The headline read: “Geotourism: Travel trend means exploring the unique character of a place.”
I slumped in despair over my morning newspaper. Exploring the unique character of a place … isn’t that just, you know, travel?
But the more I learn about geotourism, the better it sounds. An initiative spearheaded by the National Geographic Society, geotourism is an effort to develop tourism that helps preserve the distinctive historical and cultural qualities of places. It’s a response to what one industry pro quoted in the article calls the “creeping sameness” that is taking over the world, as hotels, restaurants and shopping chains go global and travel becomes increasingly commonplace.
Right on. I mean, why Warsaw needs a Hard Rock Cafe is beyond me. Why an American tourist would visit it is yet more baffling. The world is full of wonderful things not built specifically for the entertainment of tourists.
This is not my cue to preen about being “a traveler not a tourist” because that’s usually a bunch of self-aggrandizing hokum. If you’re seeing the sights and carrying a guidebook, then you’re 99 percent tourist. The only people I consider real travelers are long-term adventurers. Those of us who dip in and out of places are tourists, no matter how many deep conversations we have with cab drivers and exotic local delicacies we sample.
But you can be a tourist and still engage with a place. A real place, not just the stuff built specifically for the entertainment of tourists — which is the stuff that threatens to turn everyplace into the same place.
Oh, I’m not immune to the charms of “attractions” — some might call them “tourist traps.” I’ve seen the mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida (and have the snow globe to commemorate it), visited Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, toured Twitty City in Hendersonville, Tenn. (may the attraction and the man rest in peace).
But attractions are rarely the point of travel for me. For me it’s simply about being there, wherever that is. I like hearing different accents and languages, seeing how people dress and live and where they hang out. I like poking around supermarkets and thrift shops, sitting in parks, wandering residential neighborhoods. I like eating in little local restaurants, attending local theater, reading local newspapers (if I can).
If you travel just to see what’s there, rather than to seek out contrived entertainment, there is no such thing as a bad trip or a dull destination. If we don’t plow it all over with shopping malls and amusement parks, places are unique as snowflakes, and you never know what you might see that could change your world view.
My first solo trips around the United States were on a Greyhound bus. I would buy a month-long pass and meander around the country, staying with friends or friends of friends or in cheap motels. I once slept on a gymnasium floor in South Dakota, and I spent another night on the floor of the bus depot in Billings, Mont.
I remember vividly passing through an itty-bitty town somewhere in the middle of somewhere on one of those trips. I looked out the bus window and saw a woman driving a beat-up car with a happy smile on her face.
This was an epiphany to a girl from New York City who grew up believing Broadway was the center of the universe. This lady was happy even though she lived in Podunk and drove a jalopy?
I think it was the moment I become a traveler. (Tourist. Whatever.) It wasn’t at Sea World or in a spa or taking a Segway tour of a restored factory district full of restaurants and galleries. It was just a big, enlightening, nothing moment that spoke volumes to me about the richness and diversity of the world. And no souvenir for miles.
I have a wish list of places I’d like to visit, as any tourist does. But I can also say sincerely that there is no place in the world that doesn’t interest me, simply for what it is: Someplace else.
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