In previous posts of The Science of Travel series I explained a few important arguments and I also had a look at the evolution of mass tourism. This post is focused on visual consumption and one of the most widespread argument a traveler versus a tourist. Visual consumption Before we discuss an issue of a traveler versus a tourist let’s focus on a very important problem of visual consumption. Along with the development of photography, the nature of travels has irreversibly changed. Until humans traveled because they were forced to do so (in search for food, new land, for commerce, out of curiosity or to discover faraway regions) and even in the age of Grand Tour, the travel was focused on a discourse. People who traveled talked or wrote about it, or quarrel about it, if you like, and made numerous attempts to described it, but they never could show the others what they saw. The widespread cheap cameras have changed it. Since more and more people could afford to travel and to photograph themselves in front of the popular sites, they could not only prove their presence in the important places but they also contributed to spread the views and incite anticipation. Through showing and watching the pictures, all famous sites lost their mystery. Literally ALL people know how the monument or a site looks like BEFORE they actually see it. A popularization of cameras was a turning point. Instead of talking about the places people started showing the pictures. At the same time, they became visual consumers. In present times, it is mainly about watching, seeing, staring, and browsing, rather than just talking about it. A traveler or a tourist? Having said that we are all visual consumers, I shall point out that when science started considering tourism an important element of human life in the 70s, there was a consensus that we are all tourists. The group of tourists was, in major part, uniform and all tourists were treated in the same way. The early definition clearly stated that a tourist is a person who physically moves from one place to another with no obligation to do so. So far, so good. There were dozens of different categories within a group called tourists and I will share one below to illustrate the way science categorized people who travel. I am pretty sure that you will find one or more category you fill in. Here are four basic groups of tourists by Cohen (1974): The Organized Mass Tourist The Individual Mass Tourist The Explorer The Drifter The first group consists of all people who prefer familiar surrounding and well-known rules. They are traveling with the travel agencies and stay in chain hotels. Such tourists are the perfect customers of the sea cruises. The Organized Mass Tourism is related to the phenomenon called Disneyization. Based on the famous Disney theme parks the science observes the tourism that instead of showing you a place it CREATES a place that you travel to. The tourist, instead of experiencing ‘the other’ is kept in the environmental bubble. These tourists travel far but they stay in the same familiar place. The Individual Mass Tourist is pretty similar to the first group. They follow the mainstream travel destinations, visit most popular sites, consume them visually and they sometimes make an attempt to leave the bubble they live in. On the contrary to organized mass tourists, they sometimes leave the environmental bubble in order to experience something new. They keep, however, very close to the familiar surrounding so they could go back there if anything  unpleasant happens. Such tourist uses services of the travel agencies but he/she is not strictly assigned to a group and has a relative freedom of deciding what to do and where to go. The Explorers are people eager to meet ‘the other’, to switch their previous environment, to explore and to learn new things. They organize the trip themselves and they mix well-known travel destinations with off the beaten track sites. Although the explorers are eager to experience new and exotic things, they are not ready to completely abandon their habits. When they find a situation that challenges their habits and behaviors they go back to the previous safe environment. They have no intention to immerse into the host society. They also keep their basic needs as transportation and accommodation as familiar and reliable as possible. They visually consume a place, one after another, with no plan to stay for long. The last group of drifters is consisted of the people who abandon their previous lives. These are the ‘hippies‘ who leave everything familiar behind. They travel off the beaten paths, do not sleep in the hotels, do not eat in the restaurants. They focus on the local environment, make an attempt to live like a local and melt into the new place entirely. They have no return ticket and no intention of going back. Many of drifters felt unfulfilled in their previous lives thus through the travels they find a new mental and spiritual center. They are driven by the strong contestation of the order in their home society. Contrary to the explorers, the drifters attempt not only to know ‘the other’ but also to develop an empathy and deep understanding. A good example of drifters are people who left their homelands and moved to a kibbutz. This is what the science in the 70s argued about. Although this is considered a classic categorization of tourists is has been contested by the young researchers. The scientists are now more aware of the internal diversification of the tourist groups and, as a consequence, there is a continuous argument on who is a tourist and who is not. What do you think about the division between a tourist and a traveler? Do you feel one of them? If so which one? Please, comment below which type of a traveler you are. Disclosure: all posts ‘The Science of Travel’ are based on scientific literature. The authors of the books and...

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In the previous posts, basic arguments about travels were discussed. This post is focused on psychology and the way the human brain works in a process from an impulse to a memory. The Change Whether you like it or not travel means change. Travel changes both: a traveler and a place where the traveler is heading to. It triggers a variety of psychological mechanisms of adaptation in order to sustain a natural balance (so called homeostasis). First, all humans have a general tendency to simplify the reality. Every mechanism which cuts down the effort of the human brain is preferred and repeated. You are not the exception. Therefore, we have hundreds of small mechanisms which reduce the effort of perception, analysis, and understanding of what our senses perceive. The travel does not decrease the natural tendency of simplification. On the contrary! Overstimulation Here is a short story that explains what overstimulation is. It is useful in understanding how the human brain works. Imagine a house of a poor and disadvantaged family where both parents are heavy drinkers and they have a newborn baby. It is an ordinary evening and they make a noise so the baby starts crying, which is what you would expect. Time passes and the volume of the noise made by drunk parents increases. Eventually, the neighbors call the police. When they come what do they see? A crying baby? No. They find the baby that sleeps. The noise was so loud for so long that put the baby sleep. This is what overstimulation means. When there are too many impulses our brain switches off. This rule also works for the adults and for the travelers. I am sure that many travelers had such moments and were surprised that instead of excitement they felt burnt out or instead of going out exploring all they were dreaming about was staying home and do nothing. Travels bring many moments full of the noise, colors, movement, impressions, and all of them are new to a traveler. It is impossible to analyze and remember everything. Therefore, the question arises: what decides which impulse is analyzed and which is dropped? It brings us to the second stage of the process: the selection. The Selection Out of all impulses detected by our five senses our brain picks up what to analyze further. It is absolutely impossible to analyze everything. The impulses are brought to short term memory. From there, selected again, they are eventually brought to the long term memory and stays there for a long time, and sometimes even forever. Each person, each traveler, has his/her own filters that he/she puts information through. The prior knowledge you have before visiting the place decides on what you see and, eventually, what you remember. Every memory is highly subjective. The more impulses on the same object or place, the deeper and accurate our opinion becomes. The attention and concentration have a paramount significance. If you saw a place for one day your impressions from this place are close to a statistical error. It will be still yours and very personal but not even close to the truth. The Memories An unconscious process of processing information from an impulse noted by our senses to the memory takes seconds. Therefore, there are few crucial things that each traveler needs to remember. Our preconceptions play a pivotal role in our perception. Further, the development of our consciousness is helpful in getting the full picture of the place. Again, the more focused you are and the more attention to the details you give your memories becomes multidimensional. The more time you spent in a place, the more accurate your impressions is. The best news is that the journey lasts much longer than the travel itself. Just like in a book by John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley”. In one of the small towns of the West Coast of the USA, he met a man who thirty years before went on a journey to Hawaii. For all these years he was sitting on his porch thinking about this journey. Analysing and remembering all details he was traveling again and again. Now, I’m not saying everyone should travel only once and analyze the journey for the rest of their life. In between, however, lays the balance. Instead running like mad and collecting the places, limit your travels and make an effort to think, analyze, make sense out of them. Developing such skills of a deep analysis is crucial in understanding other people, their habits, their culture, and the context. Next post will discuss a controversial issue of the difference between a traveler and a tourist. 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!  

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In the previous posts, I explained what is a travel and described briefly the history of how a pilgrimage turned into mass tourism. This post is focused on a dichotomy of ‘familiar’ versus ‘unknown’ and ‘home’ versus ‘travel’. Home Travel is understood as a voluntary movement from the familiar to the unknown. This is the famous ‘breaking the routine’, leaving your ‘comfort zone’ if you like. The familiar behavior, habits, and schedules are left behind. It is worth to also acknowledge that the social environment, family, and friends do not take part in the adventure. Therefore, it is both: gain and loss. There is a curious interesting trend in becoming a drifter or a vagabond. It basically means that a traveler, who considers himself/herself a vagabond, do not leave home because he/she does not have one. Making ‘the road’ home he/she pushes himself/herself into a permanent ‘homelessness‘. Quite contrary to the popular thesis about ‘making the world my home’ or ‘being at home in every place on earth’ this does not work this way. Home means being familiar in every possible context imaginable, which means it is being obtained by growing up in a place and keeping in touch with it. Some travelers argue that after living in a place for a month or a year, they found a new home. Science argues that if you did not write love letters or prayed in the language, you will never feel at home in a full sense of this word. The new place might turn into a new homeland, but in order to obtain it, you need many years, excellent language skills and deep attachment to the site. A great check is asking yourself if you are able to understand poetry written in the new language. The ‘Other’ We often consider ‘the other’ to be a local person met in an overseas travel. Curiously enough, every traveler or a tourist or immigrant is considered ‘the other’ by the locals. This has broad consequences for both sides. The locals, just like a traveler,  through the fact of meeting ‘the other’, get conscious that his/her world is not the only one on earth. Unlike a traveler, the locals have no choice. One day they just meet ‘the other’ at their doorstep. It forces them to a variety of new behaviors, and just like in the case of a traveler, it gets them out of their routine. After such a meeting they can’t simply go back to their lives. They make an effort to understand ‘the other’, to study his/her language, to meet his/her demands regarding hospitality. Eventually, it transforms their home into ‘a travel destination’ and their previous lives are lost forever. It sounds so bitter but Lévi-Strauss noticed it more than a half-century ago when he wrote: “I hate traveling and explorers. (…) While I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveler, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see.” (Lévi-Strauss, C. 1955. Tristes Tropiques, p. 38). Let’s face it: along with the arrival of the first traveler, the city, town or a village has been changed forever. This is very unpopular to consider tourism as a threat. Often it is presented as the only hope for the development. But every stick has two ends and if you are a serious traveler you need to consider that every action has a result. 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!  

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The previous post discussed three important issues related to traveling: the definition, movement, and anticipation. If you haven’t read it The Science of Travel, Part I. This post will discuss three equally important points related to the history of travels. The Pilgrimage Before the early 17th century, people scarcely traveled. True; the Epoque of the individual Grand Tours widespread in Europe in the 18th century was preceded by the Age of Discovery, but people involved in the exploration of the world were always few and they were rarely volunteers. Too often the recruitment of the sailors for long term voyages included dirty tricks, so they would wake up in the open sea with no way of escape. In fact, the major part of them had no choice. The only traveler who was free to move was a pilgrim. For centuries, people around the world were traveling and visiting the important sites on foot. Just as Dalrymple said: “Traveling on foot is the right speed for human beings”. The golden age of pilgrimages, left its marks until today: The Way of St. James, Via Francigena, pilgrimage to Mecca, pilgrimage to Temple in Jerusalem, and hundred others around the world. Some of them are still in use and quite popular. For centuries, the pilgrims were the tourists and through a pilgrimage, they were offered an opportunity to watch famous sites and enjoy the visiting of the far lands. The pilgrims were the actual tourists and, through a pilgrimage, they were offered an opportunity to watch famous sites and enjoy visiting of the far lands. Their walks, however, were strictly tied to the pilgrimage routes, therefore, they rarely explored the surrounding beyond. The impressions they were bringing home were heavily influenced by the way they traveled. Each pilgrimage was full of sacrifices, discomforts and usually took months if not years to complete. The Industrial Revolution has changed everything, including the way that people traveled. Let’s switch to the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The Grand Tour Along the development of the rail transport in Europe, it became trendy, as we would say today, to travel around Europe, mainly to France and Italy. Initially, the young and wealthy man from Britain ventured the long-term journeys through Europe in order to gain first-hand knowledge. The development of the railway system resulted in a dramatic cut of time needed to travel. The passion towards art and the language skills were two leading motives of this rite of passage. The English gentlemen were followed by the Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, Austrians, Germans, Polish and many other nationalities. The Grand Tour contributed also to the development of the classicism in Europe. Interestingly enough, these journeys were far different from what we consider a travel today. Rich and wealthy would always stick to the people of their class and status. Their travels were connected with meeting relatives and noble people. Their target was definitely not getting close to the ordinary people. The Grand Tours were focused on discourse, therefore, the linguistic skills and general good manners were of the greatest importance. Try to imagine that in the eighteenth century there was very little chance to watch the art if not in person or listen to a music if not through traveling. The architecture was especially difficult to watch as there were very few exact drawings, if at all. These lucky gentlemen would attend art exhibitions, listen to classic music concerts, participate gala dinners and get acquainted with people like them. It was very popular to publish memoirs after the return and we have quite a few excellent books about the Grand Tours. Mass Tourism Eventually, the mass tourism appeared on the face of our planet. It is considered that Thomas Cook organized the first mass travel and it was a train excursion from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841. The total distance was 11 miles! Since then, the world went mad about tourism. There are many side effects of the mass tourism that no one has foreseen. The basic issue, though, is related to the switch from the discourse focused towards the sightseeing focused travel. We can say today that the mass tourism has changed the world. It greatly contributed to the globalization and unification. And, sadly, it destroyed not only the deep cultural differences but quite literally some of the unique destinations. There any many various kinds of mass tourism but the basic characteristics of such tourism includes as follows: predefined packages all inclusive, considerable numbers of tourists visiting a place every year, and an excessive visual consumption. There is an example of mass tourism that will give you an idea. Two girls meet and one says: – I was in Mallorca. – Really? – says the other girl. Where is it? – I don’t know, I just got out of the plane and there she was. If you found these few information useful, please leave your comment below. I am working on the next part of this series, which will discuss a dichotomy of ‘familiar’ versus ‘unknown’ and ‘home’ versus ‘travel’, and the concept of ‘the other’. Stay tuned! 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!  

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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. 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!  

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