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Article How to be a better tourist

An interesting article and seeing what they call the “selfie culture” and “bucket list culture” rings true to what I've seen of some tourists in popular destinations like Florence and Venice. I wonder how many of these people return to really discover areas. I've at times tried to engage with people to think about returning again to see more. I think of my first European trip a couple of years out of college - 3 weeks in a small rental car with 2 friends. We started and ended in Frankfurt and visited the romantic road in Germany, Munich, castles of southern Bavaria, Innsbruck, across Switzerland and through a bit of Italy to Nice, Dijon, Paris, Amsterdam, and Billund, Denmark (because one of the group who worked for Hasbro had to see Legoland). We had only a map of Europe for navigation (way before GPS). Definitely not slow. It did instill in me the desire to go back and really see more. I do wonder though if at the time, at 24, if I was one of those "bad" tourists. I did have my 35 mm camera, 3 lenses and separate flash that I lugged everywhere for photos - not quite like today's selfie sticks.
 
That's an interesting article. Selfie culture is really annoying for me. People drool over the sceneries to take selfies and ultimately forget enjoying and exploring!
 
Not wishing to be overly critical, but would it surprise anybody to find that members of a Slow Travel board criticising "Selfie Culture"?

It's nothing new, just that the context has changed. Long before social media and the internet, friends of mine visiting London from South Africa only wanted to get the iconic photographs. In front of a double decker bus, next to a red post box, in Trafalgar Square, outside of Buckingham palace, St Paul's and the Tower of London.

They had no interest in actually visiting any of the sights - just wanted the pictures to prove they'd been there.
 
I think there is an additional way in which "bucket list" culture has changed :

When I was a kid, in the 60's, travel was a big thing - big expenditure, big effort in planning, info was gathered from travel brochures spread over the table, long-distance phone calls had to be made to check things (or you had to be sure you had a reliable travel agent), and there was all the trouble of foreign currency and travelers' cheques. You didn't know when or if there would be a next time, because it was all pretty hard to get organized and funded.

So when you (your parents) finally did the trip, it was an achievement, something you could be proud of, and could consider yourself lucky to have accomplished. Of course you'd take photos of the major monuments, with yourself beside them, etc., because it was a personal dream come true.

Today's over-running of popular tourist locations is just, imo, the evident outcome of travel becoming easier, population growing, and popular destinations staying the same size.

I think that one of the main things that make the smartphone so popular is that it is just the modern-day version of worry beads : a tactile way of being detached from yourself, much better than staring aimlessly out the window of the bus or train, sinking into a difficult chain of thoughts. And if it's smart enough to keep you connected to other people, then the next logical stage is to project yourself outwards, instead of sinking inwards. Yes, in some cases even incessantly - and what better projection than a selfie?

The future of human existence on the planet has never before been so obscure, so let's be more tolerant to one other, even to the obsessed selfie-takers - there are still enough places that we can go where they won't...
 
Well said, Joe.
I kind of miss the old days when it was a little harder to plan things, and you sometimes even had to mail requests for information, or to book accommodations. It was delaying gratification, but in a good way, and without the sense of urgency and fear of missing out if we don't "Book now! Only 1 room left!"
Now when we plan our trips, if I send an email inquiry and don't hear back within a day, I get antsy :~). Or assume the tour guide/B&B/hotel is not interested in us or just not very well organized.

Here's to tolerance and patience, and kindness!
 
Last week at Nice's colorfful Cour Saleya market, my husband and I were doing food shopping. He was handing me a bag of vegetables to put in my big basket. A woman behind us stepped up and stuck her camera between my husband's hand and mine, stopping our interaction as she photographed our zucchini flowers.
People ! The world is not your photo studio backdrop. Get it into your head that its inhabitants have a life.
 
Unfortunately, selfie culture teaches us a disturbing lesson, one that we already know, but tend to forget : man's narcissism and selfishness are quite pathetic. At a time in history when we should be imposing restrictions on consumerism and environmental pollution, not enough is being done.
Selfie sticks should be banned in many public places, just like smoking, just like there have been restrictions on the use of plastic bags and plastic bottles in many places, and likewise restrictions on numbers of visitors or noise levels. People have to get used to new limitations on their behavior, for a greater good (as menacing as this might sound...).

Let's see which establishment or city will be the first to forbid the use of selfie sticks, on the grounds that it is a public annoyance. That would be indeed worthy of applause, imo, and might start signalling to the obsessed that taking selfies in crowded places is something to be embarrassed about.
In the meantime, I think that instead of getting ourselves angry at others about the phenomena, we keep our calm, move aside, and think how we can change things.
 
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Selfie stick is banned in Versailles, in the Pompidou Center and the Sacré Coeur, and also in the Albertina in Vienna.
 
I'm beginning to wonder if "actually staying at home" is exactly what we shall have to do. Maybe the lengthening list of things that are risking catastrophic environmental and ecological changes need to be rationed through some sort of supplementary currency of permits. Everyone would get the same annnual allocation (based on an estimate of what sustainability can allow}, and we'd have to decide whether to have the trip of a lifetime and use up so many years' allowance, or run a car and eat red meat and just take day trips, or whatever. And if they were tradeable, then the better off who would want to buy them would, in effect, be volunteering to tax themselves for the privilege.
 
Selfie stick is banned in Versailles, in the Pompidou Center and the Sacré Coeur, and also in the Albertina in Vienna.

Excellent, I didn't know that. That's a proper step in the right direction, now this has to be enacted in more places. Vive la revolution!

I'm beginning to wonder if "actually staying at home" is exactly what we shall have to do.... Everyone would get the same annnual allocation (based on an estimate of what sustainability can allow}, and we'd have to decide whether to have the trip of a lifetime and use up so many years' allowance, or run a car and eat red meat and just take day trips, or whatever.

That would be a great blueprint for addressing all these issues, the question is, as always, if there will be the willingness to co-operate and the leadership to make it happen. Most times things have to get a lot worse before they get better. Many scientists say that ecological goals are already not being met, even though climate change has become an undisputed fact. We also have to be careful not to impose limitations that are money-based, and that would give people with higher incomes an advantage.

We're starting to see lawsuits being brought worldwide (at least in Western countries), by citizens, against governments, for not implementing enough measures to deal with climate change, and thus not fulfilling their responsibility of safe-guarding the lives of their country-men.

There is certainly a need everywhere for leadership that can make citizens proud to be an example of proper civic ecology. Not easy to do at all.
 
We also have to be careful not to impose limitations that are money-based, and that would give people with higher incomes an advantage.

That would be the downside of taxing usage directly, such as carbon taxes.

The idea I outlined (never going to happen, of course, but one can dream) on the other hand starts with everyone having the same amount to cover whatever different things the government thinks it necessary to ration, but allows people choice about how to allocate them, without simply letting those with the fattest wallets to shoulder the rest aside.

It's the same principle as the "points" scheme in the UK in WW2, which applied to imported goods that weren't specifically rationed in themselves, but were in variable supply: the government changed points values weekly according to what was in short or over-supply, and it gave people a bit of flexible personal choice.
 
Last week at Nice's colorfful Cour Saleya market, my husband and I were doing food shopping. He was handing me a bag of vegetables to put in my big basket. A woman behind us stepped up and stuck her camera between my husband's hand and mine, stopping our interaction as she photographed our zucchini flowers.
People ! The world is not your photo studio backdrop. Get it into your head that its inhabitants have a life.

Experiences like this tick me off. Seems like travellers now just do it for social media. They are more concerned about capturing stuff in photos than actually taking in the whole experience and discovering cultures. What a shame.
 

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