of those were growing and bonding experiences (not often enough, but I really tried).

I let my passport expire during the pandemic. Not having a current one freaks me out a bit.

I look forward to reading the article later, but I would not want to be the person probably be I'd had I not been fortunate to spend time (and contribute) in places and cultures other than my own.

The author makes a distinction between tourism and traveling with a purpose. Sounds like you're more in the latter camp. If I'm honest, our trips backpacking through Europe and visiting tropical islands, while fun and interesting, did nothing to expand my horizons or otherwise change who I am. But living and working in SW Asia and Europe for extended periods of time... different experience.

[scantee]

There is research that says that spending on experiences provides greater satisfaction than spending on goods, but that research is a few decades old now and I suspect that isn’t true anymore. People now mindlessly consume travel the same way they do consumer goods. My takeaway from this isn’t ‘never travel.’ Rather, be thoughtful about what you’re buying (whether an experience or a good) and what you think you’ll get out of it. Examine your priorities and make sure your travel will truly improve your satisfaction. If after that that you still want to to do it, great, go for it.

This summer I’m taking my kids on an international vacation where we will do a lot of very touristy things. But we’re also meeting up with family who live in another country who we don’t get to see frequently. The chance to see them is what tipped the vacation from something that sounds nice but isn’t a burning desire to something that is totally worth it to me and that I’m really looking forward to.

[GuitarStv]

Lately I've been enjoying this guy's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeauMiles

Particularly his films where he'll do something dumb like paddle a kayak or walk 100km to work.  He doesn't spend a ton of time on it, but he does get a bit philosophical about being able to have all the adventure and novel new experiences right at home vs getting on a plane to go bother a bunch of people who maybe don't want to be bothered...

And lately I've kind of been living that- finding all the weird and fascinating things right near me that I just need to take the time to go find.   

...which is interesting because I live in a pretty touristy area, it's probably not the number one industry in the area, but it's definitely up there.  I get a weird kick out of looking up people's random youtube videos and other social media trip reports and seeing just how surprisingly banal and kinda sad pretty much all of them are, pretty much just completing checklists of destinations/things/experiences while missing a lot of what actually makes this place special.   

And one sure fire way to diminish your appetite for tourism: deal with tourists in your home town. At best, they're a minor inconvenience, but I've been witness to some truly awful behavior by large groups of them (looking at you, snowmobilers).

I really like Beau's videos. He does travel right.  Human powered, challenging, self made adventure.

[bacchi]

The author makes a distinction between tourism and traveling with a purpose.

While this is an important distinction, it may be like meeting someone who just got back from Vegas or just bought a new car: everyone you meet is a winner! No one lost money at blackjack and no one got shafted by a car salesperson.

To relate to the topic, I expect even travel vloggers in their brand new hiking gear will claim to be traveling with a purpose (in a sense, they are -- to earn a living).

[wageslave23]

Flying blows, AirBnB and Turo are full of shady dealings, service sucks everywhere due to low unemployment.

When I do travel, my spouse expects me to have a plan for everything (doesn't actually plan anything themselves, except saying "we should do xxxx ridiculously expensive thing") and I would rather wing it and just walk around).  Every meal has the be the absolute best option within a 20 mile radius.  So then we argue and sit around.  Eventually after sleeping in late, they spend an hour getting ready for a 60 minute hike which for some reason requires 10 pounds of snacks and water in a backpack, we get out and have a good time (for 10 brief minutes), and they say "we should do this more often!".

I have plenty more interesting things to do at home.

Is my wife leading a double life as your wife?!

[Michael in ABQ]

Never been much for travelling or tourism. Especially now with a large family of young kids. Getting 8 people on an airplane is a bit stressful (and expensive) to say the least.

We just got back from a trip to see a lot of my family. The kids had a good time swimming in a backyard pool (and playing videogames with cousins) but we also got to see some interesting things like Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood. Getting to play in the snow in June while it's 70 degrees outside is pretty cool - even if said snow was the leftover pile of hard, dirty snow leftover from plowing the parking lot. On the way back we had a layover in LAX and went on a bit of an adventure to walk to the closest In-N-Out burger. It was about a mile away which was no easy feat on surface streets near LAX - there's not exactly a dedicated path or sidewalks everywhere and there was an 8-lane surface street to cross. Still, it's a memory for the kids - especially as we were rushing back to not miss our flight home.



I've spent 20 years in the Army National Guard and got to do a lot of travelling that way ("travel the word, meet interesting people, then shoot them"). I've been to 3 continents and multiple countries. In a few cases I was able to go out in the country - in other cases I was basically confined to a base for the whole deployment. Even travelling within the US for different training - usually for a couple of weeks. Probably 1/2 - 1/2 of the 30ish states I've been to have due to military training.

[FINate]

And lately I've kind of been living that- finding all the weird and fascinating things right near me that I just need to take the time to go find.   

...which is interesting because I live in a pretty touristy area, it's probably not the number one industry in the area, but it's definitely up there.  I get a weird kick out of looking up people's random youtube videos and other social media trip reports and seeing just how surprisingly banal and kinda sad pretty much all of them are, pretty much just completing checklists of destinations/things/experiences while missing a lot of what actually makes this place special.   

This is an important point. If the goal is growth and learning about other cultures -- an often cited reason for travel --  this doesn't happen with self-selected activities that are enjoyable and comfortable. You should be uncomfortable, have mixed feelings, and experience culture shock. This requires a degree of open-mindedness and putting aside ethnocentrism. What's interesting is that one doesn't need to leave the US to do this. If you're conservative then visit a very liberal city, hang out in a gay bar/bookstore/whatever. For liberals, go visit MAGA country, not the $10k/week dude ranch, but an actual conservative town, maybe attend a church or rodeo or whatever. For all these things the goal is growth and leaning, not poking fun or judging. And please, put the phone away. This doesn't mean you should agree with everything (again, there should be a bunch of stuff you disagree with or you're doing it wrong), but try to build empathy and understanding. I get that this is too much for those who've fled the culture they grew up in, but in our polarized and geographically sorted country there's a growing number of people that only know the "other side" as a caricature from the media they consume. 

[jrhampt]

I've found recently that since the pandemic my desire to travel has lessened significantly.  This may be a combination of a few things - pandemic encouraged us to stay more local and explore our local area (within driving distance at least, mostly within New England), we moved full-time to a place where people go to vacation, traveling involves a lot more hassle now (covid testing for a couple of years, more frequent airline cancellations and delays), and it really is a lot of effort and expense to plan for something that is more likely to end up canceled anyway.  So it's some combination of living in a vacation destination and travel becoming less desirable due to too much demand in relation to supply.

[simonsez]

No time to read the article, because we're packing up the RV to head out in the morning. We haven't traveled by air since late February, 2020. Totally coincidentally, we bought the RV the following week. (We'd been searching for a particular used model for years, and it popped up a couple of days after we got back.)

I took my first plane trip at age 12 and did my first international trip a year later. Those trips exploded my view of the world. I have craved the travel experience ever since. I don't travel to boast about my experiences to my friends and family. I've gone on international friendship trips, National Park trips, an international mission trip, an amazing bucket list trip with a friend who had a terminal dx and died a week after we returned. I've attended lots of weddings and kissed new babies who now have children of their own. I've helped relatives move and I've helped clean out houses when people have died. I have visited 47 of 50 states. I have even taken an extended international bicycling trip. All have shaped my life and worldview in interesting and unexpected ways.

OTOH, I did way too many business trips, but even some of those were growing and bonding experiences (not often enough, but I really tried).

I let my passport expire during the pandemic. Not having a current one freaks me out a bit.

I look forward to reading the article later, but I would not want to be the person probably be I'd had I not been fortunate to spend time (and contribute) in places and cultures other than my own.

The author makes a distinction between tourism and traveling with a purpose. Sounds like you're more in the latter camp. If I'm honest, our trips backpacking through Europe and visiting tropical islands, while fun and interesting, did nothing to expand my horizons or otherwise change who I am. But living and working in SW Asia and Europe for extended periods of time... different experience.

I still don't understand the difference and I think I enjoy being both a traveler and a tourist as well as hearing about other's travels/tourist experiences.

What tourist doesn't have a purpose?  Seems like semantics with definitions to slightly narrow the focus of the article and be an ounce more relatable.  I just returned from an annual lakehouse trip with several close friends + my in laws.  I guess we were tourists per the article because we fit the definition of "A tourist is a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change." to a tee.  But how would that not ALWAYS be true for any multi-day duration of voluntary time spent away from home?  Simply not being home is a change compared to most days.  We wouldn't make it an annual tradition with our friends if it wasn't great to get away from our individual homes and travel somewhere together, get some Vitamin D, swim, play games, cook communally, imbibe here and there, and stay up until the wee hours philosophizing.  All of that stuff IS the purpose and it's not quite the same to just go to someone's house for a few hours.  I have some friends who no longer make these types of annual trips for various reasons as I find travel filters itself out over time with the people who don't really prioritize/care for it and those that look forward to it and plan their lives around it.  That's okay!  Our friendships are defined by many more variables than just if we travel well together or not at a particular point in time.

I'm fairly surprised your horizons weren't expanded with anything about local culture, language, food, flora & fauna, etc. while backpacking and visiting tropical islands.  You weren't inspired to read local authors or learn about the history of an area?  You didn't see anything that made you go, "Wow, how did that get there or how did that come to be?"  It didn't do anything for your mental health or to check your ego about how lucky we are for the time we live in and the freedoms afforded to us or perhaps to experience a honeymoon-type excitement/resurgence in your love life?  It's also possible we have different definitions of "expand your horizons".  You don't look fondly back upon those trips and pay yourself a nostalgia dividend (which I love doing so that the travel payoff only increases over time!)? 

Do you ever keep logs of your travels?  I haven't watched my wedding video once but I love perusing old hiking notes and travel logistic plans shoved into a national park book/brochure or reading my wife's travel diary or simply reminiscing with family and friends about a particular anecdote that occurred while traveling together.  Or anytime a friend or family member asks for advice or sample rough itineraries for a place we've been that they're going to be going to in the future, I enjoy being able to provide resources.  It's satisfying to receive kudos on a google drive custom map you constructed for your trip that someone else extracted value from years later.  My parents have asked me for help cobbling together some plans to New England, PEI, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick for their 40th anny next fall.  Yes, it'll be work but I'll enjoy it even though I'm not the one traveling.  I just relish many aspects of travel!  It's enriching and invigorating and keeps my mind and body busy in a healthy way.

Travel is not for nearly everyone, unlike what the first paragraph of the article states.  Go to any national park and overhear the absurd comments made by the ignorant.  "Why can't they clear the snow off the main path?!" was a real quote made by a frustrated woman in her flip flops on the hike to Hidden Lake Overlook (of Bearhat) in Glacier NP.  Also, travel (or tourism) doesn't have to mean an international plane trip to go on a guided tour elbow to elbow with dozens/hundreds of others.  Or at least, that type of guided travel doesn't have to be 100% of a trip or 100% of your travels throughout your lifetime.  Some of us are awestruck when we see the Coliseum in person and it's just different (e.g. reading about sex is different than experiencing sex).  Others can get their fix from reading about it or watching a program.  Others do not care about the Coliseum at all and don't go.  The author sounds like they'd be a person that didn't care about the Coliseum to begin with, still went to go see it, and then end up admitting it was a waste of time (like with the falconry experience in Abu Dhabi).  Well yeah, don't do that then.  To each their own though, it's all optional activities each with their own pros and cons, both short-term and long-term.

[getsorted]

I don't disagree with the article. One thing that makes me chuckle a lot about the three years I spent living in England is that my fellow Americans always ask me, excitedly, if we did a lot of travelling in Europe while we were there. (We didn't. We had a three-year-old and my now-ex husband was busy working up the courage to divorce me). But the most edifying and important parts of living abroad for three years, to me, are things that nobody ever wants to hear about-- learning to ring church bells, helping put on a village summer fete, getting drunk on G&Ts with all the middle-aged-to-elderly ladies in the village, walking miles and miles of footpaths, buying hedgehog food in the supermarket, or joining a toddler playgroup in the village hall. It was an amazing time in my life, with so many great stories-- but mostly what people care about is that I didn't take advantage of how cheap it would have been to go look at the Eiffel Tower or go to Ireland and drink Guiness at Temple Bar. What a disappointment.

That said, I am making an almost-2,000-mile drive to a famous national park in two weeks to gawk at all the things I've seen on postcards, and I'm bursting with excitement about it.

I wish I could say that reading this filled me with excitement about exploring my hometown and the surrounding area. It's something I'd like to get excited about. But the excitement just doesn't come.

[Philociraptor]

I suppose I am an unabashed traveler after reading the article.

I do not travel to meet or make friends with people in the locations I travel to. I do not tend to do activities that we don't normally do around home, unless they are activities I would do at home but can't due to climate or culture. I have no intention of coming back changed by place we visit.

I travel to take a break from the 45-hour work week. We go places and do the things we normally do, but in new places. We give ourselves distance from our normal, daily lives so that we can discuss those lives more rationally. We talk about activities we'd like to try, things we'd like to change in our lives, and what we'd look for if we were to move someday. We talk about our future together, potentially starting a family, goals for the coming year(s), or where else might be nice to visit. We play 'would your rather', pose ridiculous hypotheticals, and make stupid jokes.

We have no illusion that the specific places we visit, paths we walk, or art we see will change us. We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

[ChickenStash]

My read is the author is railing against mindless travel or just to get the likes/bragging rights. I agree on that front, but it's hard to truly gauge why other people do the things they do, though. Maybe even hard for the person to know.

I've only had one big international traveling adventure and I went to see some specific things I can't see from home. It was a bucket list item and it did not disappoint. I did learn a few interesting details about the local culture but it wasn't meant to be an immersive experience. I'm not sure where that puts me in relation to the article.

Future travels for me will have less international travel than I was originally planning on. There's a few more bucket list things I want to see overseas, but it turns out I really don't care for the whole process of traveling. The flights, hotels, beggars entrepreneurs selling souvenirs, etc. take away from the real things I wanted to do or see so I'm raising the bar on what's important to me. When intl travel was shut down during Covid I started looking around for domestic options and found a lot of really interesting stuff to see that's considerably simpler and less expensive to keep me occupied for many years.

[Tasse]

Unlike many of you, I have increased my travel since the pandemic, partly because I have more income, and partly in reaction to the 14 months I didn't get to see my family. I realize this isn't exactly the situation the article describes, but almost all of my travel is to spend time with particular people. I would actually prefer to do less of it, but when you and your spouse grew up 1000 miles apart, a fair amount of travel is the only way to spend lots of time with both families - or at least, the only way I've figured out. I wish I had a better solution.

We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

Why can't we do that at home? Or, how could we better do that at home? (This is a serious question - I agree with your premise and am trying to introspect about it.) Is it possible to do an enjoyable, travel-like "retreat" without going anywhere?

[LifeHappens]

In Defense of Tourism https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/tourist-traps-worth-a-visit

[Philociraptor]

We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

Why can't we do that at home? Or, how could we better do that at home? (This is a serious question - I agree with your premise and am trying to introspect about it.) Is it possible to do an enjoyable, travel-like "retreat" without going anywhere?

I've honestly been thinking the same thing since typing out my response.

I feel like location (i.e. not being at home) is a big part of this. Being somewhere walkable, with public parks and places to grab food or coffee is also part of it (don't have that at home either). So now we're looking at renting a place or a hotel. With normal spending on credit cards giving us plenty of airline miles, why not be in a hotel somewhere further from home? I know I'm justifying my own spending here, but there is something about getting "away" that makes a difference.

I still don't understand the difference and I think I enjoy being both a traveler and a tourist as well as hearing about other's travels/tourist experiences. /snip

This entire post captured quite a bit of what I was thinking while reading the article, in better words than I put together a couple posts later. Bravo.

[Tasse]

My only international trip in the last decade was to India, with a close friend who is from India who guided us and whose family hosted us. I think I agree that the trip itself had a limited effect in terms of "broadening my horizons" and that the friendship itself is far more valuable - but that the trip was a worthwhile celebration of the friendship.

[clifp]

I've found recently that since the pandemic my desire to travel has lessened significantly.  This may be a combination of a few things - pandemic encouraged us to stay more local and explore our local area (within driving distance at least, mostly within New England), we moved full-time to a place where people go to vacation, traveling involves a lot more hassle now (covid testing for a couple of years, more frequent airline cancellations and delays), and it really is a lot of effort and expense to plan for something that is more likely to end up canceled anyway.  So it's some combination of living in a vacation destination and travel becoming less desirable due to too much demand in relation to supply.

Same here.

The New Yorker article was interesting, but like most NYer articles needed an editor. I've been to 49 states and 40+ countries, although pretty much exclusively as a tourist, seldom spending more than a week at one place.

Much of my problem is I live in Hawaii. The temperature is mild year-round, we don't have tornadoes, 100-degree temperatures, blizzards, huge lightning storms, and the last hurricane that did widespread serious damage was 30 years ago.  Our air is among the cleanest in the world, except when a volcano is erupting, and even then better than LA, where I grew up.  We have a beautiful water and beaches and while parts of the islands are overrun with tourist is still possible to find fairly uncrowded beaches. 

Seemingly everyone I know that travels to the mainland, someone in their party either gets or comes back with Covid.
Still I feel a bit guilty not doing more travel, I'm retired and now over 60, I'm in OK shape but there are definitely places if don't go in the next 10-15 years probably wouldn't be able to go at all.

[2sk22]

Good topic! I have such contradictory feelings about travel. Neither my wife nor I are enthusiastic tourists but when we do make the effort to travel, we do enjoy the experience. It helps that we are now in a position to afford a much higher level of travel comfort than we ever could when we were younger.

[2sk22]

Much of my problem is I live in Hawaii. The temperature is mild year-round, we don't have tornadoes, 100-degree temperatures, blizzards, huge lightning storms, and the last hurricane that did widespread serious damage was 30 years ago.  Our air is among the cleanest in the world, except when a volcano is erupting, and even then better than LA, where I grew up.  We have a beautiful water and beaches and while parts of the islands are overrun with tourist is still possible to find fairly uncrowded beaches. 

It can be strange living in an area that is itself a tourist destination. I worked in midtown Manhattan in New York for many years and would see hoards of tourists in Times Square in the evenings on my way to the Port Authority Bus terminal to catch my bus home. Seeing their excited faces was always a bit uplifting. The thought would cross my mind that these people had paid to come here to see what I get to see every day.

[AMandM]

We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

Why can't we do that at home? Or, how could we better do that at home? (This is a serious question - I agree with your premise and am trying to introspect about it.) Is it possible to do an enjoyable, travel-like "retreat" without going anywhere?

I've honestly been thinking the same thing since typing out my response.

I feel like location (i.e. not being at home) is a big part of this. Being somewhere walkable, with public parks and places to grab food or coffee is also part of it (don't have that at home either). So now we're looking at renting a place or a hotel. With normal spending on credit cards giving us plenty of airline miles, why not be in a hotel somewhere further from home? I know I'm justifying my own spending here, but there is something about getting "away" that makes a difference.

For us, not being at home makes a huge difference because at home there are always competing claims on our attention: daily housework chores, stuff that needs to be tidied, incoming mail to be dealt with, the to-do's staring us in the face. Being in a hotel/cabin/AirBnB eliminates some of those (most housework) and puts others (mail, to-do's) out of sight and out of reach.

[lifeisshort123]

It is nice to be away.... More and more our society requires people to be "on" at all times.  There's no separation between the professional and the personal, the present and the past.  Going away, especially somewhere further away allows for that separation to happen more easily.

That said, I view travel as something that treats the symptom rather than the disease.  And the problem is, for many people, travel can be destructive in a variety of ways... It often leads to overspending and indulgence and exasperates the problem.  Who doesn't know a co-worker who has returned from a trip they loved and then explains that they will be broke for the next several months.

[Runrooster]

My Mom pushed travel since I was young, and I rarely got much out of it. Three trips I would make an exception:  India, to see family, was life changing. Poverty, dust, the grandeur of the Taj Mahal. Next, Hawaii- again just so different from day to day life. Third, Yosemite. Like Hawaii some nature has to be experienced.

Things less valuable:  Disney, Vegas, wedding of the day, New York City, Paris/ London - we live in the suburbs of a major ethnically diverse city. It’s very easy to get high quality x cuisine here.

I try not to judge, but I’m often baffled by what people want to spend money on. My brother admitted that he travels to have conversation material for friends. A coworker likes breweries and distillery tours. My sister goes places for the hiking opportunities. I drink rarely and I hike rarely after going more often in my youth.

More recently I’ve been doubting my foodie nature. I have long liked eating a variety of foods. I like making new recipes and I think it’s easier to eat healthy foods with that variety. But after a month or so of eating “well” I don’t notice my overall happiness improving. My parents eat a repetitive, boring to me diet but they are happy. I was commenting that my dishes have 9 ingredients besides spices, they mostly eat one vegetable at a time. Even the spices are less than before as they are old. If I ate like them, I wouldn’t have to cook and it would be more sociable. The main point is that when I eat, 15 minutes later the happiness of the novel food wears off. Whereas a stressful job, a heavy study schedule, or obnoxious coworkers impact life more broadly.

[FINate]

We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

Why can't we do that at home? Or, how could we better do that at home? (This is a serious question - I agree with your premise and am trying to introspect about it.) Is it possible to do an enjoyable, travel-like "retreat" without going anywhere?

I've honestly been thinking the same thing since typing out my response.

I feel like location (i.e. not being at home) is a big part of this. Being somewhere walkable, with public parks and places to grab food or coffee is also part of it (don't have that at home either). So now we're looking at renting a place or a hotel. With normal spending on credit cards giving us plenty of airline miles, why not be in a hotel somewhere further from home? I know I'm justifying my own spending here, but there is something about getting "away" that makes a difference.

For us, not being at home makes a huge difference because at home there are always competing claims on our attention: daily housework chores, stuff that needs to be tidied, incoming mail to be dealt with, the to-do's staring us in the face. Being in a hotel/cabin/AirBnB eliminates some of those (most housework) and puts others (mail, to-do's) out of sight and out of reach.

This is one of the reasons why I love camping and backpacking, preferably out of cell range.

[RetiredAt63]

The standard essential Canadian vacation is a week in the sun in the middle of winter.  It helps us survive winter - winter SAD isn't the cold so much as it is the super short days and long dark nights. 

My 3 months in New Zealand (mid-December to mid-March, including a side trip to Australia) were wonderful - I played tourist a bit but mostly just lived like a local. Since for a good chunk of it I was staying with a friend who lives there, living like a local was easy.  Staying where I could cook and grocery shop and go to the local equivalent of Canadian Tire was great.  I went to local knitting and weaving meetings and get-togethers. Even when I was travelling, I stayed in motels with cooking facilities and did my own shopping and cooking, and took public transit.  In 3 months I think I had a rental car for 2 weeks.  Bonus (planned bonus), I got to enjoy their summer and skip my winter.

Plus its amazing how many people just want to chat with you when they hear the Canadian accent.   ;-)

Since I am a (retired) biologist/ecologist, I love going to places where the ecosystems are so different from what I am used to.  It's always fascinating to see how ecological principles play out in different geographic regions.

[Runrooster]

I can see the value of getting away for groups. Kids are otherwise spread into activities and friends, parents into chores.

I still think it should be possible to create that at home, family weekend or sight see local attractions and restaurants. Personally I’d rather put in a few hours of chores or paperwork and then relax but if you can ignore something on vacation, you can ignore it at home. Pay for a house cleaner maybe.

[Valley of Plenty]

And lately I've kind of been living that- finding all the weird and fascinating things right near me that I just need to take the time to go find.   

...which is interesting because I live in a pretty touristy area, it's probably not the number one industry in the area, but it's definitely up there.  I get a weird kick out of looking up people's random youtube videos and other social media trip reports and seeing just how surprisingly banal and kinda sad pretty much all of them are, pretty much just completing checklists of destinations/things/experiences while missing a lot of what actually makes this place special.   

This is an important point. If the goal is growth and learning about other cultures -- an often cited reason for travel --  this doesn't happen with self-selected activities that are enjoyable and comfortable. You should be uncomfortable, have mixed feelings, and experience culture shock. This requires a degree of open-mindedness and putting aside ethnocentrism. What's interesting is that one doesn't need to leave the US to do this. If you're conservative then visit a very liberal city, hang out in a gay bar/bookstore/whatever. For liberals, go visit MAGA country, not the $10k/week dude ranch, but an actual conservative town, maybe attend a church or rodeo or whatever. For all these things the goal is growth and leaning, not poking fun or judging. And please, put the phone away. This doesn't mean you should agree with everything (again, there should be a bunch of stuff you disagree with or you're doing it wrong), but try to build empathy and understanding. I get that this is too much for those who've fled the culture they grew up in, but in our polarized and geographically sorted country there's a growing number of people that only know the "other side" as a caricature from the media they consume.

I don't want to derail the thread into politics, but you make a great point here.

As someone whose political views have shifted pretty dramatically over the course of my life, I've spent a lot of time around folks of all sorts of political leanings. I went to both a Christian private school and a public school, have attended drag shows and gun shows, been to goth nightclubs and NASCAR races, LGBT friendly kink events and rodeos at the county fair. I have had and continue to have many friends on both sides of the aisle. As a result, I find myself hyper aware of and mostly resistant to the polarizing, divisive narrative being pushed by just about every politician and major news outlet.

It's both a blessing and a curse, because while I can usually empathize with just about anyone, I also tend to be villainized by a lot of people on both sides for not agreeing with 100% of their team's current platform. Usually this happens with random strangers who don't know anything about me other than that I disagree with them on one or two points, though I have unfortunately lost a handful of friendships due to friends being so dogmatically swept up in a particular issue that they consider anyone who disagrees to be less than human.

So yeah, I completely agree. It's vital to step outside of the echo chambers at least every now and then, and really get a sense of how the world works outside of your own bubble. What I've found from doing this is that the overwhelmingly vast majority of people actually aren't awful, terrible people at all. I think most of the truly terrible people are the ones fighting tooth and nail to sow division and keep us all at each other's throats, so we don't have time to stop and realize that they are the real adversary that we should all be united against.

[mathlete]

I love traveling and will continue to do it. But I thought the essay was good. It’s good and fun to travel and see new places, but everyone should temper their expectations on what it means for personal growth.

[Metalcat]

The few vacations I've taken have felt mostly hollow. It's a hell of a lot of expense and hassle just to see different pretty things and eat different good food. That's not a judgemental statement, I know people who feel profoundly satisfied with tourism, it just doesn't do much for me.

I've only enjoyed travel when I've been able to engage a lot with the local cultural experience and learn what different community experiences are like. If I'm out somewhere with beautiful nature, I have to understand the geological/ecological history of the place in order to really enjoy it. If there are people there, why? If not, why not?

I'm currently living my second summer in a remote, geologically/ecologically/culturally/historically fascinating place, and I'm *just* starting to feel like I'm really getting it here. Last summer we were still very much tourists, but this summer we're integrating much more, and the experience is very different.

I grew up in a tourist town, so I really get the radically different experience of tourism vs integration. As a local in a tourist location, you don't so much "meet" tourists as encounter them. Tourists aren't real people, they're either walking wallets or a nuisance, depending on your economic relationship to them.

It's the same here. We weren't engaged with like real humans last year because of our tourist vibe. But this year we've hit critical mass of people we know and local "isms" that we understand, so we blend a lot better. We still look like we're "from away," but we're able to dispel the "tourist" vibe pretty quickly.

We don't walk like tourists anymore, which makes a huge difference.

As for personal growth, I absolutely get a lot of personal growth from pushing myself to live and integrate into different ecosystems and communities. Life is very different out here, the people are very culturally distinct. It gives me enormous opportunity for learning and self reflection to challenge the things that I perceive as "normal" which aren't at all normal here.

Learning to adapt to very different, extreme weather is also a learning experience. I like challenging myself to adapt to different weather systems because I like the ability to be geographically flexible. I'm not limited in where I can live by needing a constantly comfortable climate.

Living here is also teaching me what it's like to live with a very limited food supply, which has been very interesting.

For me, jumping into a a new place to live is expansive of so many things that I otherwise consider default/normal, it destabilizes so many of my foundational beliefs, and makes space for me to tinker with them more readily.

Maybe tourism does that for other people, it just doesn't really for me. I need more of a full-on dunk in the deep end.

[theninthwall]

Maybe it's just a case of different strokes for different folks. Travel/tourism, like everything else, has an industry around it designed to extract money from you, especially in the short term. But I think the experiences of wandering the planet versus a two weeks see-all-the-sights-in-Europe trip (I've done both) are so vastly different.
The article makes some good points, but then it puts everybody into the same basket (as another poster above noted, travel probably gets more clicks than tourism).
I will definitively state the the 'gap year' I took at age 29 changed my life. I realized everything would be okay if I didn't live life at a 9-5 job. I realized most people in the world want to help you and are inherently good. I met my wife. I discovered places and adventures I never knew existed. I started a business.
It's possible all of these things might have happened without the travel, but seeing new places and meeting new people has a way of opening up my mind to new possibilities. Perhaps that's not the case for everyone, and that's okay. If everyone stops traveling tomorrow, I'll enjoy seeing the world with less of a crowd :)

[mathlete]

I suppose I am an unabashed traveler after reading the article.

I do not travel to meet or make friends with people in the locations I travel to. I do not tend to do activities that we don't normally do around home, unless they are activities I would do at home but can't due to climate or culture. I have no intention of coming back changed by place we visit.

I travel to take a break from the 45-hour work week. We go places and do the things we normally do, but in new places. We give ourselves distance from our normal, daily lives so that we can discuss those lives more rationally. We talk about activities we'd like to try, things we'd like to change in our lives, and what we'd look for if we were to move someday. We talk about our future together, potentially starting a family, goals for the coming year(s), or where else might be nice to visit. We play 'would your rather', pose ridiculous hypotheticals, and make stupid jokes.

We have no illusion that the specific places we visit, paths we walk, or art we see will change us. We go to recreate, indulge in some hedonism, and just be together without the attachments, responsibilities, and obligations of home.

I vibe with this. I’ve made lifelong memories out of week long vacations. While I agree with a lot of the essay, I think the author is too down on tourism as a means of culture exchange. Of course it’s east to be cynical about an American guy in a Hawaiian shirt taking photos at the Vatican, but in broad strokes, I think parochialism is bad and the exchange of goods, services, and ideas is good. I love seeing tourists in the US.

[iris lily]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

[FINate]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

[Turtle]

Coincidentally, I'm going to be doing my first European short term travel trip next month.  I'm accompanying my 83 year old widowed father to a conference which he's been involved with for 50 some years, which happens to be taking place in the Netherlands this time.

I lived in Europe twice as a kid, but have never travelled there as an adult.  Probably I will have a different perspective on this article later this year once I've done the "travel" thing.  It's going to be a mustachian trip on my side, being that it isn't costing my Dad anything extra and my contribution to the trip will be helping him get around and not get taken advantage of.  The last time he went to Europe alone, there was a 100 Euro taxi ride for a trip which could have easily been done on public transit, for example.   I'll also be picking up any meals that aren't part of the conference.  (Thank goodness for Schwab Debit card with no exchange fees)

[NorthernIkigai]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

You ask good questions and there are no right answers. You could, though, check out a few carbon footprint calculators and see how much of your footprint comes from travel and how much from other things (which you might be able and willing to change to balance things out). Where you live, how/if you commute, and what you eat also make a big difference. Admittedly, intercontinental flights are not easy to balance out.

[mathlete]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

Vibe heavy with both of these posts as well.

As for the F350 comment, I'm with you. I hate seeing people commuting around town with giant pickups that are hauling nothing, and towing nothing. But if these guys find it "cool", there is really no arguing with that. I can't hate on em because as you said, we both put out a ton of carbon with international fligths. I think you reconcile this by not thinking of F-350 guy as "wrong", but thinking about the lack of public transit and the sneaky way of getting around CAFE standards (i.e., automakers start selling a bunch of trucks and truck-like cars) as wrong.

The switch to renewables is becoming inevitable as it becomes cost effective. Subsidies have helped with that, and the new subsidies we recently passed will help even more.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

The thing is, you can't justify it from an overall environmental standpoint. It's unnecessary and certainly not good for the environment. You could potentially justify it if you were going over to use specialized skills to help for an extended period of time or something like that. Of course, we can't really justify anything short of existing, having no kids, etc.

The article and even more the discussion in this thread has been interesting. The article was thought-provoking, but it overgeneralized as could be expected.

I greatly enjoy travel, but I've had to optimize it for what I like. I mainly go for National Parks/hikes/outdoor things. It has changed me into someone that appreciates and enjoys hiking more. It has improved my health, as I strive for better health with the goal of maintaining my general health so I can do what I want to do on hikes. Beyond that, I enjoy planning for trips and talking about them afterward. We have family stories and inside jokes that come from our trips. Ultimately, though, the vast majority of my trips, are ultimately for my joy and enjoyment (and hopefully my family's as well).

So, overall for the article and in general, there are certainly people who do stuff just for the pictures and bragging rights - no problem with calling that out. In terms of short-term travel changing people, I would say it does more than the article indicates but probably less than what people would tritely say. In terms of generating happiness and enjoyment from the trip, that is entirely up to us and how we travel. In regards to the environmental impact, there's no real justification for it for the vast majority of the time even if we do have our perspective changed - from a hard numbers standpoint, it doesn't offset the environmental impact. That being said, I'd say we all have to come to grips with our own hypocrisy if we're going to travel at all.

[exterous]

So I'm writing this while one a trip to Norway which feels a bit amusing and might give a bit of an impression about where our stance is. That said a common complaint of mine about travel - with the full appreciation of the hypocrisy - is "Travel would be so much nicer without all the tourists!"

I think there are a few different methods of traveling and tourism. There's a very superficial level that probably won't change people much. That's the get off the tour bus for 30min, see the 3 designated things to see and off to the next sanitized stop. Or you just run around taking (often manufacturered) photos of yourself for social media. Travel then proceeds to progressively deeper levels until the point where you spent a lot of time really learning the culture and get changed more than you change others. My biggest complaint about the article is that they are all lumped together, along with the notion that you can't know that you've changed. I can tell you that I was absolutely changed by my trip to Africa. Intellectually I knew that living with scarce potable water in an impoverished country was hard. But I didn't KNOW because I didn't have the right experiences to properly frame the consideration. For the vast majority of my life fresh clean water was easily dispensed from any number of faucets/showers/tubs etc where I lived. There are some places like Flint or natural disaster hit areas in the US that have gotten closer but still not that close.

Same thing with outdoor experiences. SE MI is flat as flat can be. No way I can come close to mountain/canyon hiking or viewscapes at home. I also learned that Michigan's beach sand is freaking amazing and I had abnormally high expectations for what beach sand should be like.

Which brings me to another point about travel: it can be a lens for your own local area. Things you always thought were normal or didn't even know you took for granted get revealed. Or maybe you weren't able to fully appreciate how different it was until you got the chance to experience something contrary to your local environment.

So, like most things, its not for everyone. People will do it very differently. People will get different things out of it. Some people will be asses while they do it and/or after they get back. And some people will love it and get a lot out of it.

[FINate]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

You ask good questions and there are no right answers. You could, though, check out a few carbon footprint calculators and see how much of your footprint comes from travel and how much from other things (which you might be able and willing to change to balance things out). Where you live, how/if you commute, and what you eat also make a big difference. Admittedly, intercontinental flights are not easy to balance out.

We're FIRE, don't commute. And we live in a walkable neighborhood so we rarely drive, and when we do it's usually less than 5 miles. Most of our meat comes from a local farmer that does Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing on non-irrigated open range grasslands (tons of that here in SW Idaho). One international flight would emit something like 10-15x our annual carbon footprint.

[FINate]

I do not  travel for personal growth, I travel because I am a hedonist. I go to places that interest me and I will absorb only the parts of those places that I wish to absorb. In other words , I do not expect to return home with broadened horizons (although I do!) I am not a better person for it.

I go to have a good time. My mental health is improved by seeing different sights, but it is true that those different sights can be in another nearby county, they do not have to be in my preferred Europe. I just get a bigger thrill with seeing castles and midevil villages and etc. than I get with the pretty but usual topography of something a few miles away.

There are things I’ve seen that stick in my brain forever. Just this morning I had a conversation about the blue .Himalayan poppy that I have seen in .Scotland, a conversation with a fellow plant enthusiast from Perth, .Scotland. That glimpse of the elusive blue poppy is one of my treasured memories from travel and it provides a common topic for conversation with people from that area.

I appreciate the honesty. Let's just own that tourism is about enjoyment and fun vs. some higher good and stop deluding ourselves to justify the expense and externalities.

I struggle, however, with what to do with this. Is it okay for me to fly to Europe for enjoyment given the costs and carbon footprint? I want to believe it is because it's fun, but increasingly I have doubts. How can I do this while telling the guy commuting in a raised F350 he's wrong in what brings him joy?

Vibe heavy with both of these posts as well.

As for the F350 comment, I'm with you. I hate seeing people commuting around town with giant pickups that are hauling nothing, and towing nothing. But if these guys find it "cool", there is really no arguing with that. I can't hate on em because as you said, we both put out a ton of carbon with international fligths. I think you reconcile this by not thinking of F-350 guy as "wrong", but thinking about the lack of public transit and the sneaky way of getting around CAFE standards (i.e., automakers start selling a bunch of trucks and truck-like cars) as wrong.

The switch to renewables is becoming inevitable as it becomes cost effective. Subsidies have helped with that, and the new subsidies we recently passed will help even more.

In my ideal world we'd have BE jets, and electrified HSR connecting major US cities coast to coast, and great local transit. All powered by renewables. Would love to see touring the US by train became more of a thing. But we're a long way off from most of these.

If the guy commuting in a F350 isn't wrong then what's the basis for CAFE standards? I mean, what if some folks just really enjoy a naturally aspirated V8. I'm starting to wonder if the destruction of our planet lies at the intersection of hedonism and individualism.

[mathlete]

In my ideal world we'd have BE jets, and electrified HSR connecting major US cities coast to coast, and great local transit. All powered by renewables. Would love to see touring the US by train became more of a thing. But we're a long way off from most of these.

If the guy commuting in a F350 isn't wrong then what's the basis for CAFE standards? I mean, what if some folks just really enjoy a naturally aspirated V8. I'm starting to wonder if the destruction of our planet lies at the intersection of hedonism and individualism.

I just don't think the human brain is wired to handle issues like climate change or nuclear war on an individual level, with individual sacrifices.

F350 guy drives the F350 becauses he likes it. I fly internationally because I like it. Automakers lobbied to exempt trucks and SUVs from commuter CAFE standards (even though virtually all truck use is for commuting rather than hauling/towing) because it made them more money. Shareholders signed off on it because it meant a better dividend or a more secure retirement.

The crazy part is that everyone in the above chain can nominally believe in climate change and want to stop it.

[Fru-Gal]

Allow me to be the first on this thread to mention THE TRAIN!!!!* I have an Amtrak credit card as of a few months ago and have built up 25k points through manufactured spend. Loved my roomette experience going to the Moab MMM meetup. Have ridden the train to one national park with my bike and along one entire coast and across several states. Nothing makes it clearer how freaking big the USA is.

I plan to buy a $499 USA rail pass (or less if I manage to buy it when it goes on sale). Like anything, train travel involves learning your preferences and what routes you like and which distances work best for you. I also like taking a bike on the train where possible. You meet a lot of train lovers and bikers on the train. Also, you can drink on the train, or write your novel, or play games all day. Oh and the dining car food is good (but always bring a bag of snacks just in case)! I’m starting to check out more Amtrak enthusiast channels on YouTube for new routes and ideas.

I recommend this website for awesome train travel ideas: https://www.seat61.com/ I have followed his instructions for some epic rides!

The over emphasis of travel as leisure activity is also a favorite topic of mine. As an iconoclast I find the automatic posturing about going to Europe or ever more far flung places annoying. I traveled to Europe for the first time a few years ago on my job’s dime and it was cool and I took some awesome trains but was not amazed. It was fine. My life was not empty before hand nor revolutionized afterwards. The main sensations I get from travel are routine-breaking, physical exertion, exploration and problem-solving. I can do all those things without the airplane.

From observing some inveterate travelers in my family who simply love international flights, to me it seems similar to plastic surgery addiction. There’s a lot of discomfort and expense and novelty all sold to them as a life changing package deal and after awhile they have to go through the whole process all over again to get that feeling again.

I think you can get all that novelty much closer to home, through things like bike packing, back packing, group events/meetups, summer camps, meetups, conferences centered around hobbies, specialty camps (like space camp or rockstar camp), orienteering, sports activities, volunteering, etc.

Having said all that I am a good traveler, but I prefer to do it for work when it’s over long distances, but also have a lot of trouble justifying the carbon cost. Also, as a FIREd person I am mostly allergic to crowds and lines and rush hours.

*Looks like someone mentioned the train a few posts above, but more as a future possibility than a viable venture currently transporting 10s of millions of Americans around the country.

[simonsez]

To be clear, I'm not some enlightened guru as a result of travel. I reread my earlier post and didn't like aspects of how it came across.  I just think humans are generally poor estimators in the long run. Travel/tourism/experiences are often underappreciated when viewed mainly in a short term lens - assuming that a person's travels are at least somewhat rewarding/fun/enriching/memorable in some way and they weren't traveling just because that is what is expected of them or they didn't want to go.

Honestly, even when travels have been difficult either based on something within my control or outside of my control, I've learned a lot from that and it can be quite humbling.  I've learned a great deal about myself and how I operate as a person, spouse, etc. (including outside of travel) and have optimized the type of travel I do over the years.

I have a friend who just to went Southern France for her birthday by herself on a whim.  She's flying back through Frankfurt to go to a Harry Styles concert.  I think that's great for her but that type of trip would never work for me for myriad reasons.  Yes, there are environmental and financial ramifications at play but also, I don't get the appeal of doing an activity somewhere else that you could do in your own backyard/country.  But again, to each their own.  And FWIW, the entirety of Europe is frankly overwhelming (in a good way!) to a nerd like me and has a great deal of appeal!

I've never been to London and recently a baseball team I root for played a couple games there.  I had multiple family members and friends purchase tickets for it (eventually was canceled and rescheduled due to the pandemic) and were only going for mainly the game(s).  I think most were planning on 4-5 days.  I was asked and had zero interest.  Why would I go pay premium dollars for a sporting event I could watch for relatively way less here in the Midwest?  Plus, if I was there and had never visited London and the surrounding areas, I'd be too distracted with FOMO to even fully enjoy the game unless it was going to be an extensive trip.  I get why it could have appeal to others, just we're all different.

One aspect of travel that I enjoy that the article did not mention but has been touched on here in this thread a bit - a trip is almost like a psychedelic trip of sorts.  It can totally reset what you think of as reality and what you take for granted on a day-to-day basis.  You can feel exposed socially and culturally, very vulnerable but in a beautiful sort of way.  You can understand how humans in this part of the world (and sometimes that can be a different neighborhood, county, country, etc. - doesn't always have to be far away) make their society from the ground up or at least hints of it here and there.  You then compare and contrast that with what you left back home or where you've lived throughout your life.  And this feeling and thoughts related to this "reset of reality" usually do not end when the trip is over.  It trails off but sometimes trips make me dwell on this more so than others even years afterward, and for some trips it's barely detectable but it's omnipresent.  It's hard to describe but there really is magic in not staying at your house while undergoing a voluntary leisure sojourn.

Great post @exterous