Lies to unlearn about travel
so recently i took a trip to amsterdam and i got the train there because i'm….. better than you. and while i was being plummeted under the ocean at 100,000 million miles per hour (is my impression) i got to thinking: what have been my previous beliefs or things i felt like i had to believe about travel in the past? and since all the traveling i have done and just the years i've been existing… which ones of those beliefs weren't true? i made a list because apparently i can't take a holiday and i spent the whole holiday thinking about this concept and making notes. so i guess… here you are. some people send you postcards, some people bring you back fridge magnets or chocolates. i have brought you back this video. perhaps it goes without saying but this is also the internet so i'm gonna say it anyway: i have been incredibly lucky to get to travel to all of the completely random places that i've been. they’re experiences that not everybody gets and i'm a big fan of not pretending to be a different class bracket or have a different life experience but to sit with your own experiences and try and put them in the context of everybody elses. unpicking the things that you've been taught and rebuilding an
approximation of what might be your own beliefs is an incredibly taxing and long process but also, i think, a fun one. and is one of the themes - i would say - if there is some kind of theme to this channel. so if you like the sound of being more shrewd and spirited about your life and the world around you please do subscribe because i've been doing this for like 13 years now and the thought farts are just… they just keep coming. so if you want to sit in the fart cloud of this brain that's the button you need to hit.
the first lie: travel is good for you. in british culture, especially aspirational british culture, there is a tradition of taking a year out before you go to uni and going traveling to ‘find yourself’. it's ‘eat, pray, love’ but instead of divorcing a man we're divorcing education. and also with less money and less wearwithall to be honest. i'm thankful that i kind of didn't grow up on the internet that much. but in my early 20s i was inundated with a lot of influencers who talked about living a free life. traveling the world, becoming a whole person in the process, and really scratching off that scratch and sniff map. that big wanderlust wish list of all the
places you want to go. now the more i've thought about this piece of merch, this scratch off map (if you've ever seen them), as i've got older i've started to see that thing as just another thing to fail at. another to-do list. another list of frankly unattainable things for most people and also potentially arbitrary wishes. when we think intentionally about human relationships like friendships or romantic stuff we know that trying to have friendships with everybody results in diluting your time and having friendships with no one. and in the same way i wonder about ticking every single continent off an arbitrary list is not only disingenuous because it's not really possible to really genuinely desire to visit every single country on god's green earth, but also slightly colonialist? like a kind of ‘catch em all’, *i'm going to discover the world* bad ‘wild thornberries’ movie vibe? does nobody else get that now in retrospect? there’s a hobo johnson song called ‘i want to see the world’, and it's kind of him slowly descending from: i want to see everything, i want to like experience everything, i want to eat everything. to being
like: well if i really did want to see everything then i’d also have to see all the bad sides of things and… oh god, do i even want to see that? and is it okay for me to go on holiday to see that? and the last lines are: ‘i want to see the world before i die, before my heart stops beating or i rip out my eyes. i want to see the world, or maybe i don't. maybe i'm extremely ignorant and maybe i just won't.’ i also think this belief that travel is automatically good for you intersects with the aesthetics of the pictures that you bring back. it used to be those little slide shows. tiny little negatives that you slip in and then project onto your living room wall. and now i guess it's
instagram. there is an aspect of this, and i've definitely been guilty of it, of being a tourist somewhere and using the place that you're going as simply just a backdrop. you are the main character of this experience, this is your show and this is merely just an off location episode with your same favorite leads. it's one of the reasons i've been to amsterdam twice now and have never gone into the anne frank museum, not because i don't want to see it or learn about it, but i know there are other ways of learning about it and i don't know if i want to share the space with all the people i see outside taking peace sign selfies with it. i've learned less from the gap year hippies that
seem to have been everywhere that i met in like hostels and stuff but didn't really seem to know all that much.. and more from the people that i've met that have actually lived in these countries for months or even years, know the language and have really made the effort to integrate a little bit or are even from those places. i have had people live in my family home when i was growing up from other countries and i've learned way more than that, even though i've never been to some of the countries that they've been from. again, it's something that we can only really internally inspect about ourselves but i do wonder when we look at what our desires are when it comes to travel, how much of that is self-generated by genuine research and curiosity and more to do with the desire to how we see ourselves. like… not wanting to regret anything when we get to our death bed or wanting to cram like a huge amount of life experiences into a small amount of time before we decide to settle down or have kids, even though those things don't stop you from doing that, but you know what i mean. all of that is compounded into a kind of irony when i think about some of the most famous road trip or travel books: they all end in disaster. no? people die
or get eaten and that's not to say that genuine curiosity and on location learning isn't valuable or important, but it's the internal motivation i think that is slightly misguided when we think: yes, traveling is always a positive. you should do it. in ‘the responsible traveler’ by karen edwards, which i found in a bookshop in amsterdam while thinking about it, she talks about this idea of culture as a commodity. ‘in some places, rather than allowing a culture to flourish, diversify and develop. under its own steam it is often treated as a commodity as though it's an item that can be freely bought or sold. it's up to us to find and draw the line between embracing and enjoying cultures we come across and expecting to be entertained. i find the kind of conversational
patterns after somebody goes on a trip really interesting as well. somebody will often ask like: was thailand good? and they'll review it like it was something for them to consume. like: the food was bad, but the people were nice. or like.. really general things that i think we could probably say about any country. and it's a weird thing when what you're really asking is:
how was your holiday? what did you do? did you enjoy the things that you did? what did you learn? but instead we push it into a like… brazil: up thumbs or down thumbs? the second lie, the inverse: travel is bad for you. there are a lot of nerves around experiencing and existing in a culture that you're not as familiar with. and i know that because there's a huge tourism industry built around making people feel like they're in another country, when actually they're still in their own culture.. just in a building that happens to be in a different place. however, i don't think the kind of holier than thou side eye
to people who travel a lot is okay either. and we also have to recognize that some people might be resentful to some people who can travel a lot and internalize that because it's not always affordable for everybody. it's not possible for most. staying still on this spinning ball that's hurtling through space is frankly a completely unrealistic expectation to put on anyone and that kind of thought process also bleeds, i think, into a little bit of the anti-refugee mindset that's permeating the uk right now. the whole like: well they're over there, why should they come over here? we stay over here (most of the time). i don't think an island mentality is what we're aiming for and if it takes people leaving the country that they were first born in to explore and see that… that's amazing. the world is very very cool and the fact that a lot of people are
kept from it is such a shame. a borderline tragedy, i think. whether that's because of access issues or they don't feel confident enough to operate outside of the country they were born in. or because of their identity they don't feel welcome in other countries. all of that… full-on tragedy. i was reading damon dominique's book ‘you are a global citizen’ and i think he makes
some really good points, one of them being that travel makes nationality malleable. we start to see our identities as liquid and that's exactly what gatekeepers and horrid governments don't want us to do. the way they control us is to make sure that we see our nationality as the first thing, to clutch that to our chests. and i think when you leave your own culture and your own country you're reminded which parts of yourself probably aren't inherently you. they're just like the products of the environment that you grew up in. which parts of you are constructed? it really felt to me when
i've gone to other countries.. one: it's made me feel more capable and more stable in myself because i know i can operate without being able to predict all the variables in a situation or have everything packed for every eventuality, but it's also had a bit of a ‘truman show’ effect on the way i see myself. i get to find the outsides of myself and push on them a bit, realize that there are doors. there's this kind of saying that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. and damon, in his book, kind of pushes on that a little bit and is like: i kind of feel like it's more like sometimes also the five people that you have random chance interactions with, especially when you're traveling, who say a throwaway thing or show you a certain perspective or place that you hadn't thought existed before and those things have long-term effects on you. i had the chance with some friends while i was traveling in the US
to spend an evening with this really lovely old couple who were retired lecturers and had spent the 70s and 80s building their own bungalow from scratch that was completely off grid and they talked about why that mattered to them, how they did it with barely any money and how it felt to have people around you feel like you were doing something a little bit batty but also all the surprising amazing things about it. and i remember having that conversation with them and being like ‘wow’. big turning point in my life. probably will never see them again. but the impact of that travel experience and meeting those people that i wouldn't have otherwise is like… so i think there's two mindsets: travel is bad, stay where you are. and travel is always amazing, no matter the circumstances. you don't need to put any thought into it, just get out there. both of those turned out to be very much not true.
the next lie is: flying is morally wrong. I.. this.. naively was going to be one point in this video. and when i started looking into it more and i started thinking more about it and i started researching i was like: oh, this seems to be a whole field of research. who
knew? so i have banked some of that research. maybe for another video at another point, but to try and boil down some stuff that might fit in this video and my thoughts on it. to fly or not to fly? that is the question. or that's the question people think is happening. i actually think this debate really encapsulates perfectly the false dichotomy between personal individual action and business government action. the answer, of course, in the middle being collective action. the problems with individual action range from how we might be isolated in our own social groups and think that taking one flight a year or two flights a year is what everybody's doing, when in fact while we might be isolated in our own social groups and taking one flight every two years or maybe one flight a year is what everybody is doing, we don't realize that actually more than half of the international flights leaving my country, england, are being made by 10 percent of people. either people who are frequently traveling for
fun or people who are doing business trips. so when i listen to the people who are flight free and are genuinely missing out on seeing their parents for years on end because of their flight guilt that breaks my heart because over here we've got people making genuinely unnecessary trips.. and over here we've got people literally setting their lives on fire for what in the grand scale of things will be probably quite negligible emissions. not insignificant, still important,
but in the grand scale of things.. negligible. especially considering the existence of ghost flights. did you know what those are? 18,000 flights were made in 2019, i think. empty flights. because airports are allowed to implement ‘use it or lose it’ policies when it comes to your flight slots just to secure their takeoff and landing rights. and that's where the collective action
comes in, people. imagine how many people could have actually had meaningful life experiences or seen their long-lost family but instead we’re just flying empty metal tubes through the air at the expense of everyone. there are a lot of figures flying about but i generally trust greenpeace’s ones and they say that it's estimated that around 100,000 ghost flights are gonna fly over the continent or did fly over the continent last winter. what do we do with that? drink. no, it's not duty free if you're not in the airport. now you have seen my videos before about personal responsibility and ethical consumption under capitalism and i… have a nuanced but i feel quite strong view on it. i do think we still have responsibility and i also don't really believe in
carbon offsets for flying. not only because it's very sketchy as to whether they work or not and how they're accredited, but also because i feel like with any kind of fine you're basically just saying it's free for the rich. that whole saying of like: if a crime is only punishable by a fine then it's not a real law… it's only illegal if you are poor. so while i don't think condemning individuals for taking very few and very meaningful flights for themselves is okay i do think that we need to start having a talk because here is the related and interlinked next lie. ‘traveling’ and ‘holiday’ are interchangeable words. in my notes.. note taking leena from earlier has said this phrase which is making me chuckle: we need to stop flying to other countries to take a nap. and i know what i meant by that. i mean that sometimes because workers
rights are so absolutely wacky s**t we only have a certain amount of days or weeks a year to take off to go anywhere and i know that in other countries it's even worse so we try and cram relaxing into a small fast amount of time, which is an oxymoron when you step back and think about it but has become very culturally normal to do. you're really tired, you've had a really exhausting year at work, you're finally going on your big summer holiday which, p.s. is really stressful to like drive to the airports sort all that out. nothing is more stressful than flying. and then you get to the hotel, you either stay on a sun lounger and sleep or you go to the bar and you get really drunk so you can't actually really absorb any new experiences. and i have done this, i've been on a brits abroad, thompson, girly drunk holiday. i've… i've done the thing. i can't say that i haven't done the thing. but i do think that retrospectively i accepted that as normal
and i agreed to do it because of that belief: that it would be good for me because i'd be traveling. and i think because we're probably all so exhausted and we really feel like we need time off we think that maybe getting on a flight and going somewhere with a different background, somewhere visually different that is a little bit hotter is going to give us the aesthetics of rest that will convince us that we are well rested, rather than what we might actually need but isn't a cool brag and won't have any nice pictures attached and people might treat you a bit weirdly, but what we might actually need is just to stay at home for a week and have a nap. unplug the phone, order in pizzas, watch all your favorite films. instead we're paying thousands of pounds and
damaging the environment to frankly get sunstroke and have a very long nap with our eyes closed. and i can't blame anyone for that because who doesn't want an easy way to be able to log onto the internet and buy respite. but unfortunately as i get older i realize that respite is more of a nuanced ingredient, recipe thing that's tailored to each person and what you're going through that year and what you might need, rather than something that you can just go onto booking.com,
select something from a drop down menu and buy a week's worth of recovery from capitalism only just to be plummeted back into it as soon as you get back. and i don't say this to be angry at anybody, i actually kind of find it in a horrible dark way quite funny because i also used to feel like that. but when you step back from that kind of behavior you're like: i think i just needed a nap and maybe a nice swim and potentially some vitamin d tablets and also maybe a light box. p.s. i also think it's really interesting that airbnb are having to re-rebrand themselves after launching as a place that was for travel.. and when i say travel i mean people genuinely traveling with the energy
and the spoons and the components in their brain to be able to absorb another culture, reverently and respectfully ask the questions, get to know people, integrate a little bit. it was launched as a platform that did that. you were supposed to be being welcomed into other people's homes and avoiding the tourist traps to migrating into a holiday website where people are just using them to go on holiday, which is also not necessarily inherently a problem but funny that they've now had to re-release these ads. i don't know if you noticed? rebranding a corner of airbnb to try and get people to do that again, even though they're keeping the money from the other thing because that's fine. airbnb video essay, anyone? next lie: you need to travel to be an expansive person. always be wary of somebody who lists off in a boastful way all the places they've been. anecdotes are great. whole stories about
one experience: very very interesting. somebody who lists off the places that they've been like a resume or a cv like they're telling you about the celebrities that they've met or the students that they've collected that they invite in a very weird way to their office after hours for a meal. i don't like it. oh, here's another wise note from past sarky leena: physical travel is no longer the only preventer against all around ignorance, nor can it guarantee its absence. and i think as well that's the point that i maybe think that this was very different when things like lonely planet were being launched in the 70s and 80s. i do think that the internet offers us a great opportunity as well as a great danger of being exposed to lots of different things and it means that going to another place isn't always necessary to at least learn the basics of what other people are going through and instead of being a voyeuristic kind of voice that is just like there to look and maybe not to help, the internet is an amazing place for learning about stuff from qualified sources and real genuine people who are experiencing things in other cultures and countries without having to physically move. which again is great for access needs as well as just like carbon footprint
issues. i've met people who haven't really traveled to that many places at all but have been teaching english to people who have come to this country or they've been volunteering with refugees and hearing about what it's like in other parts of the world. and they strike me as people with much more wanderlust than josh who you meet in the seattle hostel who's wearing about five different necklaces and wants to boast to you about all the different, crazy things that he's seen in other places in all the different bars he's got drunk in across the world. in fact the term ‘wanderlust’ as well got me thinking because i think we focus a lot on the ‘wander’ part and not very much on the ‘lust’ part. because maybe that's exactly what it is when we say we've got ‘wanderlust’...
sometimes it's love, sometimes it's genuine passion and interest for a different culture or language or scenery to our own and sometimes it's just lust. sometimes it's just like a: oh, that picture looks sexy. i want a picture with that monument. And lust is an okay thing to feel, but let's call it what it is. and i also think there's a lot of travel content and films that promote this idea of leaving where you are and going somewhere else and often simply trying to opt out of society rather than change it, which again… doesn't always go well for people. often
you go somewhere else and there you are. you're still there in your brain. again, speaking from experience. i can guarantee, especially if you live in the uk, there are a large amount of people living in your hometown or near your hometown right now who have come from a very very long way away. and if you want to become an expansive person go and talk to them. maybe even learn their language. read books from people who are from those countries. i wish good finances and expendable income on everybody, but in the absence of that or in the absence of being able to travel for whatever reason, it doesn't make you a less expansive person. just because your physical body has been existing in a very similar postcode for a while. see
video about romanticizing london and capital cities versus moving back to your hometown. and lastly, and this is one that i have been guilty of in the past, if you haven't bought souvenirs you won't remember you went. i haven't forgotten anywhere that i've been. and if i have forgotten or i've forgotten details.. physical objects never help me to remember… ever. pictures do, but the amount of like fast fashion, fast retail like… plastic objects that you are offered as a tourist is like absolutely wild and i'd be lying that i didn't give in to it a lot in my early 20s. now, knowing what i know, i know that sometimes a photo is enough genuinely and if i really want a physical object of it i can go home and print it out. but also i try and buy stuff that i would be buying anyway, something that i might need. so for instance in amsterdam
i bought this amazing fabric because i wanted to re-cover the cushion covers in my home and now i'm going to have this nice souvenir that will remind me of that. maybe you need a new mug or a new dish scrubber or a new tea towel and you write that list of things down that you'd probably buy in your own country anyway and take it with you on your travels. that sounds pretty cool. or, another thing i now do is i just have like a category of thing that i get. mine is fridge magnets. i usually get a fridge magnet from everywhere i go. it's small, it's simple. they're widely available and it means that once i've got that i'm like: souvenirs? done. don't need to… that's enough now. in conclusion: there is a balance between calling genuine and valuable cultural exchange a waste of carbon and saying you're selling people tourism and experiences when actually you’re just moving them to a slightly different shopping center or more. i don't know where that balance is but we
do need to find it. let's do that together somehow please. we need to validate rest without location change. it's clear that some people just need to rest and they shouldn't feel like they have to fly somewhere else to be left alone. no one on the outside can know your travel intentions, only you know what your genuine intentions are and whether they're good or not so good. and
within that we do need to be aware of the colonial undertones of our adventures and how that plays out. and again, only you can know your heart or what's going on up here. but i genuinely think it's something that a lot of us need to think about. and lastly, what i see in the future is an end.. not to travel all together… but to casual travel. i am no longer traveling thoughtlessly,
especially when it's outside of my own country. i'm doing it slowly, intentionally and less often. the more and more i tackle and think about and pick at and naw on the problems with the climate crisis i think that one of them is that we are not letting ourselves imagine a better future and try and live in it now. and for me a better future does include a little bit of travel, but not the casual travel where people are going on a million business trips or going on lots of short haul flights everywhere all the time and it's only accessible for a small amount of people and everyone else has just left a piss in the wind and sit still on their little hunk of ground. but enough about me and the temporary beliefs that are swilling around my brain, it is now your go. i would love to hear what you think about this topic below or even just tell
me some cool places that you've been that you're genuinely connected to and have changed you. or perhaps you want to tell me a lie? something that you believed about travel that you're now like: doh! this video was made possible by the gumption club. you might have seen some clips in this video of us meeting up in amsterdam. this is some of them. these are some of the dutch ones. i love them. they were amazing. it's a really cosy, lovely positive gumption-filled community and
if you do become a patron you can join a secret facebook group where we talk literally every day about the complicated spinning planet we live on. if you like this video i reckon you might like one of these videos. thank you so much for watching. frog snog out.
2023-07-11 22:05
