Take up the White Man’s burden, Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”
This question has been bothering me for a while, and I’ve only recently put it into words. Many of my favorite destinations exist in their current state not due to development but due to neglect. And that neglect means the residents there didn’t have access to the means to join the modern world. So I ask you: Is poverty a gift to tourism?
A related question: are poor people “cute”? I think we can overwhelmingly agree the answer here is “no!” but think again. How many of your interactions with locals leave you thinking something like “I love how simple life is here” or “the people here seem so happy with so little”? I’m now wondering if we’re suffering from the same delusion writers like Rudyard Kipling show.
Take the Sassi of Matera, which I fell in love with last year. The Sassi are only still available to visit because Italians lived in them up until the 1950s. The poverty in southern Italy was so extreme that people lived in caves up until 60 years ago. And that’s in Europe.
Now think about the developing world- how many places have you visited that were made more beautiful because of a lack of historical development nearby? The rush to visit Cuba springs to mind. Cuba is on the map right now because of what it doesn’t have as much as what it does.
I’m not passing judgement here and I’m not sure I have an answer. I’m going to Vietnam this summer and am sure the dilemma of “authenticity” vs. prosperity will be front and center not only for me, but for the Deal Kids. Participating in organizations like Pack for a Purpose seems a good place to start.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Am I on an island here or do you wonder about how poverty affects your experience too?
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I would wish that informed travel teaches one to not be an Elizabeth Gilbert-like moron and say/think such naive things. Those thoughts are dumb. My wife rolls her eyes at people who go to India to try to “find inner peace,” not understanding what a turbulent civilization India is and has been, and how rigidly hierarchical Hinduism is. Oh, and people elsewhere in Southeast Asia kill “in the name of” Buddhism, of all things. People with such simple lives would probably trade for yours in a heartbeat.
I appreciate you bringing this issue up. I’m all for more discussions of the ethics of this hobby.
Poverty also makes Vietnam cheap enough to visit, largely through low wages.
Flights to Vietnam will increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which will change land use (due to increased salinity, sea level rise, and vulnerability to storms) in the Mekong Delta and stress the lives of rice farmers who never had the advantages and wealth that you and I were born to.
You might also consider that generous credit card sign-up bonuses are largely funded by those in debt to the credit card companies, those paying late fees and extra fees, in short, the American near-poor and poor. See Liz Warren’s anecdote about what Citibank executives told her (in “Maxed Out”): “Professor Warren, very interesting. But if we cut those people off, that’s where we make all our profits.”
In short, I personally think people in the “hobby” still have much to understand, grapple with, and take responsibility for. It’s not about saving the polar bears; it’s about what type of world we want to leave for our children, and being able to say that you did your part to make their world better.
First sentence should have been blockquoted, and “I wish” is more grammatical than “I would wish.”
Thanks.
Hi Harvson3,
“Eat, Pray, Love” made me gag as well…in fact I couldn’t get past eat!
I’m not claiming any answers here, but I appreciate that I’m not the only one asking the questions.
Harvson3 – assuming you are a traveler yourself (you never said other than implying you are in the “hobby”) what type of world do you want to leave for your children and what exact steps are you taking or not taking to make it happen?
Hi doug,
I want to leave my son (and another child, if we decide to have one) a world where who and where they are when they’re born matters less for their enjoyment of the world than it does at present. That means a world with less inequality, with widespread access to more information and more freedoms, with preserved biodiversity, and with less violence and poverty.
For that reason, we give to charities that work for poverty alleviation, human dignity, and environmental preservation. I’m in the middle of a possible career change to more directly work for the outcomes I mentioned above.
We’re also going to limit ourselves to traveling as much as possible, and avoiding long flights and short stays in favor of local sights and long stays. We won’t vacation in Europe, Africa, or Asia, in the foreseeable future. We live in upstate New York, so we have a bevy of riches nearby to visit. I disagree with anyone who notes that my kid(s) will be deprived if they never visit Disney World or Europe; they’ll still learn to speak multiple languages and we have fun parks here. Travel is an educator, sure, but it’s an inefficient one.
What more I could be doing is something I’m wrestling with. I’ve kept track of our flights since 2013 but I’m unsure on how I want to offset that carbon. I’ve committed to travel by car, bus or train between Chicago, Boston, and New York; I’m taking the bus to Cleveland soon and we’ve decided to skip a West Coast gathering of friends for the footprint; we can meet them in Chicago another time.
But yes, there’s more to be done.
Tell Matt to install an “edit” button. My phrase above should read “limit ourselves to traveling as little as possible.”
Way to live your values. I have others, but I totally respect your willingness to put your money where your mouth is.
Learning to notice differently as we travel perhaps is the answer. How people live is theirs, not our judgment. Difficult awareness to embrace without the travel.
Great point, Christine. Awareness is definitely part of the solution.