Reluctant Tourist

Visiting art museums

Visiting art museums in a city as a tourist is a great way to understand the historical context through which the city evolved and what contributions its artists made to the world of art.

Appreciating art

Most people visiting art museums these days can hardly appreciate art. This is not because they choose to be ignorant but rather the conditions to consume art has changed.

Appreciation of a painting is an educated process. One should have an idea about the period in which the painting was created, what it represents and how it relates to the artist’s world view and to other works of art at the time.

Visitors should seek solitary moments to view art long enough to absorb its meaning. Most museums have seats for visitors to take a break and enjoy art, with their view interrupted only occasionally by others walking around.

Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam

Van Gogh is not only the most famous painter ever lived but like Che Guevara he has risen to a cult figure status in pop culture.

If you visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the first hurdle awaiting you is a long queue coiled outside the building. Then, once inside, you will join a chaotic flow.

You will notice Instagram or Facebook aficionados fulfilling their narcissistic tendencies, taking 45 degree selfies in front of famous paintings.

It is not just selfie paparazzi, but excessive number of people admitted to museums increased stress among art lovers and diminished the value exchanged in return of the admission fee paid.

Appreciating a painting with a full view has become an impossible task. By visiting a “must see” museum therefore, you will end up ruining your day.

Welcome to perils of modern tourism.

Giethoorn

Giethoorn is promoted as an idyllic Dutch village from a romantic past. A far cry from it, you will find an overcrowded Disneyland-like theme park.

Giethoorn is a minuscule Venice; there are houses separated by waterways, connected with tiny bridges and pathways flocked by hundreds of tourists. Waterways too are invaded by them squeezed in tiny boats frequently halting in traffic jams.

Giethoorn is a classical example of what happened to a once idyllic village, after it fell victim to mass tourism.

Old times

During late sixties when I grew up as a young kid, globalisation as we know today, did not exist. The world was much poorer and China had not opened its economy yet. Airline travel was expensive, affordable by the rich. The world’s socio-economic dynamics were ruled by nation states, and European countries had thousands of kilometres long protected borders. EU had not been formed yet.

There were regional wars and conflicts, but mass immigration to the West, excluding perhaps Vietnamese fleeing the war was not as widely spread as today.

There was no Internet. News depended solely on newspapers, radio and tv broadcasting.

Yet the world was much more interesting and tourists were much happier with more space allocated for them.

In the half a century that followed, improved global wealth, the rise of Internet and cheaper air travel, ramped up tourism by 56 times ⁽¹⁾. Today nearly 4 million tourists travel the world everyday.

On the positive side, mass tourism democratised travelling, once available only for privileged. It increased awareness of other cultures and helped humans to mix. Even sporadic global terrorism threats did not deter crowds from travelling.

Environmental impact

On the flip side, mass tourism had been bad for the environment. Past century saw enormous rise of carbon emissions and consumption of plastic. Tourism related pollution across the globe increased dramatically. There are now mountains of plastic encircling in the Atlantic visible from the outer space.

Loss of innocence

Prior to mass tourism the world used to be a more mysterious and romantic place.

During my childhood our household had subscription to a child magazine called “Brother Doğan” (Tr. “Doğan Kardeş”). I remember in early sixties I was trying to make sense of a certain cartoon strip in that called “Mr Hunter”, who hunted wild elephants in colonial Africa with a trumpet shaped rifle. Africa was a remote world without anyone’s reach, decorated with silhouettes of giraffes walking in the wild. There were still undiscovered tribes in the Amazon. As a child I was fascinated by this big world of wonders. The world used to offer endless surprises. The world was interesting.

Every individual was a discoverer. With no Google at our disposal, there was a notion of surprise, a sense of adventure, a sense of “I don’t fully control my destiny” that sent our spines chills.

In contrast today’s tourists lost their sense of wonder, thanks to Internet. Modern tourists can hardly go beyond what is prescribed by the Internet. Everywhere they go they will be surrounded by like-minded herds, whereas better venues may be hiding at a stone’s throw distance. Most interesting tapas places in Barcelona are the ones not known to Internet, attended by locals only. If you’re stuck at La Rambla however you may end up dining in a tourist trap where you will overpay for substandard food.   

Iceland

You may fancy the idea of visiting Iceland when you see a wonderful Instagram photo, or perhaps you read about famous shipwrecks in a TripAdvisor article. On YouTube you might even watch a drone video exploring the coastline of entire island. Within an hour or so you will have a list of best spots to visit in Iceland.

Thousands of people watch the same videos, see the same photos and read the same articles. So when you get there it should be no surprise to find flocks of photographers around the shipwreck trying to exclude each other from the frame.

This is what adventure looks like in the 21st century.
   

Narcissism

Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube run on narcissism. Consequently touristic value of a place is determined by how accommodating it is to fulfil narcissist desires, rather than how interesting it actually is.

Selfie phenomenon is the key indicator of narcissistic economy.

Take medieval towns like Bruges and Ghent. They are touristic because, they offer endless opportunities for people who want to share photographs in social media. They have canals which accommodate selfie paparazzi flocked in boats like sardines, as well as many restaurants facing canals and medieval panorama.

Canals once loaded with faeces in medieval times are now loaded with tourists thanks to social media. Every selfie or photograph shared, drops a coin in the coffers of Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

Remedy

Ironically great pulling gravity of information bubble created by Internet can work for tourists who want to have better experience. There are ways to stay outside the bubble and avoid crowds.

1. Find/meet a local and use their knowledge.
2. Hire a guide who may know tricks to defeat crowds.
3. Travel off-season.

(1) The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that internationally there were just 25 million tourist arrivals in 1950. 68 years later this number has increased to 1.4 billion international arrivals per year. This is a 56-fold increase (source: https://ourworldindata.org/tourism)