What is your purpose for travelling? Seriously, post a comment with your reasons for travelling. I believe that for many travellers, one of the main reasons you travel is related to understanding another culture (or should be :) ). This post is to walk through the types of travelling and the various contributions of understanding.
There are roughly about five broad catagories of travelling - Whirlwind, Binge, Longterm, Vagabonding, and Living.
These are my own terms of the varying types of travellers I have encountered and they may not be the most clever or exciting names. OK, so what do they mean?
Whirlwind - it's basically just passing through. For example, in Belem, I was a whirlwind traveller. I came in, had a few hours, hit some of the highlights, and bounced out. It could even count as you on a bus or train and only getting to look at the passing scenery of a place.
Binge - this is the most common form of travel for Americans from the States. Fly in, only have about 1 or 2 weeks, stay in a hotel or at an all inclusive resort, complete a set of predetermined objectives at any cost, like a bunch of touristy things (which are usually booked in advance for more money) or purchasing stuff to take home. Often times it is characterised by constant movent. Movement being defined not only as transport, but also as paid activities and the like. For example, renting a canoe or going to dinner or going to a museum, etc.
Longterm - this has elements of Binge and Vagabonding. Generally, it is characterised by much less movement and money spent. More time is spent in certain places which tend to be smaller cities, and less in others. Less is planned ahead and almost no tourist activities are booked ahead of time. The tourist activities that one does are much less frequent than Binge. Longterm travellers tend to stay at hostels. This is partly because it is much cheaper, but also because less is planned and you meet people (a must for Longtermers). These trips tend to be in the arena of at minimum 1 month, most are much longer to allow for more places to go.
Vagabonding - is characterised by long trips often with no known return date, only a slight idea of where to go (allowing for travel on a whim), and little movement to conserve precious funds. If they like a place, very long periods (weeks or more) are spent there.
Living - this one is pretty obvious. Live in a city for awhile. Generally, they get apartments and work. Some, like the dude in in Bogota, Marco, rent a room in a hostel and work. It can be a month or two, but for the most part it is 6 months minimum.
I ordered the above itentionally least to greatest by how much you can learn about a culture; an integral part of travelling. They are also in order from most expensive to cheapest daily budget (notice that they also correspond to fastest/most movement to slowest/least movement).
Whirlwind allows you to see the area. Being able to see it for yourself is an important first step in understanding. Geography, architecture, rich/poor integration, cities/villages, etc. - these are all visual clues to a culture and the more travel you do the better you`ll get at peicing these clues together. Unfortunately, the faster you move, the less you can visually absorb.
Binge travel as mentioned is the most common form of travel, esp. for Americans. There are cultural impediments to longer term travelling. First off, for whatever reason, there is a long standing "work 40 hours (or more) a week you`re whole life, then when you turn 65 you can retire and enjoy yourself", paradigm. I´m not going to use this post to debate the merits of that statement. However, contained within the American culture is only 2-3 weeks of vacation for the common person and it isn`t their fault. Most American`s would love more time off, but it just isn`t currently possible unless you are willing to not give in to the current system, which is an infinitely terrifying and difficult thing to do. That being said, it is one of the worst ways to gain an understanding. It is only slightly better than just passing through a place and can even give you false impressions of a culture.
The problem is, is that binge travel is 99% movement and accomplishing predetermined goals. I know, I used to be part of it and now hate it. You go, you know what you want to do and most of the time book it prior to leaving. Rarely are you sitting still and you are paying large amounts of money to make sure that everything happens the way you want it. You miss out on the real experience because that isn`t how things really operate outside the US, so all those crazy things that usually happen to people travelling don`t really happen to you. Nor do the down times, so usually you need a few days at home to "vacation from your vacation".
The slight leg up that binge travelling has on whirlwind is that you´ll talk with people (locals and maybe other travellers). Of course, this is avoidable if you choose "all inclusives". The places that most people would like to travel outside their own country are places that generally speak a different language and operate on a different time schedule (think slower with a maybe it´ll get done attitude). What this means is that when you travel to such places you must have a flexible schedule. If you come with predetermined goals and a rigid schedule, you will pay out the ass to avoid all these inefficiencies that are inherent in the culture. With so little time and so many predetermined movement, you´ll take planes and taxis over buses or walking, or you´ll do more guided tours in English. Because of all this, you´ll be missing opportunities to interact with locals.
What all this boils down to, is that you learn little more than just bussing through a place. Sure you get to talk to a few people who are sorta locals, but when you take into account that they it`s their job, they are more acting then giving you what a local would. In any case, I am obviously advocating for changing your travel techiniques. I know it´s insensitive to say, but you can´t speak intelligently about the culture if you used this type of travel.
In addition to not learning much about a culture, Binge travelling can have detrimental affects on a place. Depending on the area (smaller places are more apt to apply), Binge travelling creates large populations of tourists during certain times of the year (tourist season). In some places an industry starts to form around this seasonal influx of money. We see touristy things spring up, like hotels, cheesy gifts, tours of all types, street performers, on and on. It´s understandable that they spring up, but ironically, these things make a place "touristy" (I heard a description using disneylandish which is appropriate), which turns most travellers off. If it gets too touristy, it starts to drive people away from coming. Sure, some places are so amazing that people will put up with the stupid tourity shit, but the draw to many places is that they aren´t touristy. If you combine this with the fact that you are also making places (again mainly referring to smaller places) dependent on the tourist season and you have a recipe for destroying a place. To accomodate the tourist season, there is an influx of people or people move from the work they were doing to this industry. Eventually, there is a negative tipping point and the tourist stop coming pretty much all at once. This can also be caused by economic downturns from the Binge traveller´s home countries, or an increase in crime (due to increased opportunity), or a number of reasons. The point being that it leaves a vacuum and this vacuum creates an immediate large amount unemployment, increases in violent crime, and other catastrophic ailments that the community was unprepared to absorb. In some places, small fluctuations can have dramatic affects. It may take many years for a community to recover to it´s pre-tourist point.
Longterm travel (what I am doing) has elements of binge and whirlwind, sure, but it also is somewhat vagabonding. It is travelling on a small daily budget (mine is around $60 a day). However, one doesn´t have to budget time as much. There is less movement, but more flexability for "inefficiencies". Longtermers do occasionally splurge for a tour or plane ticket, but it is much less common. And yes, they do occasionally practice Whirlwind travel, but it is quite infrequent or unintentional.
Without a doubt, you end up meeting real locals and not only the ones you are paying. Regardless if they invite you into their homes, you get the experience of talking with a local who can give you insights beyond without the care of offending your dollars away. Of course, it will always help to know the language in any of these layers, but, with the relaxed time frames and to dos that come with longterm travel, the experiences are more widely available and rewarding. Talking with a native who isn`t on your payroll, is definitely the next step in understanding a culture. Also, you aren´t constantly distracted with movement, so you absorb more of the nuances.
Longterm travel creates a decent foundation of understanding of a place or culture. You can contribute intelligently to dialogue about that culture, but it does fall short with many underlying/hidden currents/idiosyncrosies.
Vagabonding, which is not for the faint of heart, invovles much slower movement. It is virtually impossible for you not to absorb many deep insights. Why? It gives more insight because you are likely to not only see the area and speak to locals (esp. deeper conversations), but you are likely to also work in the area. This gives you insight that the other methods of travelling can`t. Amount of money that is common, types of people who can spend the money, people that you work with that will inevitably share with you, working conditions, political stuff around economics, etc. etc. Other than work, because you are moving more slowly and more likely to speak the language with some proficiency, you will make local friends. How often with your friends from home do you get involved in political conversations or theology or whatever? Pretty often, even if you try to avoid it. Not only do all these facts come into play, but so does time. You witness changes around you. Seasonal, depending on how long you stay at a place, but also emotional. Maybe you witness the soccer season and post soccer season. Or other things like the witner into spring and how that affects people. Point being is that you get more than a snapshot and in my opinion, the actual goal of vagabonding is to gain real insights into a culture.
Living is probably the most obvious one of all. If you live in a place, esp. during an "average year", you not only will likely work, make local friends, and all of the other above, but now you get to see the waxing and waning of all during an entire year. Think about how you change during a year at your home. Some times are better than others and imagine how your reaction could be during the different times if you only were given a week during some random point during the year versus another. Also, there are all the festivals or holidays that you´d miss if you were just passing through. The amount that you can learn during the course of a year via the seasons and how people vary during the course of them is quite amazing.
Putting it all together:
There isn´t neccesarily a wrong way to travel (if you try really hard, you can responsibly Binge travel) and each way above will include certain degrees of understanding. However, since responsible travel involves absorbing as much of the culture as possible and leaving as little trace as possible, then I hope this will aid you in your decision for which level of travel is right for you.
When determining which level is right for you, you´ll probably ask, "how do I know which culture I want to learn about and how deep do I want to learn it?" The answer is sometimes decided beforehand (I am really intrigued by New Zealand or I am intrigued by the monks and temples in SE Asia or is colombia really as dangerous as people say), but after that the answer is obviously travelling (being there). The very beginners versions (Whirlwind and Binge) can serve some purpose in that it might spark some interest. However, because of the nature of Binge travelling, it can take one time or a lifetime to find a place that you are interested in really absorbing. OR, every place you visit can interest you because you learn so little about each that each place you visit seems facinating. If every place you go seems facinating you really need to reevaluate what you are doing. It means that you didn´t get enough time because at fast speeds it all seems facinating. I´d bet that if you spent enough time (a week or two) at each place about 1/2 would cease to be that interesting that previously were facinating. Longterm travel can give you a greater insight into the places that would really be of interest to you and the best part of all, it can come from places you least expected before leaving home. Once you found the places that truely facinate you (it´s probably fewer than you think; I haven´t found one yet that I actually live at) you can explore them via vagabonding or living in a place.
D
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