Against Travel
I don’t hate travel; I just don’t believe in its miracle cure.
The tourist machine sells us a gaze in advance and then fits the world to it. The airport manufactures emotions as a service: serenity for some, inspection for others; passport, visa, and exchange rate allocate “freedom of movement” as a privilege, not a right.
I distinguish kinds of movement: forced, caregiving, research, work, leisure. Mixing them erases context: for some the road saves a life, for others it grants rest, for others it pays the rent. Bodies meet different barriers and supports, yet route design rarely accounts for both ends of the spectrum. Hosts have the right to opacity, to fatigue, and to say no to being our spectacle. Authenticity grows from relationships, not from tweezers that pluck “culture” from a display case.
The attention economy turns movement into merchandise and memory into a report. A souvenir can be an anchor of meaning, but more often it remains a receipt. To stand where a million stood yesterday is platform choreography, not an encounter. The cruise renders the formula pure: logistics without places, feeding without neighborliness, shore as a change of scenery. The standardized itinerary simplifies accounting while impoverishing experience.
I’m not proposing isolation; I’m proposing a method to tell an extractive visit from embedded living. An extractive visit takes more than it returns, greases conflict with convenience, and leaves without feedback. Embedded living rests on duration, participation, language, contribution, a low footprint, and alignment with those who live there. A simple test: do at least three locals know you by name, and will any work of yours remain as a trace if you leave tomorrow? Clearer still is rhythm: is your trip set by the service timetable or by the place’s calendar?
A single courtyard microhistory is worth a thousand posts. For three weeks I walked the same street and learned its morning count: garbage truck at 6:20, bread at 6:40, the staircase where at 7:05 a woman descends with her dog. By the eighth morning of that habit I was told why the corner house “faces” the yard and not the avenue: war, resettlement, an unauthorized extension. No “hidden-gems tour” will give you that context in an hour. Depth appeared the moment background became structure.
Pilgrimage as a cure for malaise swaps the work of attention for geography. Where it’s dangerous, “staying” is a risk, and the road is a right to life. Where a place is overloaded, arriving last and naming first is still appropriation. Where the route excludes those who move differently, adventure becomes a barrier. Where hosts don’t help set the terms of welcome, “openness” is only marketing.
Practices of responsible attention in motion are not measured in miles. Make not a list of “places,” but a list of people and institutions you will enter into relationship with. Learn the language enough to apologize, ask permission, and understand “no,” and do it before you buy tickets. Align your rhythm with the place’s rhythm: check where you create traffic, noise, and housing pressure, and revise the plan. Reduce the number of trips, lengthen their duration, and build in contribution—time, knowledge, labor, not just money. Build a feedback loop: ask what was out of place, change your behavior, and leave contact details for later claims.
Photograph less and talk more, and remember the right not to be content; protect your own right to publish nothing.
At home the method works the same as on the road. Walk the same route until you stop “shooting” and start understanding. Check what exactly your lens cuts out of the frame and why. Swap vantage points with neighbors and admit the edges of your own neighborhood map. Let boredom unfold into texture instead of smothering it with a newsfeed.
Learn to see conflict as well as the view.
Joy is not what deserves suspicion; the superstition that joy must be far away does. If movement is necessary, make it slow, attuned, and mutual. If movement is impossible, deepen through participation and attention. If you must go, let care travel first, then the body, then the camera. Then you return not with a gallery of proofs but with relationships capable of changing you.