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.
No comments:
Post a Comment