>When I travel I'm not doing it to relax, but to go on an adventure, to experience other worlds, push myself, and get outside my comfort zone.
I too don't care to be pandered to in foreign resorts.
Can you share some specific things you do to push yourself and get outside of your comfort zone when you travel.
Exactly!
The problem is people are scared to leave their confort zone while it's what will make them happier, it's kind of ironic.
I didn't know that saying and it's pretty accurate!
People always say some are "lucky" to go travelling, while in reality "Luck" is at everyone's reach but they just don't have the courage and motivation to do it.
I mean, that's what "adventure travel" is most of the time. If you don't like the journey then you won't enjoy it. My partner and I backpack and bike travel quite a bit, and yeah there's definitely towns you enter that are just... boring towns. Sometimes you end up at a beach you found on the map/saw in the distance and you realize it's cold and rocky. There have also definitely been occasions where we've been quite scared for a variety of reasons.
It's fundamentally a bit of a gamble. The folks that keep doing it enjoy the gamble. There are some hills I've crested while bikepacking and some towns I've been through that have been absolutely gorgeous and those certainly help, but everyone I know who enjoys this kind of travel enjoys getting outside and getting a bit rough and dirty. I encourage everyone to travel like this as long as they feel safe (and it's important to remember that different genders, sexual minorities, and ethnicities will feel differing levels of discomfort in different locations so safety should always be top priority.) But if you don't like the gamble, then head to a resort and take a tour bus to the Taj Mahal!
Travelling is like real estate, location matters. Certain places are popular for a reason usually. Off-the beaten path travelling is like advocating people to move to an off-grid farm with no running water. It might work out fine for you, but most people are not into that thing.
You know, even if you go “off the beaten path,” you’re still just a tourist. Just one who is “off the beaten path.” It’s like the conversations about experiencing the “authentic” culture of a place. If you want true authentic, move to wherever for a couple years and just live it.
I enjoy traveling and I almost never do touristy stuff, but I have no illusions about not being a tourist and trying to get some sort of authentic experience that only scrapes the top of a deep culture.
I'm not talking about interaction with the host, I'm talking about the general risks of traveling and then going to a new place where you are interacting with the people shortly after traveling.
My claim is that most of these people are not going on exclusively nature-exploration vacations, they are going to see people or to patronize their businesses.
This is a false dichotomy. When I travel to new places, I like to see the standard tourist stuff, but I also like to walk the back alleys and go "off the beaten path". I'm not unique in this either.
The gatekeeping people have around the right kind of travel is amazing.
That's the real issue I have with this article. I think it's possible to have a considered approach to an off the beaten path style of travel, but writing a "holier than thou" article about it doesn't seem like it tho.
This isn't universally true. Some people truly enjoy experiencing other cultures and parts of the world for its own sake. Not everyone who travels for pleasure and curiosity are doing it "for the gram". That being said, there are also many people who are.
I think there's a distinction to be made between travel as accumulating social capital masquerading as "experiences" and travel as seeking genuinely novel experiences. It's the same difference between going to Instagrammable restaurants and seeking out places that have legitimately good food. Then again, I don't think this distinction is new. There's always been a dichotomy between people who travel like an RPG where they have to see X monument and have Y experience in order to tell their friends about it, and people who come in open minded.
I was privileged enough in my life that I traveled a lot over the last 15 years. I really feel it is more and more difficult to have a genuine experience sometimes because of all the tourist crowds behaving horribly.
So, yes, it is definitely still possible to go to a remote location in Asia and be exposed to a different culture, but if you go to any major city, you will mostly end up in a hostel with loud millenials that don't really care about anything else than maximizing their own experience.
>I spend most of the time feeling uncomfortable in some way (temperature isn't right, have to use the bathroom, worried about getting robbed) and it costs money!
That's exactly why you should travel to learn about the world outside of your immediate cocoon.
I don't think it's true that's what travel was like for most humans in most of human history. For most people at most places at most times, they could simply travel wherever they chose, and it was fine. Traditions of hospitality to traveling strangers are very common.
I see your point now. I guess most travelers just want to learn more about the people and cultures of other places.
One of the common criticisms of US citizens is that they are ignorant of the world outside of US borders. I would argue there's no better way to learn about the world than to travel to places outside of your comfort zone.
Also, I only ever enjoy traveling by the second or third time I go to a place, when that horrible feeling of being lost, helpless, completely ignorant, and not belonging has subsided a bit.
In most of my friends who enjoy traveling I see a certain histeria, a mixing of their expectations with reality that is really uncomfortable to be around (like hearing "this is paradise" to a landscape that is really familiar; like "checkpointing" by taking pictures of landmarks and signs and trivial activities everybody does; like calling fast-food "wonderful" because it comes in a pretty plate from a waiter who doesn't speak your language; etc).
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