At the university, we learned at the beginning that there are different types of travelers and travel styles. People travel for history, food, football games, family, hiking, partying, etc. Recently, Lonely Planet also introduced 5 types of trips that I like: Eat, Journey, Connect, Learn and Unwind. While this is all correct, we are never just one type of traveler and our travel style changes (for most people) over time. Even during our travels, we wear many travel masks. How many we wear depends on our interests, curiosity, and desire to explore. Since I've been in Buenos Aires, I've worn many travel masks. I was traveling for food, beer, art, culture, history, sports, and blockchain. By the end of my trip, this list will probably grow even longer.
But honestly, I didn't intend to be all those kinds of travelers before I got here. It wasn't until I got here that I listened to my curiosity and then decided on an activity. I didn't plan to go to the Banksy Expo or to a blockchain conference. I just spontaneously saw that it was taking place, felt attracted to it, and decided to go there. In the morning I heard that a local food festival was taking place, and in the afternoon I was there representing the foodies group.
Often we start our trips with the intention of being a certain kind of traveler, but we end up being much more than that. For example, in September we organized a Web3 retreat in Leros, Greece, a non-touristy island. All the participants probably wouldn't just go to Leros, but they came because there was a strong pull that brought them there. They came because we created a setting where like-minded people could come together and talk about a topic of interest to all of us (in this case, it was Web3).
It happened in a similar way when we organized the first NFT dinner in Slovenia. The dinner included 17 courses and was a high culinary experience. Some participants might not go to a 17-course meal and pay that kind of money (myself included), but they were convinced because they knew they would meet and mingle with other like-minded people at this dinner. And of course, being able to pay for it with an NFT was a big incentive. It happened with this and the previous event that the participants expressed the desire to return to these places alone or with their friends to experience it in a different way as different types of travelers. Both of these destinations where we organized our events are probably not present in many guidebooks but the experiences we had were nevertheless unique.
One month later, I disagree with my tweet to a certain point. I'd say travel where society/media tells you to travel. The top 10 destinations blogs, Instagram, travel guides or bucket lists are also useful because they make us leave the house. But when we leave the house, when we get to our destination, it's important to do activities that feel right to us, and not just because a travel blogger, influencer, or guidebook told us to.
De Botton notes in his book that "where guidebooks praised a site, they pressured a visitor to match their authoritative enthusiasm, where they were silent, pleasure or interest seemed unwarranted." This leads to a situation where "we are asked to be curious about Gothic architecture on one street and then promptly Etruscan archaeology on the next.''
It seems that we have to be interested in certain elements of the city. Actually, we don't. There's nothing wrong if the Eiffel Tower doesn't interest you. But the majority of the travel industry right now makes us believe that our travels won’t be worth it if we don’t go visit the Eiffel Towers of the world which would mean that ''you have settled for something that is not as perfect as it could have been.’’
Sometimes unexpected places not found in guidebooks can touch us in ways we could not have imagined. What got me thinking about meaningful places in our travels was a scene in the movie Drive my Car, which I saw last week - highly recommend it (this is not a spoiler, btw). The main character was staying in Hiroshima for a period of time (as a business traveler you can say) and was going through a difficult time. He asked his driver to take him to a place where he could think and rest his mind. She then took him to a garbage disposal because that's where she worked as a garbage truck driver when she moved from her hometown to Hiroshima and was also going through a very difficult time. I think that was the moment that bonded them together, and he got a better sense of the place through the eyes of a local.
I had a similar experience when I participated in the Invisible Lublana tour - a city tour in Ljubljana led by ex-homeless people. Our guide, who was homeless just a few months earlier, shared some of his personal, powerful stories as he led us through the city. I have to say that from then on I saw the city with different eyes, and for me, that's what travel and experiences are all about.
So the next time you travel somewhere, the "garbage disposal'' or some other unexpected place may give you a better experience than landmarks like the Eiffel Tower because you will associate it with a story that actually touches you.