The Lost Art of Staying Put | Hacker News Reader

The Lost Art of Staying Put

thebaffler.com

96 pointskawera77 comments

The first time my mother took me to Beijing, it was a mess. There were few streetlights, few shops that sold western amenities, yet I loved it. It was different. There was no Starbucks, yet every little alleyway there were stalls that sold dumplings to deep fried dough to stinky tofu.

Now, all the alleyways have been closed down. Starbucks, KFC, Macdonald's and other generic shops dot the landscape. Every major city now serves Starbucks styled over-roasted coffee along with obligatory Gucci, Toyota, and Apple shops.

It takes a lot of effort to really experience something different. Perhaps the author is right that it's about brownie points these days, but I'm an old school romantic and I still love that feeling of visiting a city or town that I've only heard before in books.

If I'm lucky, a place turns out to be better in real life than my dreams. No doubt there are real costs for mass travel and the impact is often negative. But that's the by product of a Nash equilibrium whereby I do want to see the world and all its wonders.

Kind of made me think of my first (and only, non-layover) visit to Beijing. Also ate food in the alleyways. This was only 8 years ago. It's sad that this experience is lost to time.

I did go to China again last year. Even in remote non-Beijing towns there's a Starbucks or two now.

What can we do against this globalized sameness? How can we uphold traditions in our own countries, to not let them succumb to these trite business models?

Encourage discomfort in travelling. It's a hard sell, especially for those who are "obligated" to travel.

Unfortunately most people want to go somewhere "exotic" and still have all the familiar comforts of home, but with a different backdrop.

Most people seem to forget that adventures are not meant to be comfortable. Otherwise, it's just a vacation.

Adventures? Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!

My guess is capitalism is the main driver of most of this "globalized sameness," in which case we could vote with our wallets. But I know from personal experience that's easier said than done.

The locals in those places _are_ voting with their wallets.

I suspect the voting machines are rigged.

> What can we do against this globalized sameness?

When you find something new and cool, keep it a secret.

Seek to preserve crypto-cultures, rather than earn cachet by promulgating them.

why not want to explore and experience more?

Because you are literally destroying what you supposedly cherish by visiting it.

Completely agree. It's a Nash equilibrium. If nobody visits, the destination stays the same. If only I visit, then the destination stays the same yet I derive immense enjoyment. If everyone visits, the place goes down the drain and everyone loses.

Well, even the most overrun places have some kind of invisible system which keep the tourists confined, even if it's unintentional. Sort of like that one version of Sonic the Hedgehog which was completely on rails and the player was never allowed to leave the prescribed path. There's literally a moat around Waikiki. Most people visiting a place foreign to them are already extending themselves beyond their comfort zone and tend not to leave the prescribed path, even if they're "out exploring". Having lived in some of these popular tourist destinations for most of my adult life, I've found that there seems to be a fairly common heuristic for leaving these areas and getting out into "the real world": Find a bar away from the main lines of public transportation and spend a couple of hours there meeting and talking to locals. It's like fishing, and having the right attitude is the bait. I travel pretty frequently and this works almost everywhere you can find a bar. The places I end up are completely devoid of tourists. And those are the places most likely to lack a McDonalds or Starbucks in favor of a local cafe or street vendor. I guess it really depends on what anybody wants out of the experience.

In Venice some time ago, we walked about ten minutes off one of the main streets, and largely had to ourselves Sta. Maria del Orto, which had been Tintoretto's parish church and has a number of his paintings. Meanwhile, the area around San Marco was jam-packed with tourist groups.

My city of 150,000 people is visited by millions of tourists every year. I never even see most of them since they all hang out at a very limited area and many are on guided tours just there for half a day. It's not really a problem.

If you haven’t, come visit Georgetown, Penang - I think you will like it. :)

I can’t sympathise enough with the author (Ms. Ellmann's) description of my home city - where she also lives - as a destination.

"Edinburgh, where I live, used to be a fine old mirthless town. Twenty-first century marketers have turned it into a fairground. Half the year the city’s few green spaces get trashed by Ferris Wheels, vomit, German Christmas markets, vomit, outdoor exhibitions and exhibitionists, vomit, coffee bars, beer tents, and ice-skating rinks.“

She captures the sentiment I’ve been mulling on recently: the city-as-theme-park. Once you take out the industry, possibly the finance (see Brexit) and nascent tech - what have you got left, apart from public sector? Is this a modern trend for our time? How many other cities around the world are increasingly dependent solely on travel and hospitality?

I recently left Edinburgh, to relocate to Finland. Reading that made made sad, although I can also completely see what she meant.

(I lived in Leith so most of the "stuff" there didn't affect me, except for all the tram-works, and the Mela/etc on Leith Links.)

What else is the world for? Cities, along with everything else, exist to satisfy human 1) needs 2) wants. With 1) getting increasingly cheap, most of the effort is being spent on 2).

Most people don't want these bullshit consumer funfairs though. It's just that the people with the money are somehow convinced to want them and that's why we get them.

I think that's the opposite of true. I think most of these consumer things succeed because people actually enjoy them, but articles like this pretend to hate anything popular/mainstream because that's the socially respectable thing to do.

I grew up in an area that catered to tourists and there was so much public spending put towards attractions for tourists that had no utility for locals while many useful services were neglected. I think this is a large part of the argument behind the article - that locals are losing out because the rich travelers need to be catered to - and I think it's a pretty legitimate one.

Yep. Because they’re ok-awesome in small doses, and that’s all anyone traveling will ever taste.

A lot! Post-industrialism is a huge problem. Most of Upstate NY is one ghost town after another punctuated by art studios and phoney-baloney tourist towns with a "pedestrian mall" which is just a bricked over main street with some landscaping added. All for the benefit of the massive state workforce, I guess. Anyone who can escape has escaped. Imagine my surprise on going back to visit my elderly parents after an 8 year hiatus only to find that absolutely nothing had changed! Nothing. That's not to say all of NY is like that, but I'm astounded at how very little economy there really is in that whole region. The mega-city has killed the rest of that political boundary, killed it dead.

It's sad what the US has become overall. We imagine sprawling futuristic cities and there's not a single one anywhere. Everywhere that isn't what I just described in some variation of bedroom community with endless strip malls and suburban blight and as you get closer to whatever city, then the urban blight takes over--mostly to do with trucking, warehouses, and so forth. There's little industry anywhere, just armies of people sitting behind computers while sipping coffee in climate-controlled offices. The 21st century is truly strange.

What's also truly strange is that it is nearly impossible to get "off the beaten path" anywhere on the east coast. The Eastern US is unending sprawl beginning somewhere near the Maine border all the way to Miami. You can still get away in the Northwest, Montana, and the Dakotas and maybe also down the center of "Flyover Country" but that's about it. Okay, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is sufficiently remote, too.

Living in Baltimore, I've found there is a great deal "off the beaten path". You need only look for it. And, having found it, don't put it on Instagram.

I came expecting a thoughtful how-to on squeezing more juice out of routine and boring-ness, what I got was an irate classist polemic that just didn't know when to end. It segued all-too gradually from amusing and clever rant to listening to that one uncle rave incoherently for hours about racist bullshit. I daresay he got paid by the word.

Now I know what a half-boiled frog feels like. I couldn't even finish it.

Classist?

Disgustingly so.

These lower middle-class dolts who scrimp and save to go on vacation are RUINING cities for REAL travelers like the author. These poor idiots don't even deserve to travel! Why can't they just learn their place and stay put?

I’m not sure we read the same article. I didn’t hear the author claim anybody should be traveling, including her. I read it as traveling ruins the things that you’re traveling to see, and that everyone should focus more effort on staying put. I didn’t catch any exceptions to those statements.

Unbelievably classist. Everyone who wants something different than the author does from travel must be snooty and incapable of appreciating 'real' travel.

I'd say she would rather one not travel at all.

You would think so, given the title but after all the polemic, she never seems to argue for it. Maybe it was just buried at the bottom of the rant.

If you know even one person who works for an airline, you can tell from the beginning that this article is just emotional mindless trash.

The author pines for the "good old days" of Edinburgh. Talk to anyone over 50 from Edinburgh. It wasn't great. It wasn't even nice. I mean, you're in Scotland. This was never the promised land. It's perhaps more plastic now, but the vomit was there already.

Travel is one of the most eye-opening, empathy-instilling, educational practices a human can muster. What the author is really railing against is mindless tourism, not travel. But they're too narrow-minded and angry to think past their blunderous miswording.

I am all in favor of limiting tourism, and virtually eliminating eco-tourism. But travel? Honest-to-god, mind-expanding, awe-inspiring, information-sharing, culture-trading, value-shifting travel? The world needs more of it now than ever. If I have to listen to another fucking nationalist prick talk about how their country needs to be more white and be more hostile to foreign nations and peoples, I'll puke.

If you want to save the planet, curbing plane rides is not the way. Every nation's pollution has different causes and solutions. And pulling back from technology is not going to help us - it would cause the death of countless millions that would have died years ago if their health wasn't extended by modern innovations. Being smarter about how we use and regulate it would be the best benefit.

For every tourist flying to Japan to see the cherry blossoms in spring, we should be instilling in them the need to get into the suburbs and have natto with a host family. Sitting there with their bowl of soy snot, silently contemplating how a city with no trash cans can be so clean, they might appreciate their own breakfast more, and begin to think that their world can change if they simply choose to. That's what travel can do.

Is travel not still for (almost exclusively) the wealthy? I haven't left my home state in over 10 years, due completely to lack of money.

No. I think Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is a good book for people who think this, unless your idea of travel is only to go to Paris and stay in a 5-star resort the whole time.

https://vagabonding.net/book/excerpt/

> For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need — we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory — a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

That's just my favorite part of the excerpt, not supporting evidence for my first sentence though. :)

Thanks, I'll check that book out... I've never been out of the country.

A lot of Europeans take some months (up to a year or more) to backpack across various regions and get service jobs in various countries for a month or 6 weeks while living at youth hostels. Lonely Planet press has books about this for various regions of the world.

When I (a USian) went backpacking across Tibet (being held up in Chengdu trying to even get to Tibet) and then Nepal with a friend of mine (also a USian) about 20 years ago, I met Tibetans (of course), Chinese (of course), a couple of Japanese, Australians and Canadians. But mostly British and continental Europeans. Call it 100~200 foreigners over about 6 weeks. Not. A. Single. American. Not one. [Yeah - I know: anecdote is not the singular of data]

Comparatively - Americans don't seem to get out much. In terms of global travel, I mean...

If I had to wager a guess, it would be due to international travel being a bit more difficult for Americans, what with large oceans between us and most the rest of the world.

That, and the fact that the continental US itself is larger than Europe. I feel like a lot of Europeans don't really realize how vast the USA really is.

> I feel like a lot of Europeans don't really realize how vast the USA really is.

That's true! And conversely - we (Americans) don't really "get" how compact all of Western Europe is.

A few years ago, I had a friend fly from Zurich to La Guardia (maybe JFK?), and when he landed he called me in Austin, Texas. He said: "I'll get a rental car now - and see you in several hours". I said: "No you won't."

I think that at least part of the problem is that, no matter how big the country is, you print the map on the same sized piece of paper. You make the GIF for the website the same size. This blows peoples' intuitive understanding of the magnitude of the size differences between countries.

I hadn't thought of that. I have noticed the Mercator projection leading people to think that Canada is larger than Africa, though...

Very true. I was amazed at the lack of undeveloped land in western Europe, being from the Midwestern USA where most of the land is open.

> Comparatively - Americans don't seem to get out much. In terms of global travel, I mean...

Probably has something to do with the generic distaste the rest of the world has for the US (going back more presidents than I've been alive for).

Of course, the US has a lot to offer me; before I plop down the cold hard cash to travel abroad. If I want to be frugal, or take my time, my own personal car will take me to the continual 48 (+1, technically with passport). I'll get to see more cultures than I'd like to admit, and even more varying landscape/climate. Plus all of my money works all over. It's ideal (to me).

That makes sense. Interests vary across individuals - and certainly some people have both less a taste for the exotic and less comfort visiting places where English might not be spoken than others.

And, traveling the US is great!

Quibble: there are no 5-star "resorts" in Paris, for the same reason there are no resorts in London or New York.

There are hotels, though.

It was supposed to be an obnoxious idea. A resort being a compound you don't even have to leave at all, its own amusement park.

Holy mother of god, man. Get a grip.

Depends on your definition of wealthy, and your location. In the UK and Europe there are a number of low cost airlines, and you can easily get flights to other European countries for under £100. Obviously it's a luxury and probably not something you could afford if you're on minimum wage and struggling to pay the rent, but easily affordable with an average income and a bit of planning.

Of course, things are different in the USA where travelling to any other country (aside from Canada or Mexico if you live near the borders) is going to cost hundreds of dollars for a flight. And I guess even leaving your state even has considerable costs in car fuel or coach/train journeys.

> And I guess even leaving your state even has considerable costs in car fuel or coach/train journeys.

This is slightly exaggerated. Most states aren't that big and this generic mentality only really applies to multiple state travel (like a road trip).

Hell, I live in a bordered city. It's shared between two states. Every day I drive between them. Work in one, live in another. This isn't an uncommon occurrence across the US. The only inconvenience of it is when tax time rolls around.

Not sure about 'wealthy' but, yes, the costs of travel are often understated.

From the UK perspective, plenty of people travel but it's relatively short distances compared to the US.

There's also a lot of cheap-skating going too; like travelling as a couple and refusing to pay for designated seating but expecting other people to move so you can sit together; extending luggage restrictions as far as can be possible (what we call in the UK, taking the p*ss) and so on...

So, in other words, folks travelling on a limited budget for the privilege of being able to bore all their friends and family afterwards with their tales of exciting adventure to places like Barcelona, and such.

I think the costs of travel are overstated. Most people I've met assume travel is out of reach unless they're wealthy.

Even the author suggests that Prague and Barcelona are the same, but one has a fraction of the cost of living a fraction of the other. For example, you'd save money flying to Prague and living there for a year.

Travel is expensive when people expect the same exact creature comforts and familiarities they have back home because that's what gives rise to the amusement park cities the article talks about.

But that's criticism of some travelers and marketing, not of travel in general. And that's where the article drops the ball hard.

I think we need more articles that fight against travel marketing, not articles that try to discourage travel at all. Most people already don't travel yet hold world views as if they do.

'For example, you'd save money flying to Prague and living there for a year.'

OK, sure, maybe I could but most people aren't able to work remotely so it would be out of the question.

It isn't now and has never been exclusively for the wealthy, of course having money will give you a lot more options to travel and it will make it easier. But if it was exclusively for the wealthy how would you explain gypsies traveling in my country (Mexico) and all around Latin America, how would you explain other groups like the anticapitalist hippies going from city to city, or just random young folks from all around the world who look for small jobs in every country. I'm giving you extreme examples, but I can give you my example too, I come from a developing country and I'm not wealthy at all, I have backpacked Europe with little money, CouchSurfing, getting cheap hostels and sometimes great airbnb deals, taking buses or trains at night (so I can travel and have a place to sleep at the same time), getting cheap tickets from kayak.com and other pages, etc, of course money helps a lot, but now that I think about it, not having a lot of money was part of the awesome experience.

Having had to work to help support my family since I was a teenager, I personally consider the ability to backpack across Europe with no money a Luxury in and of itself. I'd love to do that someday when my family are back on their feet.

It's a well written piece and very funny. I don't agree with the message though. Let's try to make travel cleaner rather than just decide to sit in one spot and not go anywhere. There's something about travelling from one place to another that humans enjoy, it's a journey. I'm back living in London, UK now for 6 years after having spent 10+ years in Canada and I do not need to own a car so I do not. However I miss cruising. It's just a joy driving and going from place to place in of itself.

I've been living as a nomad for the last seven years and had tons of experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. But I prefer to take my time and spend at least a month in each place I visit.

However I can also relate to the homogenization the article describes. Even Vietnam is starting to suffer from this generic urbanization. You can still find undiscovered places if you're willing to really get off the beaten path but a lot of these places are undiscovered for a reason.

I've been living in Saigon for 4 years. Even within this highly touristed city, you just need to venture 5 minutes outside of the city centre to see Vietnam as it really is.

I've spent time in 5-6 different cities and towns and for sure, if you stay on main street it's very generic, or sterile. Rent a bike, set out in a random direction for 20 minutes; you won't find any TripAdvisor listings but the local culture is alive and well.

Most people expect to land somewhere new and have the local lifestyle at their fingertips, but that's not what the beaten track optimises for.

And how about that airline food, huh? What’s with that?

Ahh, whatever happened to the lost art of "getting to the point." :-)

Way too long. Was this author on something? This reads like the rambling manifesto of a movie protagonist. We get it. You hate tourists. But check the mirror. I bet this guy has flown more places than most. It is the standard false sense of ownership, the tourist trying to keep all the other tourists away from 'his' favorite places.

Loved the writing, am guilty myself though.

Guilty too, but the writing was the main point to me:

"I’m not saying your seat is small, but if it were a haystack, you’d find the needle"

Really? I lost interest between a gratuitous comma and needless metaphor.

Yes, although I did notice a stray homophone(pedal/peddle) and a non-sensical sentence, I thought the writing was funny and original.

TL;DR: Travel today is more about scoring social points than being changed by the place you go. It's also a waste of fossil fuels and generally immoral. Solution, get more involved in a real way with the place you actually live.

I think I like the overall point, but I don't think it's 100% true. There are ways to travel that do produce a meaningful experience, it's just not comfortable. But the point that many people use excuses like service projects or leisure as a reason to fly 4000 miles strikes a chord that I've never really been able to put my finger on.

Thank you for the summary. I started reading but didn't have the time to finish it.

Another mode of travel doesn't seem to be accounted for: Travel for pleasure.

Not to score social points. Not for meaning. Just to relax and feel good for a week.

Weather can be a big factor. In the middle of five months of winter, daily snow, not seeing the sun in weeks, and working hard in an office every day, a week relaxing in the sun somewhere warm can be very beneficial - and not just in a trite or self-indulgent way. Seasonal mood disorders and work-related stress are real problems and time far away is a real solution.

Plus, if we're here to enjoy life, then self-indulgence is also one ingredient of a good life (accompanied by others). You don't have to be seeking "meaning" every moment of every day like a Terminator seeking his target.

I agree with you, live life, be happy. The point the author is making is that people aren't even doing it for the reason of pleasure. It's more a function of people fulfilling a fantasy that's been manufactured by society to make people feel as though they MUST travel, or they're boring and doing it wrong.

The wool over my eyes was pulled aside on this particular illusion a long time ago, thanks to a buddy taking me on a semi-spontaneous road trip for a few weeks (during one of my worst depressions) that ended with us living in another state we'd never been to. At one point we sold grilled cheese and veggie burritos at a less-than-formal festival to raise road funds and it was an amazing experience of connectedness with others. Most office workers looking for some time away would never even consider such a trip.

When you really drill down into the reasons for your average consumer behavior, a lot of it is being pushed around by weaponized stories without recognizing or being honest with ourselves about it. It's a multi-faceted problem, but is probably most obvious with 'vacationing' activity. Think about what the highest costs of a typical leisure trip are-- getting there/back, food, and lodging. Unless you have a really compelling reason to be there, it's hugely wasteful on those points alone.

Actually the bafflement set in a couple of paragraphs down. Did anyone else find this overdone?

My faith in the article's objectivity is called into question by the fact that it reports:

"An American Airlines flight attendant bullied a tired mother of twin babies over her stroller, and then readied himself to punch a passenger who rose to her defense."

Whereas the Guardian's account of what seems to be the same event is:

"Another passenger comes to her defence and threatens to punch the flight attendant, who in turn challenges the passenger to hit him."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/american-airli...

A couple weeks ago there were four people who were shot and killed in Boston that just so happened to be on the same day. NBC called is a "surge in gun violence" and you flip over to Fox and it's "four murders"

Nobody writes a story in a way that maximizes conflict with their personal opinions. No editor tweaks things to make a story less in line with the organization's stakeholders.

The narrative changes a lot based on who's writing the story. Whether you slant things intentionally or not or even at all is another story. I would not be surprised if the flight attendant and passenger got in a yelling match, threatened to punch each other and the people writing the articles just tilted things in favor of whichever side they favored based on their opinions and information available to them.

>based on their opinions and information available to them.

based on whether they got money from the airline ;)

I don't think the article was trying to be objective.

What an unpleasant individual

Rant of the year. Epic.

"The wealthy-and-mobile 20 percent are causing most of the environmental damage in the world."

I watched "There Will Be Blood" again recently, and it is such a powerful film to me because it is all about the onset of this relatively "free" energy era. It used to take more effort to go from A to B, so we carefully calculated our reasons to go.

Spot on. There's nothing quite like going to a very different place you've never been, though. I'm not sure how else to get that feeling without actually doing it.

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