Traveling is harmful to certain communities and I can't…
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Traveling is harmful to certain communities and I can't see it the same way anymore
I just want to write my considerations about traveling. This will be a long post, so I'm sorry. I've been traveling more and, as I do this, I've been to a few non-touristy places. The people I went to seemed completely unaware of what a non-touristy city is like. We went to a famous commercial street and they were expecting loads of souvenir shops. They literally said: oh ok, it's clothing stores and other things. People really are just completely detached from nontouristy, local historic centers, right?
As someone from a country that has been booming in tourism (Portugal), tourism is highly destructive. It's completely removing the identity from the major cities and leading to patrimony destruction (in Lisbon vendors were striping out tiles from historic buildings to sell them to tourists. In Porto, the guy who owns lelo library illegally destroyed a historic place, he took out the ceiling painting, but destroyed the rest). As a local I cannot go eat in the center because it's not made for my salary. Local businesses are shutting down. Old people who still lived in the centers of Lisbon and Porto are being pushed out of their houses for Airbnbs. Souvenir stores are spreading everywhere.
I feel like I only came into realization of what the tourism industry had become when I went to Prague. Prague 1 and some parts of 2 felt like a complete Disneyland, and you see not a single local. Meanwhile, there's men yelling and drinking on the streets. After this trip, I can no longer see traveling the same way because I know I am part of the issue. More than that, I don't like just consuming from a city, and never truly understanding the culture (because that requires quite some time). The issue is that tourism is now an industry and it completely devoids a city of its original culture in the center (look at Barcelona).
What do you think about this? Do you try to reduce your impact in the cities you travel to?
#travel
source
I just want to write my considerations about traveling. This will be a long post, so I'm sorry. I've been traveling more and, as I do this, I've been to a few non-touristy places. The people I went to seemed completely unaware of what a non-touristy city is like. We went to a famous commercial street and they were expecting loads of souvenir shops. They literally said: oh ok, it's clothing stores and other things. People really are just completely detached from nontouristy, local historic centers, right?
As someone from a country that has been booming in tourism (Portugal), tourism is highly destructive. It's completely removing the identity from the major cities and leading to patrimony destruction (in Lisbon vendors were striping out tiles from historic buildings to sell them to tourists. In Porto, the guy who owns lelo library illegally destroyed a historic place, he took out the ceiling painting, but destroyed the rest). As a local I cannot go eat in the center because it's not made for my salary. Local businesses are shutting down. Old people who still lived in the centers of Lisbon and Porto are being pushed out of their houses for Airbnbs. Souvenir stores are spreading everywhere.
I feel like I only came into realization of what the tourism industry had become when I went to Prague. Prague 1 and some parts of 2 felt like a complete Disneyland, and you see not a single local. Meanwhile, there's men yelling and drinking on the streets. After this trip, I can no longer see traveling the same way because I know I am part of the issue. More than that, I don't like just consuming from a city, and never truly understanding the culture (because that requires quite some time). The issue is that tourism is now an industry and it completely devoids a city of its original culture in the center (look at Barcelona).
What do you think about this? Do you try to reduce your impact in the cities you travel to?
#travel
source
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