As a traveler, I seek adventure. I desire the road less traveled and aspire to find the perfect undiscovered location not yet tainted by tour buses and mini-marts. The limitation of this traveling philosophy, however, is that nobody seems to want to help drive down that path. Independent traveling is a difficult and costly way to explore the world, but well worth the effort when you actually succeed. While attempting this type of travel you should be prepared to hear this phrase: "Why not join a tour? I think is [sic] much cheaper for you." It becomes a thoroughly disappointing response to hear.

When trying to explain to a travel agent that a "package tour" is not exactly what you are looking for, the language barrier suddenly becomes a larger impediment than you expect. Or maybe the concept of not wanting to share your perfect moment with 40 other tourists doesn't translate very well. I speak slowly, "I don't like large groups. In fact, I don't even like small groups." Or it could be that there are no set commission schedules for independent travelers, and that it takes a bit of extra work to put something together, something beyond just filling out a voucher. Either way, this following quote, which I published in the first Unreal Travels newsletter seems to explain it the best:

"Exploration belongs to the Renaissance, travel to the bourgeois age, tourism to our proletarian moment. ... The explorer seeks the undiscovered, the traveler that which has been discovered by the mind working in history, the tourist that which has been discovered by entrepreneurship and prepared for him by the arts of mass publicity. ... If the explorer moves toward the risks of the formless and the unknown, the tourist moves toward the security of pure clich้. It is between these two poles that the traveler mediates. ... (Paul Fussell - From Exploration to Travel to Tourism -1980)"

I'm not sure if I should blame Lonely Planet, or the millions of tour companies that created the concept of "tourist spots" and "tourist destinations." What they have done is created a series of places that exist only in a vacuum - apart from the communities that surround them. These are the places rich-westerners go to escape their daily lives; they are the places you read about in magazines and see on the Discovery Channel (tm). They are the mass-marketable cities, towns and islands that everyone thinks they need to see in their lifetime. The only question I have about these places is, "where do they hide all the masses of people when they film the commercials and take pictures for the brochures?" Forget about ever trying to re-create a spectacular photo you once saw on a postcard - unless you're really good at airbrushing out hundreds of Japanese tourists standing in front of you.

The problem is that none of the tourist destinations ever represent the true culture or daily lives of the people around them.

I'd like to introduce something I like to call the "Hawaiian Luau Theory of Tourism."

For those of you who haven't been to Hawaii, luaus are the number one tourist attraction there, besides the beach and volcanoes. However, I suspect very few Hawaiians have ever thrown an actual Luau (other than for the benefit of tourism). In fact, I would be shocked to find one Hawaiian that has the slightest desire to attend a Luau. The food is mediocre, the entertainment is clich้, and by "traditional" they mean "traditional tourist show". Yet, this is what we all imagine the local culture to be like ... and every mega-resort is willing to help you live out this dream for $60 a plate (framed photos and alcoholic beverages extra).

It's quite simple: develop an image, create the tour package, print a glossy brochure, and mass-market it at an affordable rate. It's a financial model more than anything else. For most people this is a perfect way to travel and this mentality has given birth to all-inclusive resorts, ocean cruises, and places like Disney World. It's a very easy way for most people to travel; everything is taken care of for you, and all you need to do is consume it from the silver spoon with which they feed you.

I prefer to suck up the experiences from around me; looking for something new and out of the ordinary. Although, I admit, this isn't always possible. Sometimes it is not viable to take anything other than the beaten path. In some places there just aren't any other roads to choose; what you see in the brochure is often all a place has to offer. In many cases, postcards are a better bargain than actually going to a destination yourself. I hate to admit that, but it becomes more truthful every time I come across one of the so-called "postcard destinations."