HOW MANY TIMES have you heard someone who has just returned from a holiday complain about the other tourists making the place too touristy? Indeed, how often have you felt your trip would have been that bit more “authentic” if it wasn’t for all the other people on exactly the same trip? The phenomenon of the tourist-loathing tourist, for whom the commodification of culture for the consumption of foreigners is distasteful – unless of course they’re doing the consuming – is so widespread as to barely count as a phenomenon.
The truth is, being anything other than a mere tourist is virtually impossible in the one- or two-week chunks most people can get away – it’s an inherently superficial experience, albeit a lot of fun. Tackling this contradiction is an entire school of travel writing advising people how be less like “tourists” and more like “travellers”, finding your own path rather than following well-worn routes.
There was a brilliant example doing the online rounds recently – travel writer David Robert Hogg posted “15 golden rules to live by while travelling the world” on his blog, My Little Nomads. Some were of the commonsense variety, such as “arrive and depart from different cities” and “err on the side of inexpensive hotels”, but he showed a great understanding of experiencing another culture. “Read a local newspaper” is the quickest way to get a feel for a place, what the local issues are, what’s troubling people and what’s entertaining them – you won’t exactly get immersed in local current affairs, but you won’t be ignorant of them either.
My favourite tip of his is “buy your own fruit” because the transaction is a great way to experience a different culture – a simple, universal interaction that differs subtly from place to place. As Hogg puts it, “The entire process will expose you to elements you would have otherwise ignored. Trust me: You’ll have memories from your trips to buy fruit.”
My own foreign fruit consumption is often restricted to the buffet breakfast, but he’s right – I remember approaching a small fruit stand in a tiny village in the south of Italy many years ago. I picked out an apricot and the kind fruitseller, presumably not used to seeing freckly redheads with no Italian, handed me another and refused any payment.
I was immensely grateful and the gratitude remains to this day. I don’t know why, though, because as I bit into the second, a worm revealed itself within. I doubt she planted it there, but that was my appetite for fruit gone for a few days.
Hogg's list made me think about what what memories stand out, and it struck me that my equivalent to Hogg's daily dose of fruit involves music. So many of my treasured travel experiences have been those serendipitous occasions where I happened across a performance: a marching band celebrating the Candelaria festival on Amantaní island in Peru's Lake Titicaca; a French brass band playing Thrillerby Salamanca Cathedral; a DJ rocking a block party in Buenos Aires; a Sharon Van Etten gig in Brooklyn; a busker from Derry enchanting a crowd on the steps of the Sacre Coeur; the sound of opera wafting on the air in Trogir in Croatia; a punkish Thai band playing to a bar full of local students in Bangkok; just the other week, a smoky light and sound spectacular by Canadian act Miracle Fortress in Hamburg.
The sounds and tunes haven’t all stayed with me, but the texture of those moments, the sense of delight, most certainly has. Almost as importantly, the feeling of being a tourist, sampling from a set menu of experience, falls away when you’re part of a crowd – the authenticity isn’t in question. So here’s another golden rule: “Catch a gig everywhere you go, and keep your ears open.”