Travel Time or Time Travel

Quantum Physics meets Instagram

Could it be, that travel is overrated? The revered sages of recent memory, have told us that Travel is the panacea for the ills of mankind. Recreational wandering is supposed to be the cure for everything from prejudice to premature aging while teaching tolerance and avoiding the tragedy of only reading one page in the encyclopedia of the world. From Mark Twain to St Augustine, from Disraeli to Proust, the travel agents of literature have written a persuasive brochure to entice us away from the comforts of not just home, but the boundaries of our daily habits.

But St. Augustine died 1,594 years ago and never had to confine himself in a middle aisle seat on a budget airline between a Sumo wrestler and an airsick Karen insisting on conveying her pet raccoon in an animal carrier as her carry-on. Even Marcel Proust died 100 years ago when an “airship” was a zeppelin, and a horse-drawn carriage likely delivered you to your new-fangled steamship. 

The Old Greek saying You can’t step in the same river twice; it’s not the same river, you are not the same person needs to be updated. It’s not the same world, the pool of humanity has swelled to 8 Billion of us and it seems the lifeguards have left the building.

Yes, but travel is now more convenient, affordable, and all so fashionable. Sometimes it seems the images portrayed in the media are almost equally divided, showing us Instagrams of the young and beautiful (or maybe not) in front of every iconic landmark from the Louvre to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, from the Great Wall of China to the Grand Canyon. Those are contrasted with displaced Palestinians, Ukrainians, Syrians and Sudanese fleeing war and migrants adrift between Africa and Europe, or marching millions of migrants fleeing South and Central America.

The world is on fire, while frequent flyers are fiddling with offsetting carbon credits and watching a large hunk of humanity fleeing for their lives on tiny telescreens. For those not airborne, packing light means just the clothes on their backs.

My point isn’t to depress you, but simply to ask why and what is the cost. Industrial strength tourism is the Genie grown too big to fit back in the bottle. Depressed localities have sold their souls to the gods of Airbnb, local lodging taxes, and Pedestrian zones. And The Last Great Place just put up a no-vacancy sign

This is the New World, the world of science and technology. We don’t have to go to the Taj Mahal to see what it looks like or the Louvre to see the Art of the Masters, old and new. It’s all on YouTube.

Yes, I know it’s not the same, but in some ways it’s better. And if it’s not, it soon will be. Take Augmented Virtual Reality, rapidly transporting people into the realms of faraway experiences that fool our senses. And Artificial Intelligence is creating art, literature, music, and mayhem in cultures woefully unprepared. Doubt me? We are changing our DNA, making test-tube babies is almost passé, and men may soon be reproductively obsolete. And INCEL is a real thing! WTF!

Yeah, I know. I forgot to take my Hubris pill again. Not my fault, Dunning and Kruger were my seatmates on my last flight. But seriously, does all this make sense, Cost-wise, culture-wise? 

My last two international trips were to Paris and Barcelona, in Winter! And they were still packed with tourists everywhere. Everybody has their own sense of what crowded is, but I grew up in New Jersey, halfway between Philadelphia and NYC. 

There is no off-season now in Venice, just choose a) flooded with water or b) flooded by cruise boat tourists. They charge an admission fee now, just like Disneyland. Sustainable Tourism is becoming an oxymoron. Think I’m overstating my case? Ask yourself, what do these places all have in common: Paris, France/ Ibiza, Spain/Phuket, Thailand/Bali, Indonesia/Machu Picchu, Peru/Amsterdam, Netherlands/Dubrovnik, Croatia/Barcelona, Spain/Santorini, Greece/ and Venice, Italy? 

Answer: the effects of over-tourism including overcrowding, the strain on infrastructure, environmental degradation (such as erosion of historic buildings and pollution), housing shortages, gentrification, cultural commodification, the strain on public transportation and services, social issues such as exploitation of workers and sex tourism, tensions between tourists and locals in residential neighborhoods, and rising property prices. 

I’ve been as guilty as anybody and maybe I’m still cranky because I didn’t see the fine print on my last Barcelona trip that said Congratulations! You now have COVID again.

I think Emerson summed it up pretty well. “Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” And, my favorite from Thoreau: The cost of any one thing, is the amount of life you have to give for it. Happy Trails.