The Gist of It: How and why to join the growing nation of travelers
The Sociological Hot Take
When I decided to launch The Sociology of… Everything, this was one of the topics I was eager to write about, not because it was core to my academic research, but because it’s such a huge part of how I choose to live my life. So this month, when much of the Northern Hemisphere takes vacation, feels like the right time.
I have a lot of strong opinions about travel and travelers, but let’s start with my belief that there are two main types of “travelers”:
1) Tourists / people on vacation and 2) people who live abroad.
I want to address both — short term travel with the purpose of experiencing something new, as well as living abroad, for either a short or extended period of time, and how, in a best-case-scenario, the two intertwine.
But first: What do I mean by “living abroad”? What constitutes living somewhere vs. visiting?
I make this distinction based more on logistical differences than philosophical ones. If I rent an apartment and stay for a month or more in one location, for instance, I consider myself living there. During that time, I need to navigate the city and surroundings like a local, attend to everyday needs, and the rhythm of my life is not centered on sightseeing; it’s occupied by grocery shopping, finding supplies, seeking occasional medical assistance, navigating public transport, dealing with neighbors, learning pieces of the language, adjusting to the smells, the sounds, the energy… A month might not seem like a long time, but you’d be surprised how much you can learn and settle into a place in that amount of time. (Note that there are some exceptions and variations to this rule, but I’m speaking generally here.)
As a bit of personal background: I have “lived” in 15 countries on 5 continents, and within the US, I’ve lived in 5 states (in several different cities in some states). I’ve also, of course, traveled as a “tourist” in even more countries and states. So… I guess you could say I’ve been around.
Regardless of whether I’m traveling as a tourist or living abroad, three things influence my travel experience the most: 1) the people, 2) the culture, 3) the environment. Yes, of course, these things are not mutually exclusive, but the point here is things like monuments and cathedrals did not make my list. I’ve got no problem with any of those things, but they’re not a meaningful part of what guides or shapes my travel experiences. The people I encounter, the environment I stay in and inhabit, and the way that that culture intersects with mine largely determines whether I “like” a place — not whether it has a theme park.
With this in mind, you perhaps get the sense that I’m not a sterotypical tourist. But last summer, when the American philosopher Agnes Callard wrote an anti-travel essay for the New Yorker called, “The Case Against Travel,” I somehow felt I must speak out in defense of travel and travellers.
The article’s teaser let’s you know what’s coming: “[Travel] turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us we’re at our best.”
Ouch. (I’m pretty sure Callard throws darts at the NYTimes’ “36 Hours” travel itineraries.)
She goes on to cite various other disgruntled intellectuals who share her hostility toward travel — and not just travel, but also a broader category: the unfamiliar, the novel. Where she arrives, with the assistance of these grumpy critics, is at the conclusion that travel is “dehumanizing…[it] prevents us from feeling the presence of those we have traveled such great distances to be near.”
This is precisely why, regardless of how long I plan to stay in a place, I attempt to “live” there, rather than blow through like a double-decker bus on legs. That is a deliberate choice I make, which begs the question: Why make an indictment of travel, when your issue is really with how it’s executed?
Perhaps the answer lies in her larger claim that “the single most important fact about tourism is this: we already know what we will be like when we return.” I suppose if one executes the journey as a “tourist,” this might seem like an inevitable fate. But if one sets out as a curious-minded explorer, this claim could not be more wrong.
The thrill, the magic of travel, is its uncertainty. We simply don’t know what we’ll find once we arrive, nor do we know who we’ll become as a result.
We all have our own paths to self-discovery, but few offer the accelerated epiphanies and layered richness of staring down a foreign grocery aisle like an extraterrestrial attempting to feed itself for the first time on Earth. (Thank god for the camera feature of the Google Translate app, or I would likely still be sitting in the corner of REWE supermarket analyzing German granola ingredients.)
What Callard and these other writers fail to recognize is what historian Theodore Zeldin so poetically captures when he argues that “travelers are becoming the largest nation in the world.” An Australian friend gifted me Zeldin’s book, An Intimate History of Humanity, in college, while I was living in Ireland. So many sections stood out to me at the time, but this one line continues to frame my worldview and social structure.
My “favorite places” are always determined by my favorite people, and my favorite people are easy to characterize:
Their country of origin could be anywhere, because my affinity for them is less contingent upon where they were born and more closely linked to where they’ve elected to go. People who have stepped beyond the confines of wherever they landed by circumstance of birth, who have deliberately chosen more / different, are my people. They are my kind of travelers; they are my nation.
They embrace the unknown, staying open to whatever might greet them and to whomever they might evolve into as a result. Immigrants seeking a better life, entrepreneurs betting on themselves, students in search of mind expansion, a partner leaving home to form a new one with their love. Seekers, risk-takers, one and all.
Travel is a fight against stagnancy. It forces us to examine and question our own paradigms. There’s so much about our culture in general and our identities in particular that we take for granted until an opposing norm or confronting value is presented to us — at which point we can either reject and impose our will or soften ourselves to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there’s more than one way of living and thinking.
When I first set out on my latest extended travel adventure in 2021, a friend (an expat, no less) asked me if I was “running from something.” “No,” I corrected him. “I’m running toward something.”
Where and when does the movement stop? How do we know when to stop traveling and remain still?
I reject the label “digital nomad” (and feel confident saying Callard would not be a fan of that demographic). Instead, I approach my travels as “wandering with purpose.” My travel has always been more about a search for self and a quest for home than any sort of world-conquering, IG-flexing, pursuit of novelty and adventure. I trust my instincts, moving and staying put as it feels right.
For me, a life of travel isn’t about endlessly chasing an endorphin rush. My favorite moments abroad are often the quietest. I love getting lost in local markets, talking to the vendors. I delight in foreign signage and translations. (Did you know that in Indonesia there’s a real place called “Panties Pizza”: “I love panties, like I love u”?) I’m far more interested in whatever current cultural exhibit or live performance is happening than in visiting every hotspot on the tourist checklist.
In other words, I allow myself to be more than I do in these spaces, even while on the move.
There are endless blogs and clickbait articles promising to teach you travel hacks to make you a savvier, more efficient, more “successful” traveler. But there are few pieces that give away the biggest secret of all: The best way to have the most rewarding travel experience is by living your way into it. Some might call it “slow travel,” which prioritizes going deeper and shifting priorities. But I think it’s even simpler than that. We often grow the most when we operate without a guide or itinerary. It’s a type of Free Range Travel, and it’s an ethos that can inform your approach to living before you ever cross a physical border.
Observe + Take Action
I want to plant the seeds of a few travel-related threads here and pick up on the ones that spark your interest the most next week:
Travel Is a Privilege: I didn’t have the means to travel far and wide as a kid, and this idea that everyone can travel as much as they want, whenever they want, is one of the annoying misconceptions about Americans that I find myself confronting regularly while traveling and living abroad. The suggestion that we’re “not interested” in travel and that a lack of curiosity about the world is why half of Americans don’t have a passport gets me all fired up. In reality, 15 percent of Americans live below the poverty threshold — that’s 50 million people; 42 million Amercans have student loan debt; 28 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings; half of all Americans find it difficult to pay for healthcare. When you look at the data — and not just the reality shows and viral social media posts that circulate globally, casting an unrealistic image of American life — our relationship to travel makes a little more sense. (Not to mention the fact that our country is really, really big.)
The Cyber Tourism Trap: As we discussed in our month on the Sociology of… the Body, it often feels like we’re living in a post-body world, focused instead on virtual connections, expressions, and explorations. So what are the implications of that shift on travel? Technology platforms and media blur our social position and physical location, connecting us with people and places geographically and culturally far removed from our immediate reality, and thus, as media theorist Joshua Meyrowitz argues in No Sense of Place, “breaks down the distinction between here and there, live and mediated, and personal and public.” It shrinks the world, but it can also create culture clashes that might be avoided with fewer digital and more human-to-human interactions.
The Art of Being a “Good” Tourist: Post-pandemic “revenge travel” (as it’s cleverly been called) has sparked a lot of tourism backlash, with nations revolting against “bad tourists” and much of Europe expressing “tourism rage.” (Quick aside: My all-time favorite tourism backlash came out of the Netherlands last year, when — fed up with all the drunken British tourists and stag parties — the Dutch created an entire “Stay Away” campaign targeted at repelling young British guys, complete with what the BBC called “typically blunt” TV ads. Though, months later, the city declared their efforts a failure. When a Dutch reporter asked an English guy in Amsterdam what they could do to deter them, he brilliantly responded, “Just put all the signs in Dutch.” Right. That’ll work. Ah, I cannot get enough of this story.)
So how to avoid provoking the ire of your hosts and fellow travelers? Conan O’Brien, in his now-viral appearance on Hot Ones, said of his new Max travel show, Conan O’Brien Must Go: “I love travel. And my mission is for you to learn nothing about the country. My job is that you know less about the country when I’m done, than when I started… You’re dumber after you see the show.” I can feel Callard sharpening her pen as we speak…. But Conan playfully reminds us that one of the best ways of avoiding the “bad tourist” label is to retain a sense of humor while traveling. Things can and will go wrong. People the world over will find ways to be annoying. There will be mistakes, misunderstandings, administrative b.s., and a long list of other unsavory stuff that likely isn’t making it onto your Instagram feed. Embrace it with humor or Stay Away. Those are your choices.
I have so, so much more to say on this topic, but because I have endless material, I need you to tell me what you want to hear. Submit your Sociology of… Travel questions (or leave them in the comments) in the next few days, and I’ll answer them in an extended audio advice column next week. Please don’t hold back! (Remember: the only stupid question is the unasked question.)
Our perspectives are very different on travel, but I can appreciate what you’re saying and try to implement your ideas on what a quest could be mentally, not just physically.
Also, I bet Bourdain would echo your ideas.
SOCIOLOGY FELICES