How Travel is Ruining our Planet

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not against travel, I write a travel blog for Pete’s sake. I have been telling people to drop everything and travel, and in my haste I’ve neglected to mention the possible environmental implications. Travel makes people better for doing it and that is a great thing, but we don’t talk about the repercussions to said travel. So, the question asked is; do we travel too much and is this travel adversely affecting our planet?

If you are a reader of mine, then you know that I constantly push for people to travel, so this will sound out of character but these are my reasons to not travel.

Destruction of local customs

The increased technology and constant metaphorical shrinking of our planet, we have created less cultural identities. We used to travel to explore new things and see corners of the planet yet seen by our eyes. But with technology, we have seen the planet from our computer and TV screens, so what are we exploring? Now with traveling to distant cultures we are inevitably bringing our culture with us and in so devaluing others. McDonalds are popping up all over the world so we all can be destroyed together.

Travel Trivializes Culture

Tourist traps are ruining our planet one trinket at a time. It’s sad when cultures are simplified down to some terrible stereotype that we have created to sell T-shirts. Originally people traveled to see parts of the world and experience different cultures, and now these experiences are being manufactured for our pleasure.   Children are being forced to accept that their reality is now selling trinkets and playing a part in some traveler’s fantasy of a culture, it’s sad.   It’s more of a problem of our planet’s globalization rather than anything else.

Local economy

Travel essentially destroys local economy by taking the tourist dollars and funneling it all to corporations. Locals don’t own the big hotels, huge conglomerates do and they profit form cultural destruction, essentially.

Environmental disaster

Travel is terrible for the environment and we don’t seem to care. More people are flying, driving, eating, shopping etc than ever before and our waste is just piling up. We constantly consume and consume but never really stop to think about what our excess usage really does to the environment.

Economic Issues

Tourism is centered on striking while the iron is hot, meaning that its not worried about the future, it’s all about the now. You see it in history and its repeating it self now. Towns go boom or bust with tourism and when that bubble burst, the town is left holding the bill. Look at the Salton Sea; it’s a tale that is all too familiar. A small town is suddenly thrust into a feeding frenzy of tourism money, then when the tourists stop coming, the town suddenly dies. The Salton Sea was a California hot spot in the 60s and 70s and now it’s a desolate ghost town.

Don’t make this stop you from traveling but allow this to open your mind while traveling and think about the possible repercussions of your actions. Maybe if we travel more consciously, we can fix our planet.

Check out the original article at Nomadicmatt

Photo courtesy of BoredPanda and FoxNews