So, I got to thinking today, and then posted a longish tirade on my newish blog. Then I thought I'd post the tirade here so y'all could comment. Just please don't yell at me - I'm fragile. No, really - I'm just raising a question I've started thinking about lately, and I really don't think there's a right or wrong answer... It's just something that's fed my philosophical soul lately. Enough dithering, here's my tirade:

Is Kiev the new Prague?
I just saw an article in the New York Times travel section (thanks, Jim, for sending me the link) that got me thinking. Here's the train of thought that ensued.

I'm currently reading, "Long Way Round," by Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman, the companion book to the excellent television series. Ewan & Charley, both motorcycle buffs, decide to ride around the world in as straight a line as they can manage. In order to pay for this expedition, they get sponsors and turn it into a documentary - complete with cameras in their helmets.

(One small digression - the program had been playing on Bravo, for what I think is the second time, and we'd been recording the 4am showings and enjoying them thoroughly. It's a six-part series, and we'd gotten to the end of episode four when Bravo unexpectedly - and for no good reason whatsoever - decided to stop airing them. So, we were left with a cliffhanger and no resolution in sight. There's no VHS copy of the program, and there isn't currently a DVD that's formatted for American players. I borrowed the book from the library, so I'll get the story eventually, but we're still ticked at Bravo for pulling the plug so uncerimoniously. Buggers.)

At any rate, I've just gotten past the part in the book where they visited Kiev, and Ewan commented that the feeling in the city was that it was what Prague was like before it became over-touristy. Then I see the New York Times article, saying it feels like Kiev is the new Prague. Ewan was cautious about the comparison, saying he wanted to return to Kiev with his wife sooner rather than later - before Kiev turns into the tourist destination Prague has become.

So, after reading these two things, I'm confronted by a dilemma I've been thinking about quite a bit lately - do we rush to see things before other tourists, deriding the tour-bussed-in masses carrying their guidebooks and instamatics? Or do we acknowledge that we are, to some extent, the same kind of folks in different clothes?

I have to admit, when I read Ewan's diary entry about Kiev, I immediately thought, "Oh, we must go there, and soon! For it will shortly be overrun by Americans who wear Bermuda shorts and wonder why they can't enter the cathedral, yell in English in the hopes that they'll be understood, and complain when they can't get American food!" (Okay, I'm exaggerating for effect. Did it work?) Then I had an immediate follow-up thought that went something like this, "Wait, amn't I a tourist, too?" So, this is my dilemma. How does one 'tour' without being a 'tourist?'

I want to see the world - as much of it as I can - and I think that's a good thing. I think travel makes us smarter, both about our own country and the places we go to see. Travel enhances our ability to make broad decisions that we now understand will affect people on a grander scale than just our city or our neighborhood. Travel teaches us that really, at the heart of it, we're all the same. These are good things. Very good things. So why is the word "tourist" such a dirty word? Why do so many people who travel aspire to be something else? It reminds me of the word "liberal" - no one wants to claim it because of the perceived negative connotations, despite the fact that it's probably an accurate description of quite a few people. (Another small digression - you may have noticed from the link list that I'm a liberal, and I'm one of the ones who actually likes the word.)

This is my dilemma. I'm pretty sure there isn't a right or wrong answer, it's just my new issue du jour.

Excellent question Jessica - I'm beginning to plan on Eastern European adventure that will include Kiev. My main reason for going now versus later? I want to see it before the EU gets its tentacles in even further. Am I the only one that knows this area will be changing rapidly in the next dozen years? It's kinda like China before the Olympics...it's going to happen. You just have to pick when you're going to jump in the ring.

Court

aboslutely... I am considering focusing my attention on eastern europe BEFORE doing asia since eastern europe is undoubtedly going to change over the next decade.

Yep, yep, yep. But getting back to "that" question...."is tourist a bad word?".

Absolutely not. ("Ugly tourist" is a set of bad words).

Let's be honest...we're all tourists. Unless we actually move to a foreign location, and live there, and work there....of course we're tourists. What's wrong with that? Not a thing.

Anyone who pretends not to be a tourist (without moving/living/working in another country....and I'm excluding retired ex-pats here - a "third category") is just kidding if they call themselves something else.

It's pretentious.

And, keep it down about Kiev. Otherwise it'll be overrun with tourists.

Just thought I'd comment that we used to have a whole board here dedicated to that question. It didn't get much traffic, though.

Other than that, I'm with NTFT. If you only travel for business, and never see the sights while you're there, maybe we can make an exception for you, but the rest of us are all tourists to some degree.

Most of us just prefer not to be part of the herd, which I think is enough of a distinction to satisfy us. Or at least satisfy me.

Some travellers hate the term tourist, thinking it automatically makes them part of a bus-tour, screaming in English group.

But you know what? We're all tourists. I agree with NFTF. I think the key is just seeing those hidden gems before they become uncovered.

I've been desperate to get to China before the Olympics - I know they're building at a massive rate right now, but I've also been told that Beijing hasn't been completely sanitized yet. Our Culture and Business Strategy in China prof told us to get moving if we were planning to visit.

After that, my focus will be Eastern Europe, primarily because of the EU and how it's starting to encompass these nations. Not because of it being overtouristy, but more of a worry about it becoming more EUesque.

You can be all snobby and go "I'm a traveller, not a tourist", but how are you going to explain that to a local who doesn't speak much English? Ever since a Serbian lady patted me on the back when she asked "Tourist?" and I said "Da", I've come to realise it can be a very positive term. A tourist is someone who travels for pleasure, not work or any other reason. The only opposition I see is between Package Tourists and Independent Tourists, and even there it's not all black and white.

i think it is a little sanctimonious (sp?) to make divisions between "tourists" and "travellers". there are good and bad tourists, ignorant and informed, etc...

I alwasy call myself a tourist! It gives me the excuse I need to do lots of stupid things...

One of the more unfortunate aspects of traveling is 'backpacker culture.'

There is a sense of self congratulation in these quarters, of bohemianism; we are better them them. Travelers always love to drop these huge hints on where they have been, where they are planning to go. I think it's because there is so much positive reinforcement there; 'oh, your going to travel, splendid.' People like to hear that they are cool and interesting.

This is a very Western thing, these categories, this loathing of phantom groups. What is a tourist? What is a backpacker? Someone who uses a 'back pack?'

All very stupid questions that do not need answering.

The truth is that many travellers I have met are very predictable, very transparent. Twenty somethings, university educated, Caucasian, 'concerned about poor people,' etc. It is all very cliche.

Barukh speaks for me.

Tourists tour.

It's what we all do. If it flys like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck. It's probably a duck.

How you act as a guest in another people's country has little to do with whether or not your a tourist. I'm less concerned about being a tourist and more concerned about showing the proper amount of respect to those I am visiting or from whom I'm learning.

I'll agree with somebody else on this thread, everyone seems to have hit the nail on the head. Tourist is a synonym for backpacker or hitchhiker or vagabond or whatever else you want to call it. I think it's people's tendancy to hate on umbrella terms that makes it so dirty, everyone wants to be something other than what they are.

quote:

There is a sense of self congratulation in these quarters, of bohemianism; we are better them them. Travelers always love to drop these huge hints on where they have been, where they are planning to go.

lol no doubt about that! i guess one good thing about traveling is you can always make yourself look cooler than you really are

All you are doing is making me itch to go to Eastern Europe now...