The New Tourist.

Okay, okay, to quote my friend Konrad: "Enough about us. What do you think of us?" No but really. In this edition, I want to let someone else talk. I went down a rabbit hole sparked by an Atlantic article, into the beautiful mind of Paige McClanahan, and her new book,?The New Tourist. We started chatting about the ideas from her book and what we are doing here at?TRAVARAS, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions for this update. And I couldn't agree more with her answers. Enjoy!

What inspired you to write this book?

In the year or so before the pandemic, I started to feel really frustrated with the media narratives that I was seeing around travel. It seemed to me that so many articles were either fully embracing a consumerist approach to tourism (“Top 10 beaches in Brazil,” “How to get a cheap flight to anywhere,” sort of thing) – or they were actively blaming travelers for causing problems in places that were too crowded. At the same time, I was living in a little village in the French Alps where the economy depends almost entirely on tourism, and I saw just how much of a positive force tourism can be – if it’s managed correctly. So in my journalism, I started exploring the nuances of tourism: When does it work well? When do things break down? How does tourism change the places that it touches? And how is tourism shaping society today? I quickly discovered that newspaper articles weren’t going to allow me the space to explore these questions in depth, so I developed the idea for the book.

We talk a lot about helping our travelers to be good guests at the destinations they visit. What makes a good guest, in your opinion?

It’s really important to take some time to educate yourself about the place before you visit, especially when it comes to any challenges that residents might be experiencing with tourism. Is this place struggling with overcrowding? What about pollution or noise in the streets at night? Are locals concerned that short-term rentals are driving up their rents? If you take some time to learn about these challenges, then you’ll be empowered to maximize the positive impact of your visit. That might mean that you end up planning your trip in the off-season, or choosing a locally owned hotel instead of a tourist apartment, or visiting some lesser-known museums in that iconic European city. I see this as a win for both you, the traveler, as well as the place you’re visiting. You have a great trip, and you’re having a positive effect on the place and its residents. A little knowledge can go a long way.

What is your favorite way to travel? How do you make sure you experience the “real” place you visit, not just the tourist version?

We’re tourists when we travel, right? We’re not locals – and I think that’s an important thing to remember. We owe it to the place we’re visiting to stay within the bounds of the infrastructure that’s there to welcome us. But within that framework, there are some really wonderful ways to deepen our connection to the place and make a positive contribution while we’re there. I love to hire a local tour guide, which gives you the chance to really spend some time with someone from the area, while also directly supporting their income. And when I travel I also love to seek out narratives that are different from the mainstream view of the place I’m visiting. Here in Paris, for instance, I like to suggest that people visit the Grand Mosque of Paris – which will offer them a fascinating and possibly very unexpected perspective on the city. And finally, before I travel, I like to take the time to really consider my motives. Am I visiting this place because I feel like I ought to, maybe because it’s on someone else’s bucket list? Or do I have a genuine interest in this place and the people who live there – an interest that might develop into a strong sense of connection with the place after I visit? Let’s all aim for the latter.

Do you have hope for the future of tourism?

If we think about the crises that humanity could face in the years and decades to come – runaway AI, nuclear war, an even more lethal pandemic, catastrophic climate change – all of these challenges are completely ignorant of national borders. The modern world is more connected, which means that – now, more than ever in the history of humanity – it’s essential for us to be able to collaborate with people from backgrounds other than our own. Tourism is a beautiful and potentially very powerful means of allowing human beings to connect with each other across borders in a peaceful and constructive way. At the same time, tourism is huge, and it’s growing fast. We’re going to have more than 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals this year, more than ever before. So on one hand, yes – I’m optimistic because that 1.5 billion figure represents a potent force that could create an immense wave of new social connections. But of course, that potent force could also do a lot of harm, as we’ve seen in the news this summer especially. So that’s why it’s more important than ever that we work really hard to get tourism right.

Paige, thank you so much for this!

Much Love,

Lisa