Traveling is a unique opportunity. It gives us an insight into the world of other peoples and cultures.
Types of travel, types of travelers:
There are clearly many types of travel, from backpacking to cruises. We all have our preferences. Personally, I cannot stand the idea of cruises, with 500 of your best new friends invading a small, poor port of some country, in bright clothes and entering with a culture of food-gorging extravagance into a culture of try-to-make-enough-to-eat. I don't see cruises as a good form of travel, but in fact I find them to be destructive to varying extents. The same goes for tours.
The reason I believe this is from observation. I see these huge buses and ships pull up to a tourist site or port, masses of people pour forth, spend a little money, waddle around calling things "quaint" and really learn absolutely nothing about the people. How can you travel and learn? Rent a car. Drive yourself. Travel in small groups. Those are less obtrusive and better ways to come into contact with the people of a given country. If a tour guide does all the work for you, and you never have to deal with any of the people (buying crap at port-side stores doesn't count) what have you really accomplished by visiting that country?
Am I a travel-elitist? You could say that. I do believe that some forms of travel are better than others. And I believe so because I don't want to see a given culture damaged by tourism. More on this later. John
There is so much out there, so many experiences to be had, and you just don't have those on cruises. Only by walking the midnight streets of Mexican cities can one see the fire in the stray dog's eye. Only by feeling the burn of Vietnamese peppers can one grasp the essence of the cuisine. Only by wandering, a young, blond boy, in Morocco, can one run from the dancers, eager to have that exotic hair underhand. Not from a bus. Not from a boat. Only on the ground, coughing the polluted air, smelling the backstreet meats burning on a portable grill, wading a sea of Saigon bicycles... can one truly be in a place. Anything else isn't worth the time or the money.
