They say be a traveller, not a tourist. I say be neither

It was Anthony Bourdain who drilled the line “be a traveller, not a tourist” into my impressionable adolescent brain, all thanks to late-night re-runs of A Cook’s Tour and No Reservations.

It’s a quote that gets plastered on hostel walls and resurfaced in old Facebook posts, the kind you thought were deep when you were 18 but now only serve to remind you of how cynical you’ve become.

The problem is that I’ve never quite understood the difference between the two. What is a traveller if not a tourist who has tricked themselves into thinking they’re somehow better than the other tourists around them? No one had ever laid out adequate criteria for each, not one that can convince me of the difference, anyway.

Once, long ago, I was having a beer in Bangkok and joined a table of fellow travellers, who immediately started swapping war stories about their journeys – where they had been, how long they had been there for.

When I told them I was only in Thailand for two weeks, one girl looked me dead in the eyes and said …

“Oh, so you’re, like, a tourist?”

Never had I been more insulted.

The most embarrassing part of this was that I found myself scrambling to justify the duration of my trip, truly believing that I owed these backpackers, with their dirty feet and ankle bracelets, an explanation. It was all the time I could get off work, I protested, and while, yes, this trip was only for two weeks, the last time I was in Thailand I stayed there for months.

The whole encounter was a bit absurd. To think that the only difference between a traveller and a tourist was the duration of stay seemed grotesquely inadequate, a kind of free pass for people with closed minds and the luxury of time.

I’d met people like this in hostels all over Europe. They would always want to know how ‘long’ you were travelling for, as if that was somehow a marker of how good a traveller you were. Some of them would proudly proclaim that they were travelling for years at a time, but spent the majority of that time trapped in their hostel, eating the cheapest pasta known to Carrefour supermarket.

They couldn’t afford to eat out at local restaurants, or drink at local bars, or experience anything of the local culture. They did, however, spend a lot of time talking down to people who were only travelling for two weeks because if you’re only travelling for two weeks it’s more of a holiday, innit?

Duration of stay wasn’t the only thing that could either qualify or disqualify you from your traveller status. Some would only consider you a traveller once you’d ticked off enough countries, like you had to have a certain number under your belt before you could put on your traveller pants. Others would immediately discount your experience if you stayed in a luxury hotel because travel is meant to be uncomfortable, and no true traveller would ever subject themselves to the horrors of white sheets and fluffy pillows.

But the absolute worst example of this kind of gatekeeping was a dude I met in Laos, who, after joining our jury-rigged group of backpackers, proudly proclaimed that none of us could call ourselves travellers as none of us had been to India. And, according to him, you haven’t travelled until you’ve been to India.

Well, I’ve since been to India and I can confirm what I already suspected: this guy was an idiot. Without exchanging a single word, the rest of our crew agreed to ditch him at the next bar, and our night was all the better for it.

To me these things are symptoms of the same disease, where the distinction between traveller and tourist has slipped into the realms of competitive sport. It’s become something to be scored, measured and recorded for everyone else to see, because what good is a competition when you’re only competing against yourself?

It’s not about where you go, how long you’re there for or how many ankle bracelets you accumulate when you get there; it’s about your hosts.

Call me a tourist, call me a traveller, call me whatever the hell you like because I’ve long since stopped caring. These labels mean nothing to me as neither of them puts the right part of the travel experience in the frame. It’s not about where you go, how long you’re there for or how many ankle bracelets you accumulate when you get there; it’s about your hosts. That’s why I no longer think of myself as a traveller or a tourist but as a guest; one who was lucky enough to be invited to a country.

To be a guest is to remember that an invitation is a privilege, not a right, and one that has been afforded to us thanks to the purchasing power of our geography. The travel scales have been tipped heavily in Australia’s favour, giving us the opportunity to visit countries in which the locals will never get the chance to do the same.

This, I think, should be treated with a certain level of respect as there isn’t anything that we’ve done to earn this privilege; it is simply because of where we were born. And yet I still see people travel halfway around the world and then lose their minds when one meal comes out 15 minutes after the other.

Yes, I know, it sucks that you didn’t get to “enjoy your meal together”, but then it also sucks that the person in the kitchen is making something like 50 bucks a week, as is often the case in the developing parts of the world.

As a guest, you have to accept that things aren’t going to work as efficiently as they do at home. They’re going to look, smell and taste different, but that’s all part of the charm. Sure, the cars might not stop at pedestrian crossings, and you’ll have to dry your hands with soggy toilet paper, but 10 bucks says whatever they’re cooking in the kitchen will be way better than whatever you left back in yours.

Manners, too, are important, and we should always try our best to adopt the practices of the house we’re standing in. There are obvious ones. Don’t dress like an idiot, always ask before you point your camera at someone, and if you’re arguing over what amounts to two dollarydoos then you’ve already lost.

But the most important manner to keep in mind is to actually engage with your hosts, not use them as a piece of set dressing. They’re not just there to serve and entertain you but to connect with you and share part of their home.

I’ve always found that the best way to do this is through language, and have gone to ludicrous lengths to learn more than a few words. The vast majority of these words are now redundant. I’ve not once said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Georgian” since leaving that wonderful country, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever say it again.

No matter how redundant these words have become, I’m glad I had them at the time. Not only did they help me show my hosts a certain level of respect but it was my way of telling them that they were just as much a part of my travel experience as I was. It’s like bringing a bottle of wine to a dinner party. Never turn up empty-handed, and as there are only so many Tim Tams you can cram into your carry-on, being armed with a language is the next best thing.

The more we start to position ourselves as guests, the more it reframes the way we travel in another country. Instead of entitlement, we respond with grace. Instead of letting someone else clean up the mess we’ve made, we help clear the plates and leave their home exactly the way we found it. Instead of focusing on how travel benefits us, we appreciate that trips are an experience to be shared, not serviced, and while we don’t have to agree with everything we see, we should at the very least attempt to understand it.

Travellers, tourists … to me they’re just two different words for the same thing. As travel becomes increasingly commoditised, it’s important to remember the product isn’t a destination, it’s someone else’s home, and we should all strive to be the guests that our hosts deserve.