Nouveau Travellers

It sounds totally snobbish and snooty and politically incorrect and historically erroneous, but I will say this.

All this mass mania shouting ‘be adventurous.. be a traveller and not a tourist’ has totally put me off travel.

Because now everyone has decided to be a cool, authentic traveller and to visit ‘craaazzyy’ places nobody has heard of, although the same place is swarming with the similarly ‘authentic’ travellers, who have rushed there in their cool groups after reading about ‘the place to be in’ in newspaper/magazine/ blog/ Lonely Planet’s crappy Indian version.

The problem, which sounds little elitist, I have with this mass enthusiasm for ‘ authentic travel’ is this.

9 out of 10 times, and I say it with some first hand experience, the people who try to be authentic travellers are as cool as Levis low waist jeans. Mass produced, commercialised, lacking any originality and flaunting wannabe ness all around their new-found travelling freedom .

The platforms which urge everyone to discover their inner Heinrich Harrer might be genuine, might be commercially motivated or might be just plain ole tour operators gone savvy with times.

What they do, invariably, is pimp out the experiences of travellers who have genuinely ( remember that word?) found that tiny cafe because they were thirsty, tumbled across that bookshop because they read about it in a book, spent weeks on the beach when they lost their way on road, visited that ruined chapel because they are curious about the frescos.

All these experiences are dished out as ‘the thing to do’. People are constantly told to be crazy, to be cool, to be spontaneous. Anyone would want to bury their head under the sand by this bombardment.

But these 9 out of 10 people go to that tiny cafe and mill in the bookshop and chapel because that is what these platforms extol as the ‘authentic travel experience’. These are the nouveau rich people too cool to do ‘Europe in 7 Days’ but not genuinely invested enough to discover and take risks themselves.

I have noticed as upsweep of these wannabe authentics- puffing up their chests and whining about their city lives and bringing their competitive big city slicker attitude to places which they would haven’t even looked at, had it not been the ‘cool authentic fad’.

They then breezily pour their experiences on social media or travel accounts, characterised by ornamental writing, a tendency to put coolness above genuine experience and ironic emulation of firangs.

Most glaring and most annoying aspect of this writing is the very self-conscious coolness soaking every word, like MTV VJs, these ‘travellers’ want the world to acknowledge their absolute ‘I DON’T CARE AND I AM A DUDE’ ness from the first word.

Many of them project themselves as ‘dying to have that existential experience while travelling’ (so what if they support Modi when they are back and would die to fit in with the bosses clique).

They have made the whole genuine travelling bug such a cliché. And have crowded some of the best places which were limited to really genuine travellers. You know, the kind who are quiet and mingle in their surroundings without standing out like sore thumbs. Those who never rush to google locate themselves and put a self-important status update before their bum settles down in a place. Those who like to keep these finds to themselves and not look at travel as replacement for showing off your diamonds in cousin’s flashy wedding.

9 out of 10 people, yes you who rush to backpack around the world, couch serf , have to have to bungee jump, have to eat Rajma Chawal in the cave in Arunachal, have to sip the Chianti in the tiny Florence cafe- please back off all this bastardisation.

If you truly enjoy what you do, refrain from making it into a silly fad. Have fun because you like it, because you are surprised by it, not because you know it is the cool thing to do according to Lonely Planet.

And keep quiet while you are at it, will you??