The Competitive Nature of Travel
I’ve been traveling my whole life and blogging about it since 2012. But it’s only in the last few months that I’ve taken this blog public and learned more about the crazy world of travel blogging and travel in general. I’ve joined travel groups on Facebook and followed travellers on Instagram. I’ve started reading lots of travel blogs and have even tried out Pinterest. And while I have definitely learned a lot, gotten some great travel tips and even made some new online friends, I’ve also noticed there are some darks sides and an almost competitive nature of travel.
The downside of social media
When I decided to take this blog public a couple of months ago, one of the first things I did was create an Instagram account. The first few days were really fun – I loved watching my follower count rise, finding new cool people to follow and posting photos from some of my past travels. But a few weeks in, I was growing really sick of it.
Excuse me while I get on my high horse and rant a little bit…
So much of Instagram is beautiful models in perfect poses in front of dreamy settings that are edited and photoshopped to perfection. Some of these images are obviously fake and others just look like they’re fake. I’m all for taking a nice photo. But when you’re waking up at the crack of dawn or waiting for hours to get the scenery to yourself, packing a beautiful dress and doing your make up, and then spending so long editing the photo until it’s barely recognizable – that’s not what I’m looking for. And, in my humble opinion, that’s not travel. That’s just a photo shoot. If the only reason you’re heading to a spot is to grab the photo and see how many likes you can get, you’re not traveling for the right reasons.
My next biggest gripe with social media is all the fakery. There are so many programs out there that will like posts, follow accounts and leave nondescript comments for you. Or, worse, if you’re not using a bot and just leaving these awful generic comments all by yourself. I roll my eyes every time someone posts something like “Your account is amazing!” on an Instagram post of mine. I even got a comment like that on a post where I was calling out comments like that! It’s even worse when it’s someone trying to sell a product who follows up their generic comment with an even more generic direct message and invitation to their Facebook group.
I’m on social media because I enjoy being social. I want to read stories, share experiences and genuinely interact with people. I absolutely hate when people post photos with something like “Paradise!” or “Tag someone you want to go here with!” as their only caption. This is your chance to tell me a story. Talk to me about this paradise-like place you traveled to. Or share your thought of the day. Just share SOMETHING! I promise you, I’ll read it and leave you an actual comment.
Okay, rant over (for now).
Keeping up with the Joneses
When you enter this space and begin following well-known travelers on Instagram and reading travel blogs, you start to feel like you’re a very tiny fish who just can’t keep a float in a big pond dominated by big fish. Or, at least that’s how I feel. I love following along with some of my favourite bloggers on social media and reading their latest posts. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it fuels that competitive nature of travel. I am constantly comparing my travels, my photos, my readers, my writing and even my life to the picture perfect lives of these bloggers out there.
And that’s just it – what I’m seeing is their picture perfect life. I’m only seeing the best parts of their days, the one selfie out of hundreds that turned out and the version of their latest travel story that is the most captivating. As they say, you shouldn’t compare your behind the scenes to someone else’s highlight reel. I have to constantly remind myself of this while I scroll through perfect Instagram feeds and read amazing blog posts.
Hurry up and get there
Now here is where the competitive nature of travel really rears its ugly head. In the last little while, I’ve joined a number of travel groups on Facebook. I love that there’s this huge community of people online going on awesome trips and exploring all of these places. I really enjoy sharing some of my knowledge and picking up new tips for my next trip.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that so many people in these groups have a “hurry up and get there” mentality when it comes to traveling. Every single day there are posts from people saying, “I have a week in Europe and plan to hit these six cities, what do you think?” And the answer is always: SLOW DOWN!
Look, I get it. As travelers, we have an insatiable need to see and do as much as we can. And especially coming from North America, where two weeks of annual vacation is the norm, it makes sense to want to cram in as much as possible. Plus, when you’re somewhere like Europe where it’s so quick and easy to hop into another city or country, it’s hard to sit still for even a second. I’m even guilty of it – we crammed four cities into 10 days in Ireland.
But why are we in such a rush? Is it just to get the passport stamp or check something off a bucket list? Probably. There’s no way you’re getting a good understanding of the city of Rome if you take one photo in front of the Colosseum and then move on to your next city. And you know it’s those same people who spend one afternoon in Rome who then can’t stop talking about it and giving everyone advice since they’ve “technically” been there.
So, why do we travel?
So, why do we travel? Why do we blog? Why do we share our travel photos on social media? What is the point of all of this?
Is it all just so we can “win” this travel competition? I don’t think so. While sometimes the competitive nature of travel can catch up with us, at the end of the day, I don’t think it is what fuels us to keep traveling. Because there will always be someone out there with more Instragram followers, nicer photos and more checks on their bucket list. If you’re traveling to win, you’ll always be a loser.
So what is it then? I don’t want to speak for the entire travel community, but for me, it’s about living a life outside of my bubble. I travel because I crave adventure and new experiences. I want to see an ocean in a previously unfathomable shade of blue. I want to eat a dish I have never heard of before and that has me coming back for seconds and thirds. I want to walk through little towns and look out at view points with the most giddy smile on my face. I know there is so much more to life than my little home here in Surrey, BC, Canada. And because I’ve had a little taste for what else is out there, I know I need to get some more.
And why do I share it? Because that’s who I am. I’m a writer. I love to tell stories. I’ve been making up stories since I was a little kid. At every point in my life, I’ve always turned to writing to help me express myself, work through my feelings, share my experiences and use as a creative outlet.
I don’t want to let the competitive nature of travel ruin travel and ruin blogging for me. I don’t want to be buying tickets and booking trips just because I want to have something for my blog. I don’t want to groan every time I open Instagram and have to wade through accounts that make me feel bad and comments that bug me. At the end of the day, traveling and blogging are important to me and they bring me joy and meaning. I never want to lose that. So if that means I spend more time playing with my dog on the beach instead of snapping photos of the view, so be it. And if I go a few days before posting on Instagram, I’m sure my 300 followers really won’t mind.
I do all of this for joy. The moment it isn’t joyful for me is the moment I know I’m doing something wrong.
Thanks for reading!
Has the competitive nature of travel ever gotten to you?Â
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(And yes, I understand how hypocritical this is after ranting about social media…)
YES!!! So agree with all of this! I too hate all the show-off-iness (new word) when it comes to not just travel, but life in general. Instagram has just made it so much worse, but you know what, I’m not going to travel to an amazing destination and spend all of my time there posing for photos just so I might get a few likes. I’m totally on your page, I travel for new experiences and to stop taking life for granted. Let’s keep doing what we do. 🙂
Thanks so much for reading and commenting! Super glad to hear you’re on the same page and I’m not alone with these feelings. Agreed that scrolling through Instagram can often do more harm than good. But yes, let’s keep traveling for our reasons!
I have had this article open in my browser for weeks because I wanted to make sure I responded appropriately! This is a subject about which I’ve been passionately simmering for months – I’ve had an article of my own called “Don’t Let Yourself Be Travel-Shamed” that I’ve been holding in my back pocket until I’m brave enough to unleash it 🙂 I’m glad you got to it first!
I really appreciated your message here; everything you’ve experienced are things that have frustrated and discouraged me as well. I remember realizing back in March how many people will follow you on Instagram in an attempt to get a follow-back, then quickly unfollow you… even though I’m not looking to become an Instagram “influencer,” I was so frustrated with the thought that I could be gaining 1-15 new follows per day and yet never move the needle on my total follower count. It felt so dishonest, dirty, and self-serving. And that’s not even getting started on what you’ve mentioned about Instagram perfection and fakery!
It makes me sad that we seem to have begun to value the social evidence of a trip much more than the personal impact it has on us as individuals. I love what you wrote about your vision for travel – I’m the same way. I travel to learn, to grow, to be awed, to gain understanding, to be humbled by beauty and kindness and how very small my place in the world actually is. And I love telling stories that will hopefully inspire others to do the same.
I guess all we can do is continue to be authentic versions of ourselves, and hopefully it will inspire and empower others to do the same despite social media and competitive trends.
Now ending the longest post comment ever. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far! 🙂
Thank you so much for this comment, Gwen! I really appreciate your genuine response and how much time you put into reading my post and writing something. That really means a lot 🙂 I love what you said about the social evidence of a trip becoming more important than the personal impact. That’s something I definitely can relate too. We see it all the time on social media and I’m scared it will start to creep into my own travels. I never want to do anything just for the gram or for the post. Thanks so much for this! Cheers to being authentic and traveling for ourselves, not for our audiences!
Love this, theres so much fakery around. We got into it because we loved seeing other travel families go places with kids and getting tips then people starting asking us about where we had been. Genuine interaction. The photoshopped, pink hued accounts are unfathomable to us. That’s not travelling!!
Thanks so much for reading! I love this community for research, finding out about new places, and getting inspired. But I’m really not here for photoshoots in ball gowns!
I needed this! Even though I have always been a beauty blogger, I’m trying to transition it to a travel blogger. Problem is, I haven’t been to as much countries as other travel bloggers. I’ve only been to 7 countries (going on 8 next week, I’ll be in the UK!) and not many states. Also my husband and I want to go to Japan next year. I mean yeah that’s not a lot but there are other things I could write about or tie into in future posts…I definitely feel the “hurry up” mentality, because my husband and I are 30 and plan to have kids in a few years, and I’m thinking, “if I don’t get to go to ‘so-and-so’ and we have our kid then we’ll never be able to go!!” because of all of the horror stories I hear about kids taking up so much time and commitment. But you can also travel with them too and show them the world. And THEN I worry about by the time we have kids blogging will be dying and no one will read my blog.
Also, we only have the standard 2-week vacation in the US, although my husband has a 4 week vacation because he’s been with his company for 5 years. We also don’t make as much money with me being a graphic designer at a nonprofit and he working as an online producer for a local news station.
I should stop worrying and like you said, enjoy each moment and there’s no need to book tickets just for content (kinda like when i splurged on makeup just to have a blog review post)
Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment! I so hear you. Even though I know it’s better to travel slow and enjoy a place deeper, I can’t help but want to tick everything off of the bucket list. I hope we can both find the balance and enjoy wherever life takes us – kids, countries, beauty, blogging, or a little bit of all of it. Have the best time in the UK and I hope you make it to Japan next year! Though it’s going to be crazy busy with the Olympics!
Your account is amazing!
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Well, at least this blog post is! Certainly captures the current tick-box exercise that travel is becoming…
I’m all for setting challenges (e.g. 30 countries before 30, or visiting all 197), but there’s no point unless you’re getting something from it. Even if it’s the buzz of reaching an arbitrary number, that’s absolutely fine as long as you’re happy and not impacting others.
I think the issue comes with comparison (as the old saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy). Unfortunately, social media makes it all too easy to compare your travel experiences with others. In the midst of the fakeries and bragging that comes with travel blogs/social media, it’s easy to get dragged away from our own personal reasons for travel.
I guess what I’m trying to say is – thanks for the reminder to not get bogged down by what other people do when travelling (it’s out of our control), and to focus on what I enjoy most about it!
Aw thank you, Matt! I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. I totally agree that social media is exacerbating the problem and it all comes back to doing travel the way that works best for you.
There are great comments here! Just letting you know, I enjoyed reading your article! Blogging is definitely my favorite form of travel writing due to the hoopla that comes with social media!
Thanks so much, Laken!
I totally agree. And I think a lot of overtourism is because of this FOMO and needing to say “oh, I’ve been there.” I like taking pictures, I like sharing, and I like helping people. But I have no desire to check off countries just to one-up others. Years ago, my mentality changed from ” I have to go here, here, and here” to “could I live here?” which hsa made me slow down and really enjoy a place on more of a local level.
Thanks, Tiffany! Awesome perspective!