that is true. but at the same time I think it's possible to participate in tourism and not be an awful ignorant and rude american. or maybe I'm not actually talking about dumb tourism, just some middleground between being a stinky backpacker and a fat slob who packs the hotel breakfast bar in her purse and shouts "the hoff-house is this way girls"

that is true. but at the same time I think it's possible to participate in tourism and not be an awful ignorant and rude american. or maybe I'm not actually talking about dumb tourism, just some middleground between being a stinky backpacker and a fat slob who packs the hotel breakfast bar in her purse and shouts "the hoff-house is this way girls"

wat, why does the backpacker have to be stinky. also that middleground is probably RICH GUY in which case you aren't so much of a tourist as someone who takes multiple trips to europe and probably has some stupid ancestry there.

BOOOOOO FUCK WHITEY.

As I see it, it probably really is good for the soul to be a tourist, even if it's only once in a while. Not good for the soul in a refreshing or enlivening way, though, but rather in a grim, steely-eyed, let's-look-honestly-at-the-facts-and-find-some-way-to-deal-with-them way. My personal experience has not been that traveling around the country is broadening or relaxing, or that radical changes in place and context have a salutary effect, but rather that intranational tourism is radically constricting, and humbling in the hardest way--hostile to my fantasy of being a real individual, of living somehow outside and above it all. (Coming up is the part that my companions find especially unhappy and repellent, a sure way to spoil the fun of vacation trave​ To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.

well hello mr. fucking cynic

i disagree with this! i think it's possible to not look like a fucking INSECT ON A DEAD THING. use it as a chance to become more intune with like the WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE. it's a really refreshing experience that i think is pretty good for the mind! ever since the prospect of my italy trip has come up i have gotten waaayyy more into understanding the world and looking into what makes us different and shit

idk lol ramblind

anyway tell me some serious specifics about Rome! My family is going to italy for like 14 days and were spending like 4-5 of those in a flat like literally a 30 second walk away from Pantheon or the Colliseum (weve not picked yet!) well be spending a loooong day in the vatican as well. catacombs too i hope. the spanish steps... yadyadayada. then moving down the coast a couple hundred miles to check out salerno and naples and then a lot of time on the amalfi coast. oh and maybe sicily too haha

i have never been so excited for a trip in my entire life. please tell me anything and everything you recommend doing! (p.s. were going in april/march which apparently is like a month before the tourist season really picks up!)

I live in Budapest and I really don't recommend to visit this place. It's filthy and shit, and lot of the waiters in restaurants try to squeeze money out of you just because you are a foreigner.

well hello mr. fucking cynic

i disagree with this! i think it's possible to not look like a fucking INSECT ON A DEAD THING. use it as a chance to become more intune with like the WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE. it's a really refreshing experience that i think is pretty good for the mind! ever since the prospect of my italy trip has come up i have gotten waaayyy more into understanding the world and looking into what makes us different and shit

idk lol ramblind

to be fair to the late mr. wallace he was referring to intranational travel (and I deliberately left that part of the quote in), although I will defend my posting of said comment as an intranational truth and an international potentiality.

if you'd care to defend intranational travel though I'll take his side since I agree with it entirely.

wat, why does the backpacker have to be stinky. also that middleground is probably RICH GUY in which case you aren't so much of a tourist as someone who takes multiple trips to europe and probably has some stupid ancestry there.

BOOOOOO FUCK WHITEY.

backpackers are always stinky because they don't bathe, read a history book.

-only going to a specific group of countries, studying the culture and languages beforehand, not acting like an oaf. anybody can do that!! and why is it that people need to GO TO EUROPE and try to see it all, it doesn't work

Hmm.  This is anecdotal evidence, so ignore it entirely, but I wonder why every American I've met and talked with in Europe said he hates Bush and voted for Kerry or Gore?

Because most of the people who at this point still don't hate Bush think that Europe is nothing but terrorists/foreigners/satan.  FACT.

I was actually considering this as a topic yesterday, but decided not to because I didn't feel it had enough room. many europeans are pretty astonished to learn most americans do not have passports; a lot of them tend to just file this under DUMP AMERIKKAN. I've always thought that while that has a bit to do with it, the majority of the reason is distance. in europe, you can travel through several different countries, each with its own language and culture, within a day. in the US you have to go quite a bit of distance in most cases to cross a border, and it is a conglomeration of states instead of countries. where a passport is a necessity in europe, it's a luxury item here.

that being said, aside from a lack of passports, international travel is doubly frowned upon by what can best be described as a pathetic nationalism. many americans, some rightly, believe they lead a good life in the US. thus, with no curiousity forced upon them by circumstance (unlike in europe, where I suppose its possible for someone in norway or whatever to have no interest in their much closer neighbors but this is improbable), they see no need to have a costly venture out to another nation and leave the comforts of home. the fact that such an experience might have cultural or existential benefits does not occur to these people.

these change from people to people, but I've found xenophobia and nationalism do tend to vary on circumstance; Texas, one of the most rightwing states, hasn't cared about the immigration issue for years. rather, it is non border states who are finally getting a glimpse of illegal immigration who complain about pressing 1 for English. but with the aftereffects (or hell, current effects) of manifest destiny still in play, most Americans have dug themselves into what I think was best described by quintessential American Marge Simpson as a happy little rut. but a combination of international travel being a luxury instead of a pastime and some idiot nationalism lead to only your wealthier more liberal Americans traveling abroad.

to be fair to the late mr. wallace he was referring to intranational travel (and I deliberately left that part of the quote in), although I will defend my posting of said comment as an intranational truth and an international potentiality.

if you'd care to defend intranational travel though I'll take his side since I agree with it entirely.

ok well first of all this guys entire thought process relies upon this really negative take on human curiosity. second of all, i hope you understand that i see what he's saying and i give him some credit for his ideas but i think he's taking a pretty one-dimensional approach to 'tourism' and the experiences it brings. the fundamental piece of his argument basically requires this zealout-esque appreciation for aesthetics and time/place. AN INSECT ON A DEAD THING. really? i think that experiencing these relics is an important part of understanding where we are today and what we've evolved from- it's this sort of time lock/past meets the present thing that breeds curiosity and (yes i for sure agree with him on this) it is just good for the soul. Why? I think seeing what man has done and can do is an inspirational experience in itself, and furthermore, by merely seeing and experiencing the world outside of our 6 by 6 cubical that is america it breeds appreciation for international perspective and understanding of various cultures. i totally agree that this kind of thing is totally humbling! but i think that humbling is born more of respect and inspiration then despair.

but my ideas are probably a little unfounded and i am kind of just spitting all this off of the top of my head so feel free to refute me! ill think about it a bit more and get back later

hello dude INTRANATIONAL.

ffff I even explained this, he's talking about travel within america, you're still talking about WORLD OUTSIDE.

Visit Iceland and make me jealous.

Spain and Italy for sure. Paris, Berlin, and London are all also awesome.