A Wren Says

It is often used pejoratively. “You look like a tourist.” It means that you look like you don’t know what’s going on, or you stand out too much from the local culture. Which, if you are in fact a tourist, both things are likely true of you. When I travel, I do my best to blend in, when possible, to avoid looking like a tourist. I put on a façade that I’m definitely not new here, even though I am so lost and have no idea where I’m going. I don’t want people to know that I am a tourist.

But its more than looking like an easy target for scams and robbery, looking like a tourist. As I ready more about the responses throughout Europe and other parts of the world, it has started to mean more. To look like a tourist is to look like one who disrupts and destroys local culture. It is to look like a barrier to a way of life. And if that is it, I definitely don’t want to look like a tourist even more.

I keep coming back to this idea of what it means to travel and travel well. I have to start thinking more about this angle too.