In 2024, I thought a lot about

Going on holiday is definitely one of my favourite activities. 

I’ve travelled widely from a young age, and I’m privileged to have visited many destinations and experienced wonderful things. Lunches were unpacked on picnic benches in German forests; we’d eat open sandwiches in royal gardens in Denmark, and when we visited cathedrals, we’d take photos and wouldn’t know if they were any good until weeks afterwards. I remember sending postcards back home to specially selected school friends.

Things were different then: much less air travel and many more lengthy car journeys across Europe. We’d watch the miles go by from the back seat, as we drained our Walkman batteries.

Since then, the internet has given us a window into the rest of the world, and travel has become more affordable. Of course, there are advantages to travel becoming more accessible – but humans have a collective responsibility to recognise the impact our holidays have on fellow humans and their homes.

So recently, whilst planning my latest adventures, I’ve started to think harder about my impact as a tourist. 

Full disclosure: after deciding to not have children, I’ve worried less about my carbon footprint and I’ll conveniently declare that air travel is nothing compared to all the plastic toys and nappies I’m saving from landfill. And this aside, I don’t think my travel is entirely guilt-free, but I do try to do it as conscientiously as possible.

While I’m away, my busy brain loves to be occupied by trying new things: seeing the sights, making pilgrimages to restaurants, standing in queues outside bakeries and going on hikes. My husband, who simply wants to chill out with a book, humours me whilst I drag us on another 30-minute walk across a city to find the best plate of pasta/baked goods/glass of wine/ceramics shop or art gallery. I’m desperate to discover the local culture, and what it might be like to live within it.

This year, based on my choice of holiday activities, I’ve wondered if I can claim to be a less intrusive visitor because I don’t engage in the most popular and obvious sights and attractions. I want to believe I am, but hand on heart, I don’t think it’s true. And I feel conflicted about it too because in avoiding the open-top buses and Instagram photo opportunities, am I missing out on the best that places have to offer? These things are popular for a reason, aren’t they? And afterall, many places enthusiastically welcome visitors.

Arguably, travel has many benefits for both the visitor and the destination, but has cheaper and more accessible travel, as well as the introduction of social media, taken things too far? When it comes to the latter, we can’t really blame the app creators – they’ve just tapped into human nature and our desire to surpass others.

I’m referring to those people who seemingly only want to see things so they can be seen seeing things. How many of them actually stop to absorb what’s in front of them? So many seem to put more importance on what a perfect photo will tell their followers about them. When did our reflex become to reach for our phone and pap a photo? And there are those people who seem to be more bothered about being able to say they’ve been to a place, or seen an attraction, than learning a bit of history or hearing an interesting story about it. They have checklists like bingo cards and a full house wins them travel kudos.

To travel conscientiously and respectfully, I think we have to get in amongst it: try another language, taste foods we wouldn’t want to try back home, and really listen to the history and stories from locals. Travelling more authentically, like this, means not just taking advantage of the ‘best’ bits of another culture, but being prepared to accept the uncomfortable truth of what your Great British Tourist Pound might be bringing to the area. 

Of course, the higher numbers of tourists do bring jobs and money. But the downsides are that it’s not always distributed fairly, and this often leads to the destruction of beautiful surroundings and the displacement of local people who can no longer afford to live where they are from. They’re forced out by rising rents, and their apartments are sometimes sold off to be used as Airbnbs. Ironically, the influx of money destroys the culture many travellers want to see, because bringing in and accommodating them becomes more important than the needs of indigenous populations. It becomes about our comfort in their environment… but without them in it. 

I don’t have the answers to this complex problem. But, I think that if we engage more meaningfully with the culture and residents of a place when we travel, we will become more empathetic to the impact that us being there has on both. If we can be more ‘authentic’ tourists in this sense, perhaps we are more likely to mirror the behaviour we’d like to see from tourists if our home town suddenly became the next big attraction. If we more clearly recognise that we – as adventure-seeking, curious humans – have a collective responsibility to others and their environment, it would go a long way.