MY SAY-Are You A Tourist or Traveller?

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts”

Mark Twain

On the first day of a month long European tour, the tour director told everyone on the bus a quote and it went something like this;

"A tourist is someone who leaves home to see something different, and when it is different, complains about it. A traveller is someone who leaves home to see something different, and when it is different, sees the reason why they travel. Be a traveller and not a tourist.”

This shaped our mindset from the beginning to accept the differences we were going to come up against and if we didn’t like those differences then we shouldn’t complain about them but look at them as a new experience."

It got me thinking about that philosophy and the choice we get each day to be a tourist or a traveler. Life is unpredictable and we don’t have too much control of what goes on around us. Some people complain about how their lives are different to what they wanted for themselves and others embrace the difference and work around it. Some things we can change so it is up to us to change them and for all the other things we can’t change, there is no point complaining about them. It is just going to make you frustrated or depressed.

“In the world through which I travel, I’m endlessly creating myself”

Frantz Fanon

 As each day of my tour passed, it got me thinking about the mindset of the tourist and traveller in day to day life and what that would be. 

The Tourist is someone who just talks the talks but doesn’t walk the walk. They don’t really want to try anything new or different. They just want to do the same thing… taste the same flavours of life. They don’t want to be challenged. Talk about experiencing something different but when that something different comes their way they whine and moan about it. The tourist can’t see any good in anything out of the normal they know. They also don’t like others around them to change because it might affect them.

The Traveller is someone that talks the talk but also walks the walk. They want to taste the flavours of life, and if they try an experience that they don’t like or enjoy, they are ok with that, they are satisfied that they gave it a go. The traveller gets on board and rides the ups and downs as they come. Travellers are the type that even when bad things happen… they take time to grieve but then they get on with it. They don’t act like victims, they look for beauty through their hurt and in places where beauty isn’t clearly visible.

 Never fear the different, challenges teaches you a lot about life.  Some people see only black and white, life isn’t just black and white, there are so many shades of grey and a spectrum of colours.

Embrace different races, different cultures, different religions, different food, anything that is different to you… and if you can’t embrace it, then tolerate that others have different opinions, ideas and faith and don’t forget that some cultures consider you different. 

 To change the mindset of a tourist doesn’t happen easily. It is a choice for them to make and it has to come from within and once they decide, it will take a while for them to change the behaviour that they have known for most of their life.

 Rita Gunning #ritagunning