Who do you really travel for?

Who are you really travelling for? This has been a subject that has been bothering me for some time now. Who do you travel for? Most people would say for themselves, but I doubt this is always the case. In fact, increasingly I am convinced that fewer and fewer people do so. I have before now wrote about people who 'travel with their eyes closed.' They fail to learn anything from their travels, but assume with some obnoxious ignorance that they are better than others because they are well traveled. It's tedious.

    The trip I am on at the moment has really opened my eyes. As usual, I am spending most of my nights in hostels, unless there aren't any well rated ones in the area. I spent a few days in a lovely hostel in Montreal, but it wasn't a nice stay. Staying in hostels will always be a gamble, but it seems this time I put all my money on red for it to come up black. The people in the dorm were awful. They spent a week in Montreal, but barely saw anything outside the hostel. They spent everyday on their laptops in the dorm, presumably updating their statuses with 'in Montreal #lovinglife.' However, inside the dorm they are expressionless and silent. They don't even speak to one another for most of the day and I never saw them leaving to see more of the city. Then it gets to about seven or eight when they pre drink in the dorm before they head downstairs to the hostel bar. 

    More shockingly were the attitudes I found when visitng a concentration camp last year,  I will not name it in case it upsets people.  For me, the idea of going to a concentration camp was simple.  They had been kept as not only reminders of the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and many other people who were killed under the Nazis, but also as a sort of memorial.  What do you do when you do to a memorial?  You reflect, you learn and you think.  There were a lot of things that touched me, such as the fact many people left stones on a sculpture in the centre of the camp, which is a Jewish tradition.  The way in which you learnt about the different groups who had been killed here, such as large groups of students.  However, it really shocked me the way in which people just did not take what had happened there seriously.  As I entered the gates to the concentration camp, the first things I saw were some people posing as if they were being shot in the back by one of their friends.  For a photo, of course.  As I made my way round there were people singing in the rooms in which men, women and children had horrible experiments forced on them.  Then there were the people who posed for selfies next to gallows and in the gas chambers.  In a culture that rewards rudeness increasingly more than actual wit, it is needless to say that these photos will have been taken for people who are hungry for likes.  A place that is about rememberence and reflection, becomes merely a place to take photos.   

     The same problem appears when you visit the 9/11 memorial as I did the other day.  People were posing for photos next to the memorial for those who died.  It is a bit weird, but also very distasteful.  I know it may come across as ironic, as I write this as a blogger, social media and taking pictures is a large part of traveling for me.  Do not mistake these observations about the way in which some people behave as me saying it is bad to take photos, selfies or not feeling completely overwhelmed by sadness at memorials.  I love seeing other photos from travels as they often inspire my own trips.  But as a generation, we must not forget that traveling is not just about photos or making sure you portray yourself as 'funny' or give off that 'my life is better than your life,' vibe on Facebook.  Traveling is about enjoying yourself, but also to understand the world a bit better and your own place in it.  Sometimes you learn about the world by exploring a pretty town or conquering a mountain, but sometimes it may be at memorials.  You need to know how to appreciate a view without lookingh at it through a lens, but also how to learn a little about horrific history of our world.  

     A final note.  I know often I have worried about taking photos too much, what my Facebook status should say or how I look in photos.  So much so it has often meant I have thought more about my self-image than what I am currently doing.  Sometimes I often just have to put the camera down, stay away from Facebook and take in what I am doing, which can still be quite a struggle

There are actually a lot of things I dislike about traveling.  Like the majority of people who would rather lie and say they had an enjoyable time on holiday when it was hellish, I do not like talking about these problems.  It's hard to actually come to terms that you have spent time and money on a trip that you may not have enjoyed.  To be quite frank, I have never had an awful holiday, but I have had average ones.  The things I dislike about traveling usually appear for an afternoon or so and then disappear.  Fortuneately, I have never been mugged on holiday, nor been beaten up- but there have been close calls along with other problems.  On the whole, I have always enjoyed visiting new places, but there are always hiccups if you travel frequently. So these are things I hate about traveling.

Sex Tourism

    A few months ago I was in Bangkok visiting my dad who was working out there.  It was my first time in Thailand and I was very excited.  My hostel (my dad stayed in a seperate hotel across town) was next to Pat Pong night market.  I love night markets, so I was really excited about meeting up with my dad and going to explore.  The market was in itself quite good, but I was deplored that so many people came up to us offering 'Ping Pong Show.'  They even had cards to list objects that would come out of the lady's flower/fanny/funbox.  No one could mistake my dad for my boyfriend, he is almost forty years older than me, but still we were inundated with offers of ping pong shows, live sex shows and brothel visits.  

    People will always argue that women have the choice to work in the sex industry for a living and it is usually regulated in Thailand.  This does not stop the fact that there is a massive problem in Thailand because so many people are trafficked into the sex industry or coerced, including children.  The sex industry in Thailand has been growing since the Vietnam war and because of the increasing number of tourists wanting to use people as disposable sex objects, the more women and children become forced into it.  Who wins? The people wanting sex, gangs. thugs and abusers. Thailand is listed by the UNODC as both a top destination for victims of human trafficking and a major source of trafficked persons.

   I was also shocked when I visited Amsterdam for the first time.  I was only eighteen and niave about the conditions of these women.  My friends and I walked around the Red Light District looking at these women as if they were something you could buy from a shop.  It made me cringe seeing men all over them.  Yet, despite all the regulation in Amsterdam, trafficking is still a massive problem.  According to figures obtained from the National Centre against Human Trafficking, there were 1711 registered presumed victims of human trafficking in 2012, of whom 1177 were women forced to work in the sex industry.  If you do not know whether I woman is sleeping with you because she likes the job or has been forcced by beatings, abuse and captivity, do not pay for sex.

Horror Stories

    It is quite easy to get too relaxed when you are traveling.  There have been hostels I have gone to where immediately I want to run out and find somewhere else to stay, but carry on staying.  Most horror stories I have heard have been awful.  I met a woman , Julia, who had befriended someone in her hostel.  For those who stay in hostels frequently can probably understand how this could all happen.  She met another traveler who by all means, seemed very nice.  They spent the next few days together exploring Berlin like they were best friends.  Then Julia popped to the shop around the corner one day and asked the girl who she had been spending so much time with to watch her stuff.  Within the 15 minutes that she was gone her new friend disappeared along with her laptop, camera, cash, cards, passport, ipad and phone.  The girl had given a fake name to the hostel and they never tracked her down.  Julia, understandably was upset that all her stuff was gone and she had to go back home after the first city she had visited on what was supposed to be a year long trip, but also because this girl had spent several days with her pretending to be her friend when all she wanted to do was steal her stuff.  Another guy I met more recently had his drink spiked on a night out.  He woke up and realised his cards had gone, along with £2,000 he had saved for the trip.  This obviously serves as a reminder to always watch your drink.

Ignorance

    Ignorance comes in many different forms when you are traveling.  Some people think they are better than other people just because they have traveled a little bit.  It is true that traveling can make you a more rounded person, but if you go traveling with your eyes closed you are not going to learn a thing, even if your gap yah was amazing.  As much as I like a drink or two, going to every bar crawl in Europe is not that impressive.  By all means, do what makes you happy when you are traveling, but do not assume that you are a better person because of it.  And if you complain about how many Muslims there are in a Muslim country, as someone I met did, traveling obviously has not made you any smarter.

     On the over side of the spectrum, are the people who complain about poor people.  When I was traveling around Africa a few years ago there was a woman on my trip, about twenty years old or so.  Let's call her Marge.  After about two days, Marge kept on complaining about how these Africans just saw 'us Western folk as money.'  This is a problem caused by the West anyway.  We colonized Africa and created so many problems for it.  Marge did not understand this, nor did she understand that haggling is a fact of life in many countries.  Just because the English do not haggle, does not mean we were better, less money-orientated or civilized.  Marge hated that poor people had to beg, but did not understand that there was no safety net for many of these poor people.  All in all, I was pretty happy when Marge left the trip.  

Too Much Information

    One of the things I most enjoy about traveling is going to a place that no one I know has ever been before.  It makes me feel like a true explorer and I love doing all the research for it - guides, maps and looking through the internet blogs.  It will not come as much surprise when I hate the complete oppisite.  I appreciate advice, but when someone says I need to x,y and z in a country when I really want to go to places a, b and c it is mildly annoying.  What really gets me is when people quite rudely say 'why on earth do you want to go there?' As I said, I like a bit of advice and I like when people ask me for advice.  I just find it rude when people say I should not go to New York, because they have not enjoyed it or tell me that Italy is 'too mainstream.'  I can decide these things for myself, thank you very much.  If you stayed at a bad hostel or went to a bad restauraunt, these are the things I would like to be warned about.

People In Relationships

    Do not get me wrong, I do not mind people in relationships as long as they know how to be without their partner.  Several times now I have traveled in people in relationships and it was fine.  However, I will always remember the people who I traveled with in relationships that were nightmares.  The first person, who can be called Simon, was just starting a new relationship.  Exciting?  For him, not for me.  We traveled around Bavaria and to Salzburg for a few days.  It was my first trip away with friends and I was very excited.  The other person who was in a relationship in our group was fine.  Sometimes she brought up her boyfriend, but she did not go on about him and just enjoyed herself and being away like she should.  Simon on the other hand spent the whole time telling us how much he missed his other half.  I had organised the trip by myself pretty much, so when Simon told me he would have preferred to be at home with his boyfriend (who he had been away from for about three days) I snapped and told him that it was quite rude.  He spent the rest of the trip in a sulk, refused to walk around Salzburg because he did not have any cigarettes and would not chat to new people in our hostel or go out to bars.  

    Another friend, Sarah, once spent the whole holiday in the Med reading the texts her boyfriend sent to her.  If you tell me you love your boyfriend once I will believe you.  You do not have to tell me 53412543 times.  You are my friend and I will always think you are beautiful, you do not have to read the texts from your boyfriend telling you that he thinks you are beautiful as well.  I am happy when you are happy, but sometimes I do not care about the text from your boyfriend.  One of the latest trips I had with someone in a relationship was around Asia.  This person would immediately ask for the Wifi password every time we enter a new hostel/bar/cafe and we would spend whole meals in silence whilst she Whatsapped her boyfriend.  It was boring.  

Airports

     Finally, airports is my last pet-peeve.  People who say they like airports are lying.  If you feel excited when you are at an airport do not mistake this for being excited because you are at an airport, you are excited about your trip.  Who really likes overpriced coffees, waiting rooms and security? No one. Trains are exciting, the view from a plane before it goes into the clouds are exciting, but airports are not.