Kat Beyond Borders

I think about being a little kid at Disney World on the It’s a Small World ride. It’s just before the Internet, before I had all of the encyclopedias and images from the beaches of the world in my pocket. All I had was a doll on an animatronic stage dressed up in the traditional costume of that country. Sure, there was a bit of background, maybe an animal or pattern or piece of architecture, or different skin colors. There was a sense of wonder about the world. An awe, yes, but also an active wonder and questioning of what the heck is going on in that place.

As I’m now pushing 30, I made it past scholastic book fairs to the family computer room to iPods to flip phones to typing classes to smartphones to now instantaneous social media connection. Ten years ago, social media seemed like a godsend for travelers… I can show people where I’ve been and share my tips, and look up destinations to get insider personal information I can’t find on official websites.

I personally believe we’re past the era of travel influencers. The world got inspired seeing people go to these far-off places and show firsthand experiences and footage. In some cases, this has exponentially increased tourism in certain areas. Think of Japan, for example, with a 33% increase in tourism in the last six years alone. Preparing for a trip now means spending hours scrolling through destination-specific algorithms and blogs with inspiration photos and pro tips that inundate us with information.

I have traveled as an adult by myself since 2017, and in the last decade I have personally noticed that arriving and experiencing a destination doesn’t feel like it used to. I believe it’s because we have already experienced a smaller version through our screens. All our stops, the trains, the restaurants, the sights… we’ve seen it all before on the smartphone in our pockets or the laptop on our bedside table.

Not only has the overwhelming information increased my FOMO, my perfectionism kicks in, really believing article titles that I MUST GO to these places or I will not have experienced everything. This is the best restaurant, but this is the best train, but don’t forget this hack, and you NEED to buy this souvenir. We’ve been given too much direction. We’ve received too much information.

There was a moment a decade ago when I would’ve said travel influencer would have been my dream job, but now I regret that we as a society have done this to ourselves. My favorite part of a trip is the planning, because you have to figure it out. You have to learn and parse through information about how to act, the history of the train lines, and the customs of shrines. With today’s overload of uber-specific, albeit helpful, information, we no longer have to figure it out ourselves. It’s solved for us. The complicated puzzle that is travel is solved. It’s hacked. Everything you would want to know has been answered.

In a world like that, you lose that sense of wonder and curiosity that we had on the Small World ride with only elementary imagery of a place and culture.

How do we make travel magical again? A personal, impactful, sustainable practice that helps, not hurts, our destinations. One where we have room for error, game-time decisions, getting confused, or being shocked. Do we become martyrs and not go to the popular destinations? Not do the tours or the experiences? Not stay in the picturesque hotels? Not know what train to take when arriving at the station? I can’t say that.