I’ve been thinking about tourism.
While traveling around Europe and the UK, I frequently have people remark to me that I don’t seem American.
Trying to be cute while being completely confused about how others see me.
I somehow look like I live wherever I happen to be.
Note: Since I’ve never been anywhere outside North America and Europe, the sample size of test locations isn’t huge.
I haven’t had much opportunity to travel in my life. Until this trip, I had only been to the US and the UK. And I had lived in both. I also have never really fit in anywhere. Which is part of the reason I’m surprised when people think I’m from Europe. Especially if those people happen to be European.
I know that Europeans aren’t a monolith. But I’ve had people from several countries tell me they think I seem like I’m from several European countries.
The other strange phenomenon I experience when traveling is that people walk up to me to ask for directions. Like a lot. I don’t even think I’m that great with directions, but I seem to have perfected my ‘I know where I’m going’ face well enough that I’ve been approached within minutes of arriving in a place I’ve never been by someone who is lost over a dozen times at this point.
Anyway, back to tourism. I rarely get treated as if I’m a tourist. This is mostly positive for me. The only real negative is people speaking to me in languages that I don’t understand (or don’t understand well). And that’s only a bit embarrassing.
I also rarely feel like a tourist.
I approach travel as a way to experience life differently than my everyday. I like to explore a new destination, but mostly live as a local. I’m always on the lookout for a place that feels like I could live there. (I feel I should mention again that I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere.) This is why housesitting/petsitting has been great for me. I can live in a home in a neighborhood instead of a hotel in a business district.
So I enjoy slow or long-term travel as a way to sort of test out living in a place while also expanding my worldview and experiencing new things. I do also take myself on what I call “tiny adventures” sometimes. So I make a day or half day of visiting something a bit outside the daily routine things and sometimes more touristy.
While I was staying in The Hague, I took an adventure day to Amsterdam. I knew it would be busy and full of tourists so I left my bike at Den Haag Centraal (the train station). I intended on eating lunch, visiting a museum or 2 and having dinner before taking the ~1 hour journey back home.
I started with a lovely pancake near the train station in Amsterdam (with a 20-ish minute wait — Cheers to being solo! Everyone else waited a lot longer.) Then, as I ventured farther into the city I began to have to dodge tourists who were either careless or clueless about how to move about a European city. Several times someone would stop in traffic or walk into traffic and I'd roll my eyes and think, “Ugh. Tourists!” I’d immediately feel weird about that thought because I’m a tourist too. But then I’d stop in a shop and speak to the locals greeting them in Dutch (that’s basically all my Dutch, though) and be met with friendliness that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t like all the other tourists.
Delicious gluten-free pancake with lemon and sugar!
It feels weird to want to take responsibility for being a good tourist while simultaneously distancing yourself from other tourists. Tourism isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Bad tourist behavior is bad. Acting like your tourism is the only thing that matters to a local community is bad (and untrue). Treating people who work in the service industry poorly is bad. Traveling to places where the locals are asking you not to travel is bad.
We need to think about how to be good tourists. We need to consider ourselves as part of the world community. We need to listen. We need to be respectful and kind. And we also need to acknowledge that travel is a privilege. Even if we saved money for years and sacrificed to be able to take our trip of a lifetime, that is a privilege.
Trying to soak in the summer in a park in Amsterdam by taking selfies.
So I enjoy my pancakes and fries and readily available public transit while remembering how big of a deal it is that I can.
I can almost smell them again.
Follow along if you like and remember — Even tiny adventures matter.