Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The New Tourist” Waking Up to the Power and Perils of Travel
By: Paige McClanahan
Narrated By: Paige McClanahan
Paige McClanahan (Author, journalist, world traveler.)
“The New Tourist” offers a mixed message about travel outside of one’s own country. As a journalist, paid for her travel, Paige McClanahan explains the power and peril of travel in a way that misses the point. She explains the power of travel as an economic benefit to travel writers and countries which travelers visit. One peril she notes is the destruction from tourists who damage pristine natural environments because citizens of a host country are often not accustomed to crowds of travelers. One who travels and writes of their adventures encourages travel to exotic places that may or may not be prepared for high tourist traffic. Unpreparedness is partly due to host countries interest in the economic benefit of tourist visits but are disinclined to spend potential profits on preparation for high tourist traffic that may not arrive.
Like the Maui wildfires in 2o23, better Hawaiian’ preparation may have saved 102 lives and the beautiful town of Lahaina.
Ironically, travel writers like McClanahan are partly to blame for writing of great travel experiences they have had as tourists. They make a living by writing about their travels around the world.
What McClanahan misses in her book, is the great benefit of traveling to learn about other cultures.
From personal experience, I have been surprised by natives of other countries who know so much about life and what their personal experiences have meant to them. In Africa, a native guide explains the night sky in a way that reminds one of a college astronomy course. In the former Yugoslavia, an older person explains how much she misses Tito as the ruler of her country. Visiting Turkey’s Cappadocia, one visits an underground “city” meant to protect Christians from people of another faith. In China, the incident of Tiananmen Square is told by a young man in a way that makes one understand authoritarianism carries a threat. In India, one is overwhelmed by the gap between the rich and poor, the monuments of a great nation’s antiquity, and the remnants of British colonization. In Thailand, you find there are citizens who admire their king, others that revile the army that is running the country, and youth that want change. A traveler learns of the killing fields of Cambodia and the mine fields left behind by America and Vietnam as a reminder of America’s folly in believing the lie of falling dominoes. These are a few examples of what can be learned by travel to other countries.
McClanahan briefly alludes to some of cultural benefits of travel, but her book focuses more on travels’ economic benefits for writers and host countries.
Understanding our place in the world as a democratic nation is the real value of travel.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 