The Difficulties of Being a Tourist

It is only Friday, but I am already sitting down to write my blogpost. I just got back from the airport from my trip to Istanbul. I had a lovely week there, running around the not-yet-overcrowded sights and eating tasty local food. However, I have finished the vacation with a bit of a bitter feeling, and that is what I want to discuss here.

Having Money

For the first time in my life, I am a working man. I can spend a lot less time worrying about money and a lot more time enjoying it. Especially with the buying power of Swiss Franc compared to the Turkish Lira. Being able to afford food without caring too much for the price (avoiding posh places ofc) has been a massive improvement to the traveling experience. This also goes for most attractions (though Turkey’s landmarks have very unfriendly policy towards foreigners, making them pay 5x more than locals).

However, spending money makes me realize that the only reason virtually anyone talks to you during your vacation at all is exactly the fact that you have money. Walking on the street, your credit card becomes what everybody hunts for. You get called into restaurants all the time, offered things on the street to taste. Get lured into shops, or even handed items that you have to later pay for. Moreover, with my blond hair it takes the locals no time to spot I am a tourist, and they happily overcharge me even in small shops on the street, with their eyes just checking how much I am willing to cash out. To them, I am just a walking credit card. Nothing more.

I can think to at least 5 specific instances of very aggressive behavior, including handing a bill for something I never asked for, paying 4x the amount for a bottle of water, and being asked my nationality in order to sell me something. Especially bitter was the final experience, where taxi to the airport overcharged us extra 10 bucks than what the taximeter was saying. When trying to argue, I was told there was an extra fee, and the driver was not ready to talk to me any further. I am so happy that 10 euro mattered to me too little for me to continue the conversation and I rather moved onto catching the airplane. It felt all very dishonest, especially when you are asked to leave a rating online afterwards after such experiences. Istanbul’s restaurants – even the most shitty places – boast themselves with near 5-star ratings, making the whole system of ratings pretty much useless. Same goes for taxi driver’s, my guy had 4.8 rating on Uber, while running on the city centre-airport connection and speaking not a single word in English.

Society Development

You know what, I am just a visitor, I am gone again a short time, so why do I care?

When I walk around cities like Istanbul, I cannot stop comparing it to other cities, like Zurich, where I live at the moment. Zurich feels a lot more safe, organized, cleaner and calmer. And I do not want to say that one place is better than the other, but looking at the wires sticking out of the buildings and the badly maintained roads in Istanbul I would argue that some things could be improved. And I would describe myself as a huge fan of Turkey, so I would love the country to get better, richer and more safe. And I am willing to pay for it in tourist taxes and prices of services and goods that I consume while I am there.

However, I think that scamming tourists is just harvesting the low hanging fruit, and not creating a long-term sustainable economy. Yes, it does work, yes, you generate money. But I do think the smart and diligent people of Turkey could spend their time better, invest in their own infrastructure and develop services of high value, instead of ferociously negotiating 200 TRY mark up on your baklava order.

My favorite example of not solving a real problem, but making money off of it is this man selling water to people in the taxi traffic jam in the tourist area. This road has traffic jams every day, so why not make the people that wait in the taxis pay for the water they could have gotten otherwise if they already were at their final destination?

What really triggers me is that I do not know what to do about this. I do not know any other way to be a tourist. I would like to spend my money on local business with sustainable plans for the future, but I do not even know how to find them. The good will is there, but the means are missing. If I could, I would rather donate 10 EUR to the public transport office of Istanbul to improve the conditions of the place rather than cheap trinket sellers and vendors of fake Prada apparel. How can I teach a man how to fish to feed him for life, when I keep giving him fish and feeding him for a day?

Volunteering

So as we just established, it is tough to talk to anybody while being a tourist without having to pay them. This is given that you have money. That has not been a given for me for the past 24 years of my life, so I had to find a different way to travel around. The answer for me has been volunteering. I have volunteered in Turkey, Spain, France, Germany and twice back in Czechia, different causes ranging from heritage restoration to helping out camp for disabled children. Why not just go back to that? These projects usually fund (a part of) your travel, accomodation and food expenses. Well, usually there is a small fee attached to the project, for registration and running the admin around the volunteer work. This is fine, however, it indicates something: you are actually not creating something of value to the community, you are the one extracting the value from the community. You are the client. Most of the people that come as tourist to volunteer, are there for the experience, for getting to know people, for parties and for a CV boost (having done volunteering sounds really good for certain roles and college applications, in some degrees it is even mandatory). This is simply because it is near impossible to contribute meaningfully to the local economy in the location which you know nothing about, you do not know the language of and in a craft you are just learning. This work is best done by local laborers.

Anecdote to support this: while on archeology camp in Galicia (Spain), we had to cut down some trees. We were told that due to the architectural site protection, this is best done with man-held axes and saws, not chainsaws. This causes less polution, and can also be done without safety risks. We have internalized that, and worked hard the whole day cutting down invasive species of trees which are destroying an archeological site. Until we have encountered a problem. One of the trees that we cut down got stuck on a bigger tree, which was too big for us to cut down. The smaller tree was posing a danger to us and the archeologists, as a gust of wind could make it fall down and cause damage and maybe even hurt somebody. At the end of the day, local forest worker came with a chainsaw, took the tree down, and while he was in it, he took down 10 more trees. He also chopped them up, such that they could be loaded onto a truck and removed from the site. That is more than the whole group of 16 volunteers, who flew in from around the world, could achieve in a day.

As you can see, if the project contribution money was spent on the local qualified workers, we could have achieved a lot more towards the actual goal. I totally admit there are other effects of organizing this camp, such as cultural exchange. However, do the benefits really outweigh how ineffective it is? Why is it advertised as volunteering activity anyway? It is certainly a more sustainable way to be a tourist, you connect with the locals, but for sure not an efficient way to move the world forward. Volunteering is more like a feel-good product sold to rich people who end up paying hundreds of euros (e.g. on this site) to be able to pretend that they have done anything useful. Sad. Very sad.

Future Vacation Ideas

Takeaways? What shall we do about this? It has been a rather depressing blog: I spent my time and money, but did I get anything out? I think you can feel that I am not satisfied. I spent some time thinking about this, and I came up with better ideas on how to spend my free time and money in the future. Here they are…

1. Fully disconnect: I get easily overwhelmed, and I think a good idea is a vacation where I can go fully offline. I do not have to look up where I go, and what I am doing. Fully disconnect from the internet and give my brain a break. Do some dopamine detoxication. Maybe spend some time in silence.

2. Travel intentionally.: Travel for a language course, a conference, concert or a pilgrimage. Travel with a very specific goal in mind, with an intention. If expenses are made along the way, so be it, but at least it is not time wasted. There was a bigger goal behind it, a passion or a legacy.

3. Spend time with family.: Go back home, and just relax with my family. Being a working man, time is getting more and more precious. Same with friends that I have made around the globe. You get accomodation for free, and you are warmly welcomed in the place where you arrive. One down side, you have to adjust to their timetables, and they might not be able to take much time off just for you.

4. Do not take vacation.: I count myself lucky, I actually really LOVE my current work, and I was really sad not to be in the weekly meetings and kept in the loop with the recent developments. If that is the case, then why take vacation at all? Just keep working and be happy.

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I hope you liked this post. Let me know if this resonated with you at least the slightest. I will be super happy to discuss in detail with you!