Tam and I have had several conversations recently with other travelers. Mostly, these are Europeans, and one American: but in all cases long-term travelers spending three months to a year abroad. The one similar thing that we have all experienced are the misconceptions many of our friends and family back at home have about our travels.
We are guilty for a good part of this.
Look at any of our social media accounts (not mine. I don’t have any) and you will see pictures of perfect sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, and unicorns surfing perfect, peeling, double-overhead waves in some pristine reef pass in the South Pacific.
It is just human nature.
We tend to post that which we are in awe of. What affects us in a positive relaxed way is what we capture and share, and be it disingenuous or not, none of us wants to be the Debbie Downer and post the other angle of those same photographs. InstaFaceTwit is full of these moments (the fantasy of the life), but what you don’t see is how the camera was angled in such a way to disregard the hovel with the dirty, hungry children looking out the door, or the creative use of framing to hide the beach filled with detritus of torn and discarded fishing nets and the rotting corpses of bycatch abandoned to the heat of the sun.
Walk across the beautiful Caribbean island, ringed with coral reefs, crystalline water, and palm-fringed beaches (the InstaFaceTwit side of the island), and take the pictures of the other side: This is the side that the current brings the thousands of tons of plastic garbage, flip-flops, bottles, and the unwanted castoffs of an uncaring society. It is impossible to see from the InstaFaceTwit side, but it is there, and it will quickly dissolve any magical notions of a place.
It is this that goes unposted, unacknowledged on our social media sites, because to post it, to share it, even to acknowledge that it exists is painful. It is not what we want to see. It is not what we want others to see that we are experiencing.
But it is reality.
And I am sorry , but I do need to write about and share the reality on this blog. It’s not all Facebook and rainbows.
And only posting the fantasy of this life skews the perspective of what we are doing all day every day. The reality is that we spend the majority of our time in the reality of a place. It is very seldom we treat ourselves to a mai tai sitting around a pool in a fancy resort. And, all day, we are surrounded by the local people and live and eat the way they do.
Another common theme that we found we travelers share is about comfort. We all tend to give up comfort for this type of travel.
Again, we are not staying at the Hilton.
We (travelers of our ilk) generally live on a budget. We cannot afford the comforts, or the shielded view of the culture they are selling you at the five-star resorts (nor is that how I would choose to travel anyway). We are in it: good or bad. Major events like medical problems or being scammed, robbed, or placed in physical danger, and even minor issues like bad travel belly, questionable food, unrelenting bugs and heat, and lack of air conditioning all take an eventual toll on our concept of comfort. There are times we all consider running home to the comfort we know: our job, our home, our comfy beds, or our families and friends.
So, why?
It is a valid question.
I assume it can be different for everyone. For me it is because adventure and experience share a hovel with discomfort.
I struggle to find the adventure in the fancy resort.
I travel to learn. I travel to immerse myself in a culture: to hear the stories and see the scars on the people living in that culture (and get a few of those scars myself). I travel to eat the foods that the locals eat, for the pick-up game of cricket in a sand lot, for the deeper understanding that comes from a conversation with someone from a different place and viewpoint, and for the opportunity to find a way to improve one thing for one person at a time.
I travel to find the truth in an area, which generally means staying behind the Hilton, on that other beach, where real people are living real life.
Wind, Water, Waves, Wander 