Tourism and Pilgrimage
The current Christian Century has a nifty interview with travel maven Rick Steves in support of his new book, Travel as a Political Act. Along the way, he’s asked about the distinction between tourism and pilgrimage. He describes travel as like pilgrimage:
“The system encourages you to be a tourist, because the system is an economic engine. You are led to believe that you need to be a consumer, that you need a fancy hotel, that you need to take a fancy tour. You will go home having done some predictable things—just what the advertising told you would happen.
–snip–
You could go to Africa and take in all the finest golf courses and come home having learned nothing. Or you could go to Africa and drink tea with local people, help them out in different ways and gain empathy for them. You’d come home changed. That’s being a traveler. Travelers and pilgrims are people who are connecting, learning, challenging themselves and not doing what’s predictable.”
In the rest of the piece, he reminds us of Jesus’ option for the poor and the need to see how social structures reinforce injustice, and he chides American Christians for our ethnocentrism. In sum, well, Steves sounds like a devoted Lutheran deeply in synch with Catholic Social Teaching. Let’s hear it for justice-ecumenism!
But back to pilgrimage. Have you traveled (in Steves’ sense)? Were you a pilgrim? What made that happen for you?
The irony is that Rick Steves is the Bete Noir of many who consider themselves “real” travelers and journeyers. Their claim is that he dumbs down the travel experience, that his recommendations actually encourage more travel on the well-trodden path, and that one can always tell that a restaurant in a foreign land is bad by the number of diners sitting with their Rick Steves guide on the table.
Everywhere Steves goes he is accompanied by cameras and local translators and tour guides and yet he still claims to be a “true” traveler, as opposed to a tourist. I don’t advocate sticking to the tried and true tourist path by any means, but in many places there are issues of accessibility, not to mention safety, that make it difficult to do what Steves recommends. And even if one manages to get off the beaten track, it is hubris not to think of one’s self as a tourist, no matter how many cups of tea one has with the locals.
My wife and I used to refer to Rick Steves as “Johnson” and his readers as “Johnsonites” so we could talk about them in public. I remember running into a very unhappy family of Johnsonites in Paris once. They were on a six week long trip and the husband was doing it totally by the Johnson book. They all had identically sized and weighted knapsacks and they were not allowed to buy anything lest they exceed the specifications. The husband had a master checklist and if something wasn’t on the list, they didn’t go there. But not only that. If Johnson said that it was a good idea to enter the Louvre through the subway entrance, that was the way they did it. By the time I met them, they had been traveling four weeks. One of the children refused to leave her bed to come to breakfast. The mother looked at the husband with sullen and miserable hatred as he outlined what they were going to do that day. A son and daughter pouted at the table. They all made me feel like such a traveler.
But I don’t get the impression that Rick Steve himself is this kind of traveler. Maybe we need to await the memoir?
This reminds me of something I read in one of Paul Fussell’s travel anthologies years ago. He distinguished between three kinds of people: explorers, travelers, and tourists. In general, it seemed that when visiting the natives, if you have to bring a gun, you are an explorer; if you have to bring a map, you are a traveler; and if you have to bring a reservation, you are a tourist. Or something like that.
I do remember that he also said that these definitions were somewhat fluid. Remarking on an incident where he once dropped his wallet down a very nasty Turkish toilet, he said that the person who dropped the wallet into the toilet was a tourist. But the person who reached arm deep in the muck to get it out was a traveler.
A charming interview with a charming man. Thanks for the link.
I used to think Rick was Jewish, because of the visits to synagogues he included in his shows, with reverent and knowledgable commentary. Then, I realized he was Lutheran. (He may have said so.) His visit to a Lutheran church in Denmark (I think) was great.
I suggest that people don’t blame their less-than-ideal travel experiences on reading Rick Steves’ book. Rather, how about looking in the mirror and think about a lack of common sense, imagination and treating his guidebooks as suggestions rather than Holy Writ?
I’ve taken his books on trips, primarily as a source of suggestions, and was perfectly willing to pick and choose what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do.
Being a cafeteria traveler/tourist/pilgrim (whatever word makes you feel good and smug) is the way to go.
It’a a vacation fercryingout loud, folks — not necessarily an earth-shaking moment that will change your life forever. If it does, great. If it doesn’t there is not need for sack cloth and ashes.
Ugh – Checklist and such are not our bag. When we travel, for better or worse we usually wing it. Whether driving around California, or half-way across the US (which we did last year), or travelling in the Chile-Uruguay-Argentina regions of Latin America, we usually try to take it easy and go with the flow.
Once we arrive in Chile, of course we always travel via taxi or bus or train. When we drove from California to South Dakota, we packed up and headed out with just the luggage, money, map and a general idea of how to get to our destination; found motels each evening along the way. When practical, we stayed with family in various towns in the area. We do likewise in Chile; my wife has relatives in Santiago, up north, and along the coast.
The Latin American taxi-bus-train routine is a bit more effort but certainly is not the end of the world. One day we might buy a small car to keep down there, but for now the local public transport works best.
I imagine we could see more if we were more organized, but one needs to enjoy the trip, and siestas are nice sometimes too. When travelling, it is good to be flexible and not sweat all the details. Also, in my opinion, getting to know and the locals a bit and gleaning some understanding of their ways is important, worth the time spent.
I agree with Jimmy Mac. I’ve used Steves’ book also, picking and choosing from a number of his sensible suggestions. My 19-year old son traveled Europe with some of his friends for 6 weeks last summer, doing as much as possible on the cheap–staying at hostels, sleeping on trains for overnight travel instead of using planes, bicycling and walking as much as possible to see sites, etc. I gave him a copy of Steves’ book to take along, and he took it somewhat begrudgingly, but he thanked me after he got home for the cost-saving advice he and his friends were able to use at times.
I saw a PBS show last year that detailed how Steves prepares and films his shows. His crew comprises three people: He does all the writing, he has one camera person, and there is another individual who handles everything else. They’ve been together for years, and they film quickly and in a manner that I thought was generally unobtrusive. There are times, however, when he gets special treatment–e.g., when he was given about half a day to film da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” On the whole, however, I thought his production of the travel episode highlighted on the making-of show left a rather small footprint.
I was utterly convince that Steves was Irish. He even seemed to have an Irish accent. I am, as they say, humbled.
Contemplative Outreach is a foundation which promotes lectio divina and Centering Prayer. It was started by Fr. Thomas Keating, the great Trappist teacher. Its internet site offers information (including info about books, tapes, whole lectures by Fr. Keating and others, support group information for both lectio divina and Centering Prayaer. Wikipedia has information on both contemplative practices.
For lectio divina go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=Special%3ASearch&redirs=0&search=lectioo+divina&fulltext=Search&ns0=1
Fr. Keating says that lectio divina is highly popular with Bible reading Protestants — they have been doing it without calling it by a latin name. The site above includes a URL for the United Church of Christ’s lectio divina page. This could get very ecumenical :-)
The Centering Prayer page is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centering_prayer
Some people are suspicious of it as being Zenn-like, and it is different from ordinary Christian practices. But it goes back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and many find it particularly good for people these days.
Lent is a good time to start one of these ancient practices. It is suggested that you do lectio for an hour a day, CP for a minimum of 20 minutes. Yes, these are for the laity too, and that’s you! (I’m a pusher.)