Traveller or Tourist?

 I am going to Peru. It's been on my bucket list since before I knew what a bucket list was. I'm pretty excited.

Someone made a comment along the lines of "We will be travellers, not tourists." And I really wanted to say something, but we are meeting in Lima as a group, and we'll be travelling a lot of the time together, so I certainly don't want to alienate myself from the group already. But this is my take on that sentence:

"Are you a traveller or a tourist?" I just don't buy into this argument. I think those words are  a distinction used by pretentious people to make themselves seem superior to others. As far as the locals of anywhere are concerned, it doesn't matter how long you have been on the road or what your mindset is, if you're not local....you're a tourist.

The definition of tourist is "Someone who travels for pleasure". The definition of traveller is "A person who changes location.". Same thing in the long run.

When you arrive somewhere, you are a tourist, no matter how long it took you to get there, or how you got there. Everyone has the right to arrive at their destination as they wish...be it by helicopter or chicken bus.

Staying in a cheap hostel, drinking local beer on the roof at night and eating local food from a street vendor with other people, be they local or from another place, does not make you any less a tourist...you are still someone visiting from another country. If your pillow is in a hut in a back alley or in a Hilton Hotel, you are still a tourist.

It's how travel is experienced that counts, it's what each of us gains from our own adventure that counts. Who is to say that what you enjoy needs to be the same as what I enjoy? Do you really think that locals care why we are there? Whether we are there for spiritualistic reasons, or materialistic reasons? If we want to shop at local markets or big name stores?  See famous sights or discover an unknown street?  They don't care....however you spend your time or money, you are still a visitor...a tourist...in someone else's country.

The important thing is to enjoy yourself, and to respect the place you are visiting. Enjoy their culture and see the sights you want to see.

So please, don't tell me that your adventure was better than mine or anyone else's because you are a "traveller, not a tourist". Once we leave our house, we are all the same.

This argument needs to die.