Tourist or Traveler?

Tourist or Traveler by Lea Cruz

In the fall of September 2013, the author Lea Cruz visited Europe for the first time on a bonding and adventure trip with her brother.  In this piece, she explores the pull between being a tourist and a traveler.

 

I’ve done some traveling but not a whole lot. Out of the 100 items in the Travel List Challenge, I’ve only been to 18. There’s still so much to see and so much more to learn.

I went to Europe with my brother last September 2013. It has been over a year ago but I still remember everything clearly, including the lessons I learned and realizations I had.

 There are a lot of online articles on the differences of a tourist and a traveler. Truth be told, I’m a bit of both. While I’d like to say that I’m a true blue traveler, that’s not really the case. I remember my brother asking me which places I’d like to see in Europe. Just like any first timer, I said Paris. Seeing the Eiffel Tower is like a rite of passage after all.  And just like any tourist, I took an obligatory shot there.

We did other touristy things too. We went to the Louvre and copied this epic shot from Da Vinci Code:

Visited the canals of Venice …

Had our photo taken at the I Amsterdam monolith.

And went on top of the Milan Cathedral among many other things.

 

But we also did other things that made me feel less of a tourist and more of a traveler.

Just a few minutes of leisurely walk from the famous Seine River, you’ll find Canal St. Martin. It’s like an escape from Paris in Paris. Its iron footbridges and tree-shaded quays give it a quaint look. It’s like a throwback in Paris from maybe 50 or 100 years ago.

Then there’s the lovely Lake Como in Italy and its picturesque 18^th century villas. Time seemed to stop while we were there and I was grateful for it. Who wouldn’t want to stay longer in such a lovely, peaceful place?

Just a train ride from Prague, you can visit Kutna Hora and check out the Sedlec Ossuary, a small chapel where 40,000 to 70,000 skeletons were used as decoration.

Then there’s Cesky Krumlov, a small city in the South Bohemian Region of Czech Republic. It’s like a pocket-sized, less touristy Prague that was able to keep its Medieval charm. No wonder it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

I can go on and on about the touristy things my brother and I did and some adventures (and misadventures) we had as travelers but I guess my point is this:  tourist spots are crowd favorites for very good reasons. Cheesy as it may sound, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

On the other hand, just going through all the touristy motions won’t give you the real pulse of a place. You’ll always see it through the eyes of an outsider instead of a local.

So be both a tourist and a traveler. Go see Versailles and take a photo with Arc De Triomphe as background but don’t miss the chance to walk the peaceful banks of Canal St. Martin; visit Milan and ride a gondola in Venice but also take time to experience the beauty of the less visited Lake Como; visit Prague and stand in awe of the Charles Bridge but go just slightly out of your way to see Kutna Hora and Cesky Krumlov.

Strike a balance. I think that being both a tourist and a traveler is the best way to see the world.