[17/30] Travel
I have a love-hate relationship with travel.
It let's me see how other people live, maybe learn a thing or two about the world outside mine. The best part is I get to cherry-pick the best bits and bring them into my life. It can be an idea or philosophy. It can also be small physical things.
Like these snack tongs from Disneyland Tokyo. Totally unnecessary, but offers a superior snacking experience to chopsticks. Now, I don't have to worry about chopsticks rolling off the table.
But what I love most is the perspective. My brain gets so caught up in planning and navigating that work completely disappears. And when I come back, I often feel rested, like my sense of wonder has been reset. Something about being yanked out of my normal environment that resets my way of thinking. When I come back, the world feels bigger.
Now, the bad part.
For one, travel is no cure of the mind, some people use it as an escape, thinking it’ll fix their problems. I see this a lot with friends and other people but I am glad to enjoy my daily life that I don't think that way. To me, travel is a hassle, but a necessary one. It's a break and a way to experience something new.
But my real gripe is that social media has ruined travel for me.
I don’t know what travel even means anymore. Anywhere remotely interesting has already been covered to death by influencers. It’s not that I hate them. It’s just that when enough of them show up, the place changes. It stops offering culture and starts offering the appearance of culture.
Everything’s staged. Everything’s for “the gram.” Everything is too perfect, it's like porn, it doesn't feel like the real thing. It's no longer about going there and exploring, it's about being seen exploring there.
The algorithm encourages this too. Search "things to do in Korea" and your feed becomes a fire-hose of influencers and "must see places in Korea". Before you've even left home, you know exactly what you'll see, eat and do.
The solution for me is to limit my research.
The internet is still the best way to plan a trip, so I can’t avoid it entirely nor do I want to. I still Google places and itineraries. I still use YouTube and Reddit. But I do it all in Incognito, and once I have a rough plan, I stop.
No more scrolling. No more browsing. I will talk to friends and see if they have recommendations but that's it.
I want to remain in the dark. It's like avoiding spoilers for a movie. I want to give myself the chance to be curious. To get lost. To explore without knowing exactly what to expect. Maybe I'll see the same thing as the influencers but at least no one would be narrating it. I'll be experiencing it myself.
I also hate how algorithm makes you feel like you missed out. Titles like "must see places in Tokyo" or "10 hidden gems you likely missed out in China" make it feel like I did something wrong just because I didn’t follow someone else’s itinerary.
To me, real travel is when I get to learn something on my own and to get a break from the usual environment. Not just follow what the internet tells me to do.