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I remember the '80s and people showing you projector slides of their vacations, or picture albums. In the 00s, I recall a friend who made videos of his vacations to make this faster and more bearable :)

Social media is problematic but documenting your vacations and showing it to other people has always been part of traveling.

Notably, Chinese tourists have been notorious in Asia for decades (long before social media) for travel being very focused on, ahem, performative status seeking. It’s a big part of why counterfeit goods are such a big deal.

The ‘sweet smile in front of the camera, obsessive competitive behavior when no one is looking’ is a huge thing culturally.

René Girard's theories on mimetic desire come to mind, even though I sometimes thing his thought was not as universal as some assume.

Maybe he was just describing a sickness of self-domesticated humans, or even Neoteny (babies need attention more...) finding a way to evolutionary adaptation but with large side-effects and massive selective wastage.

Or maybe resource constraints and competitive pressure within some societies make it a rational strategy to accumulate pictures of a 3 weeks' restful holiday in a one-week selfie-stick scramble.

> hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus

In the early 90s in my region in southern europe we'd joke that the only Chinese tourists you'd see would be referred to as "5min for photo". They always only needed 5mins to get out with camera, snap pics, get back in. This is not a new phenomenon.

I really doubt there were any Chinese tourists outside China in the early 90s, they didn't (yet) have the purchasing power to travel to Europe, seems you are confusing them with Japanese, who were known for this behaviour

I really didn't know about Polarsteps. It's been a while since my last long journey. I used to select some pictures when I got back home and upload them to both my website and Facebook (the only time in the year I still used FB.) I also sent a few pictures to some friends of mine on WhatsApp when I was still travelling.

Yeah we do that too, does take a bit of the fun out of that moment where you sit down with your family and show them your trip, they already say it all haha. I'm really old right?

You are not, they probably like to see the pictures earlier and when they have the time to watch them. If you gather the family and friends in a room to watch your pictures (and they will reciprocate) not everybody in that room is happy to spend that time in that way.

Polarsteps? Your what now?

Maybe it's a local thing :)

"Polarsteps is a popular travel planning, tracking, and sharing app that automatically plots your route on an interactive world map using your phone's GPS. It functions as a digital travel diary where you can add photos, videos, and stories, letting family and friends follow your journeys in real time."

for people like me who dunno about this secret, seems basically like Travelblog.org with few extra features

> article about how traveling nowadays needs to be documented and is about experience as much as your feeds... I... felt old.

this has nothing to do with nowadays really, people were documenting their travelling and sharing it with family/friends since invention of camera, personally I take photos to serve as my memory, not really to share them, I may share them through whatsapp private chats with my parents and maybe 1-2 friends who could find them interesting, in past I've had travel blog/diary as well, but certainly didn't visit any place or take any photo for my readers

> I often saw hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus.

Japanese were doing this decades ago before Chinese, it's just that Chinese now have money (unlike Japanese who can less and less aford to travel abroad) and there is lot of them, so they just replaced Japanese doing this superfast photo tours (at least in Europe)

> I also visited food-markets and saw food stalls with large lines of people, where as some had hardly any people waiting, I ask: Why this stall? "It's popular on Chinese social media"... One by one they snapped a pic as the cook made their meal, and waited for >30 mins to do so.

again, nothing new, Lonely Planet guidebooks had same effect in past and for me they were pretty good list of places to avoid for accommodation/food

> Wow 5 weeks in Malaysia, you could have done Thailand, Vietnam, etc, etc as well!" Well yeah but I like to take some days to explore and not rush and get to know a nice restaurant and eat there again and rent a scooter or bike and drive around a bit.

5 weeks for mainland Malaysia is really a bit much, KL needs few days to city sightseeing and enjoy food, cameron highlands few days to do hiking, penang again few days to enjoy food, history and hiking, perhentian islands few days to snorkell and enjoy beach and you cover pretty much everything without repeating same stuff, <2 weeks in very very laidback pace for these 4 locations considering Malaysia is compact and there are cheap/fast air tickets/buses, I also don't like to rush, but not everyone has months long vacation or gap year to travel so people wanna see as many places as possible, so I can understand them, I spent travelling around SEA around year, but still can't imagine spending 5 weeks in row in Malaysia or basically any other country besides China (not in SEA, but neighbor), I would get bored

We visited Borneo (10 days) as well. But still we didn't even do mainland east coast yet, nor south islands, so getting bored while hopping around a country for 5 weeks makes me question what you do when you're not traveling...

(Btw, the trip was: KL -> Kuala Kubu Bahru -> Taman Negara -> Cameron Highlands -> Penang (GeorgeTown and then the west of the island) -> south Borneo - Kuching (stayed at 2 national parks, Permai and Bako) -> North Borneo - near Sandakan (see Uran Utangs/Sunbears) -> Kinibatagan River -> Jungle near Seremban -> via KL to Pankhor island -> back to KL. For some parts we rented a car and had many nice experiences along the road. Bored? Not so much. I want to go back for the things we skipped and other travelers were enthusiastic about.)

seem you missed my point:

"and you cover pretty much everything without repeating same stuff"

you can see only so many "different" (as they say in TH SSBD) temples/mosques, beaches, jungles within same country especially if you are on tight time schedule, that's why I understand someone picking one beach destination, one food destination, one historical destination, one hiking/jungle destination and rather try each of these in two different countries rather than trying 3 of each within same country, if someone has limited time

btw. if by Pankhor you mean Pangkor island it's pretty bad quality by Malayisan standards (been there to my disapointment while having too much time and visiting less touristy places in MY), east coast has far superior quality, there is reason why people never heard about Pangkor rather than Perhentian islands or Langkawi or Tioman

and I forgot in my main MY destinations Melaka, I've been obviously to more (forgetable) Malaysian places which is why I understand why someone choose only few, same as I've been to some islands most of the people visiting Thailand never heard of (e.g. Ko Jum, Ko Chang (west coast)), but there is usually good reason why people never heard of them

If by Pankgor you mean Pangkor ;) then we only picked it because it was a drive away from KL. Indeed we got the impression that east coast + perhentian islands were something we missed. Ah well there are constraints in every journey, and you learn while traveling (another argument for going longer, or coming back ;)).

Overall Thailand is still my fav (with pearls like Koh Samet and Koh Phi Phi, we also had a wonderful time in Khoa Sok national park. But back then we skipped the entire north, and still felt like 1 month was too little), Vietnam had filthy beaches and generally a less good vibe, but we skipped the north there as well, that was probably a mistake. But I loved the food and people of Malaysia, most relaxed trip so far, just the kindest of people everywhere.

Malaysia is SEA Lite, it's basically West (at least the mainland part, never been to Borneo) compared to rest of the SEA

yeah, one of the most memorable experiences from my numerous stays in Thailand was doing multi-day Mae Hong Son loop on motorbike (it was really old semi-auto Yamaha or Honda, like 70s or 80s), highly recommended, Pai area is amazing, Chiang Mai is also interesting place, can't say same about the other two Mae, also Kanchanaburi area is one of my favorite places in TH where I've been numerous times and my personal favorite island is Ko Phangan, spent there few weeks on many ocassions (never been interested in FMP though)

agree with Vietnam, not very friendly country, didn't do much in north besides Hanoi (OK), Ninh Binh (great for motorbiking, though worse than Yangshuo in China or Vang Vieng in Laos), Halong Bay is nice but way too touristy, NB was nice empty

some people find it blasphemy - but I would say Malaysian cuisine (great mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese cuisine) is the best in SEA (especially in Penang) even compared to Thai, filipino probably the worst, might as well eat food at home in Europe (though their cakes in small bakeries in every street are great), Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos about same meh

by my experience higher the elevation, friendlier the people (same appliest to basically every SEA country I visited), the kindest/friendliest people I've met anywhere in SEA were in Dieng Plateau, but if I had to pick up the country Philipines would be by far nr. 1 in friendliness, Malaysia would be nr. 2 I guess, Vietnam would be on the opposite end, Thai people (at least in contact with tourists) are usually very fake, though I've had also many nice interactions with them (usually when no money is involved)