vrijdag 4 september 2015

Why We Travel

Shortly after the start of my second year of the Honours college we received a list with possible summer school destinations. I saw Jordan (and the corresponding course) and signed up without a second thought. Now that I’m back in the safe confines of my home I start to wonder why I so eagerly picked Jordan. “The Jordanian weather!” seems an obvious answer during a Dutch summer downpour, but I like to think there was more to my decision.


Maybe it makes sense to first answer the question: “Why does anybody travel?”. This seemingly simple question hosts a wide array of different answers, depending on whom you ask. “It’s to escape the shackles of daily life!” says Turner. “It’s to find real experiences!” screams MacCannell. Who is right and who is wrong?


Of course, not every tourist hosts the same motivations. And this is exactly what Erik Cohen and later theorists after him realised: There is no one-size-fits-all explanation for tourism. We should therefore discard the notion of mass motivation, and focus on the individual. This makes the previously stated question on why we travel difficult if not impossible to answer: I can only answer why I travel.


To be honest, I don’t think my motivations correspond to both Turner’s and MacCannell’s explanation. I lack the stressful life to need an escape. Furthermore, if I did need an escape I probably would go to a luxurious resort in Belgium instead of the conflict-ridden Middle East. I am also too aware of the ‘fake’ (e.g. put on for tourists; more on that in another blog) experiences in Jordan to accept MacCannell’s theory.


No, I travel for the experience. Not to escape my daily life, but to make that life richer. Not to find experiences, but to create them. That is why I went to Jordan.




Reference: Edensor, Tim. Tourism. Elsevier, 2009.

2 opmerkingen:

  1. Deze reactie is verwijderd door de auteur.

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  2. I cannot read the text, it is too dark. Would you please change the colour or the wallpaper?

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