Traveling, especially leisure traveling, used to be considered as luxury, something that only the rich and leisurely aristocrats could manage to do. Not any more. With the development of transportation technology, the availability and accessibility of long-distance comfortable public transportation such as trains and airplanes, as well as the prevalence of “middle-class” lifestyle (i.e. 3 to 4 weeks of vacation, with some disposable income), traveling is becoming one of the main pastimes for modern families. And it is no longer limited to developed, Western countries like UK and USA. China, India, and Brazil are sending increasingly large numbers of tourists abroad for leisurely travel every year. For over 100 countries in the world, tourism has become the leading economy.
But why do we travel? What is the point of traveling? After all, traveling is not essential for living a high-quality life, unlike eating or exercising. Business traveling aside, leisurely travel is usually self-chosen. Why so many people from different parts of the world choose to spend their income and vacation time to travel? With no research to speak with, I venture to make some guesses. The obvious reason I can think of is that people travel to learn about other cultures and visit sights that they normally would not or could not see in their hometown. Humans have long held the curiosity towards other cultures in the world. When traveling was still a luxury, European people were crazy about any tales, stories, artifacts that travelers (usually businessmen, sometimes missionaries) brought back from Africa, Asia (India and Far East). The same may be said for Chinese people in ancient times, who were always curious to examine the interesting objects brought by foreign missionaries. When industrialization made it possible for ordinary citizens to travel and see other parts of the world, the tourism industry really took off, and people were amazed by the exotic sights and experiences on their journeys. To a certain extent, the increasing popularity of traveling promoted cross-cultural communication, since people could now get first-hand information and impressions of other cultures. Instead of reading about how Japanese culture places great importance on politeness and the obsession with cleanness, a visit to Japan and even the minimum interaction with Japanese people could leave that impression in a more vivid and memorable way. Instead of hearing about the legal societal structure in American culture, a trip to the United States, from the moment of arriving in the airport, would give outsiders a taste of the cultural difference. Learning about world is one of the major tasks that all human beings are born with, and learning from life experiences is undoubtedly preferable to learning from books, whenever possible. It is with this philosophy that many parents insist on taking their young children (I mean really young children, some younger than 5-year-olds, some still need to be carried around) to travel whenever and wherever they can afford, with the hope that this experience will broaden the views of their children and have a positive impact on their growth. To learn about other cultures is certainly a valid reason to travel, but in my observation, this does not seem to be true for all the people. Why is that? Many people choose to stay in familiar hotels, eat in familiar restaurants (e.g. a Chinese traveler may prefer a Chinese restaurant in Rome to a local pizzeria), talk to people who speak the same language as themselves—in most cases, these are not the local people—and take pictures at the famous tourist attractions as efficiently as they can before retreating to their hotels. They may also choose to visit places that they can easily find counterparts in their home country, e.g. a Tokyo Disneyland to an American who has already been to the Disneyland in Florida. In a sense, they want to feel like they have “traveled”, but they also want to feel “at home” most of the time. I find this group of people very interesting, and I realize that their way of thinking reflects a dilemma that all humans face: we want to explore new territories, but we also feel afraid to get out of our comfort zone, hence the nostalgia. Admittedly, stepping into a completely foreign unfamiliar culture is scary and nerve-wracking, and naturally it induces fear and anxiety. Many of the customs that we have been accustomed to are no longer there, and we feel at a loss due to the uncertainty. Some people have higher tolerance of this type of uncertainty and anxiety, but it is natural, understandable, and rational that humans have this sense of uncertainty. I think it is this uncertainty that drives people to seek familiar objects that they can feel comfortable with—a restaurant that serves similar cuisines as their hometown local café, a chain-hotel name that they can recognize and feel that they can trust, the familiar language that they can understand and communicate in, etc. It is indeed a good feeling to feel at home in a culture thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, because the need to cater for this sense of nostalgia, many tourist experiences are becoming more standardized, that the rich experience of visiting a different culture has been almost reduced to a few iconic pictures taken with famous sightseeing spots (e.g. Eiffel Tower, Great Wall, Statue of Liberty), with everything else wiped out. You could choose to speak English for your entire trip in Japan, eat at McDonald’s, stay in Marriott, and shop at stores where every label has English translation, and the sales clerks speak English as well. You could choose to visit only big cities and large shopping malls—and by the way, those are almost identical regardless of their location: same interior design, same store layout, same brands, and most likely, same products as you may find in a local shopping mall even if you may be visiting Beijing, London, or Istanbul. While this makes traveling less intimidating, I think it also greatly discounts the value of traveling. After all, what is the point of paying for flight, accommodations, and all the local transportation (the expense is still not negligible for most families) only to experience the same thing that you can easily find at home? Traveling in this latter way—arriving in a different culture but never really “getting into” that culture—does not seem to do much to promote cross-cultural understanding. Sometimes people visit another culture only to find evidence for the impression they already have about that culture, often read from tourist guidebooks. Sometimes people do not even have a chance to form an impression, since they mostly saw the airport, the hotel, and familiar restaurants that serve their home cuisine. Undoubtedly this type of traveling still boosts the economy in many areas, but is that really the point of traveling? I leave it for you to decide.
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