Travel: A valuable life experience or a tool to influence social standing?
Unpacking the real story behind those idyllic Instagram photos
Flower box in Strasbourg, France
I’m back!! I have so much to share with you from my weeks traveling through places planned and unplanned. As predicted, taking time away from writing and doing the creative work of living gave me a LOT of inspiration- and there’s so much I want to write about, but it won’t happen all at once.
Before we dive in, I would LOVE to hear how you’re doing! I’ve missed our community, so humor me and let me know what you’ve been up to and what I’ve missed over the past 2.5 weeks.
The thing I’ve been reflecting the most on since traveling home is the way we approach travel in Western society. Since the dawn of social media, yes, but also since the beginning of the growth of empires in general.
The human desire for power and growth
The empire of Alexander the Great grew until it collapsed, Rome followed suit, and after the Bubonic Plague era, the nations of Western Europe competed to conquer the world until they created the ultimate world-conquering monster- the United States.
Lest we forget the massive Han dynasty in China and the empires in ancient India and Persia that controlled and participated in the formation of the Silk Road as things like tea, fabrics, and other fine goods that were markers of wealth. The fact of the matter is, as long as humans have been alive, our lives have revolved around power and growth.
Power: Who has it, and who doesn’t?
Growth: How do we consolidate power in our empire/family/social strata?
Whether in the Paleolithic era or in the Victoria one, it was kill or be killed.
Admittedly, some societies, particularly indigenous ones like the Hmong people that I’ve been reading about by way of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Committed( which she and I both admit is not a comprehensive anthropological account of the Hmong), actively participate in the idea of a community-based society, where everyone has a role and society functions smoothly because you play that role from the day you’re born until the day you die.
Yet, the 21st century finds us in an era of unprecedented choice and individualism, most definitely in Western society and even with more community-based societies moving in that direction with new generations.
We no longer have to marry to keep wealth in our families; growth is driven instead by personal gains. Our power dynamics are antiquated, at least on a societal level, if not always on an individual one.
When we talk about power dynamics, a big part of that is privilege. Who has it, and who doesn’t? Who’s talking about that and who isn’t? Another less talked about part of power is how we control the narrative around our lives. The ability to control perception has historically belonged to the people with the most privilege.
At least I chose to stick my head here. Castello Vezio, Italy.
Traveling as social currency
While I was traveling, it struck me how many people didn’t seem to be traveling for the experience of traveling, but to prove they had an experience. To chase an ideal of the way life should be and to seemingly paint a picture for the rest of the world through the lens of Instagram or Tiktok or what have you of their “perfect” life.
We often talk about social media and the pressure it puts on us to be like the Joneses as if this were a new concept. Certainly, social media has put the human drive to be better, and in the case of travel, to have a longer list of experiences and passport stamps, in a pressure cooker.
Watching a young girl around my age dressed in what I think are the latest trends (?) pose in front of a steep, cobbled street in Italy for at least 10 different pictures, directing her friend behind the camera, I couldn’t help but think of Lewis and Clark.
The conquerors of Western Europe and America were competing for gold, money, and notoriety under the guise of it being man’s God-given destiny to find these lands (as if native people hadn’t already lived there for thousands of years). Aren’t young girls trying to become Insta famous trying to do the same thing?
Get money and notoriety? Dopamine and some likes? Create a public perception of what their lives are like that may be quite different than what their lives are actually like?
Let me tell you something about this girl posing for a photo- one of so many girls. So many. (I was struck by the staggering number of women that seem to need to prove themselves and the number of men that seem to feel no such need. I was also struck by the racial disparities in the parts of Western Europe I was in- but not surprised). I can guess how her photo turned out. It likely looks idyllic. The moment she “captured”, though?
There were people - lots of people- annoyed by the fact this photoshoot was obstructing the flow of traffic. I was one of them. There were pigeons eating leftover crumbs nearby, a decent amount of noise, and it was hot. Very hot. There was some pollution. A water bottle here, a receipt on the ground there. Nothing out of the ordinary - but that’s the issue, right?
A duck family I found in someone’s yard in Venice!
Traveling as an embodiment of American ideals
An Instagram post or TikTok video or whatever can’t be ordinary. It has to be special. Inspirational. Aspirational. Perfect. These intangible American values that we are told we are and that we spend our whole lives seeking outside of ourselves, only to be stumped when we still feel empty after having 200 passport stamps.
So here’s my question: Why do we travel at all? Is it to conquer, like every human that ever had a hand in expanding an empire?
Let’s be real- in today’s day and age, Western society is fairly safe, especially when compared to societies of yore. There is no final frontier. So we re-conquer and re-discover lands that people have already lived on for a very long time - disturbing their peace and often disrupting local life. It sticks with me how ingrained the sense of exploration is in Western society as if the world is ours and we don’t need to ask permission or consider anyone else.
A great example of this is Venice. Beautiful, overrun, Venice. I kind of always thought that Venice was touristy like every place is touristy. I also thought that the dolphins started returning to the canals of Venice during the pandemic - not to stay- because the canals were comparably polluted to other waters.
And maybe they are, I didn’t run a water sample, but Venice is touristy like Disney World touristy. Except in about 2 sq miles of land. The number of boats that run there per day explains easily why the Venice canals are polluted, and makes you wonder just how polluted.
Local Venetians have long been fighting to stay in their homes because outside merchants come in and set up tourist traps that drive business away from local shop owners, displacing their storefronts and livelihoods and making it more difficult for them to stay in those precious few square miles.
Sunrise in the Dolomites in Covara in Badia
‘Every useful experience begins with awe’
The morning I traveled to Venice, I woke up in Covara in Badia, a tiny town at the top of the Dolomites that is literally perched on a hill. Watching the sunrise, I wondered what it would be like to allow ourselves to be present while we travel. I read a quote sometime this week that went something like, “Every useful experience begins with awe”.
I saw so many people who were only in awe of the social proof they were producing of their own greatness. No shame on them - the conditioning to prove to others that our lives matter runs deep. What if we could be in awe of the experience we’re having instead of the experience we want to tell others we’re having?
Including the sunrises and breathtaking views as well as the broken suitcase wheels, sicknesses we navigate, unplanned 8-mile hikes, and train station bomb threats.
What if we could be in awe of it all?
Church Signs
Church signs aren’t a thing in Europe, but I did see a lot of things that were hilarious. One of my favorites was a series of rooms designed to look like grottoes in the bottom of a castle belonging to the Borromeo family on Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore. They’re “summer rooms”. I just love that this Prince or cardinal or whatever loved to live in cave replicas in the summer! How wonderfully weird.
"Whether in the Paleolithic era or in the Victoria one, it was kill or be killed. "
Only sometimes. This book was a pretty refreshing travelogue of the past.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything