Everyone can travel…or can’t they? The current state of play seems to prove that literally everyone has enough skills to travel around the world and instruct others how to do this later on. I am pretty sure that you read at least once an article that was inaccurate, lousy and just irritating. In recent years, more and more poor travel writing contributed to the increasing number of misconceptions related to travel. Instead of complaining about the poor quality of travel writing I’ve decided to publish a series of articles in which simple but scientifically proven facts will shed some light on travels as a human activity.
Eventually, here is no need to reinvent the wheel every time you travel. After all the science should explain and help us understanding the reality.
I am fully aware that not every traveler is an academic. On the contrary, the major part of the contemporary travelers comes from the non-academic backgrounds. In fact, a variety within the traveling community is outstanding. Not everybody has time, patience and knowledge to go through the existing academic literature on tourism and travel. It happens that I am both: an academic and a traveler. Here is a short review of what sociology, psychology, and urban studies say about traveling today. It might help you to understand the reality of travel.
The first post discusses three basic issues related to travel: what defines a tourist, what is a travel, and why anticipation is important.
Voluntary action
It is not uncommon that the scientific body finds it difficult to agree on definitions. Tourism as an academic discipline is very young. No matter how polarized the opinion of the academics are there is a basic consensus: we are talking about tourism when there is a voluntary act of traveling.
This is important. In contrast to a migrant, forced migrant, refugee, expat, or asylum seeker, a tourist always WANTS to travel. Work or business related travel does not count as tourism, even though some part of the journey might look like a travel (i.e. taking pictures).
Move
Although nowadays it is possible to travel virtually through the digital media, there is a consensus that the actual travel demands a physical MOVE from place A to place B. You can sit in your chair and watch TV for your whole life and know more about this world than any traveler, but this will never make you one.
Science knows a phenomenon when an expert on the particular country or culture never went to the site in person. In fact, quite a few wise man never went to a place that they were the experts at. Some of them stated they were afraid of being disappointed while some others appreciated the comfort of their own homes too much. You don’t need to visit a place to become an expert, but you need to move to become a traveler.
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Mi-Oc/Navigation-at-Sea-History-of.html
Anticipation
A considerable part of the travel happens in our minds BEFORE the actual journey. We live in a world where literally every site on earth has been photographed and made available to watch online. Any place saw in advance in hundreds of photos through somebody else’s eyes tricks our minds.
It creates a huge excitement and expectations. Some of them are totally unrealistic which often turns the highly anticipated travel into a disappointment. Science says that our previous knowledge about the place we visit influences our perception. In other words, what you know before you go influences what you see when you go. This issue will be developed further in next posts.
If you found these few information useful, please leave your comment below. Read the next part of this series, The Science of Travels Part II, focused on the history of travels (pilgrimage, the Grand Tour and mass tourism).
Disclosure: all posts ‘The Science of Travel’ are based on scientific literature. The authors of the books and articles included in these posts were s follows: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Eric Cohen, Chris Rojek, John Urry, Tim Edensor, Judith Adler, and a few others. Any comments are more than welcome!
