About the morals of travel

Or: can I back up the way I live my life?

When I started working on this text in the last few days, I quickly realized how complex and wide-ranged the topic is. I realized that there is an infinite number of perspectives, or rather that there are as many perspectives as there are travelers. Therefore the attempt to consider all of them will probably fail miserably.
Is it even possible to break down the morality of something into one truth? Yes, if you use general values and rules as a yardstick. But I don't want to do that here, it would be too impersonal and wouldn't suit me. With having explored a varied amount of perspectives, I now want to return to my own.

INTRO

Since arriving here at the monastery, I have reflected a lot on my life as a traveler. It's the contrast, more than the peace and quiet, that has brought up these thoughts. I'm currently thinking a lot about what I want to get out of my journey, what kind of life and living suits me and what I want to pay attention to so that I live and act according to my values.

The question of the extent to which self-centeredness shapes my life and lifestyle has been on my mind for quite some time. Probably pretty much since the beginning of my journey a year and a half ago. Nowadays I know that I am not alone in this. And also that not all travelers have these thoughts. I think it's the same as with all other aspects of life. Some people question their decisions and lifestyle more, others do it less.

The motivation for this text stems from a dissatisfaction with the last few weeks. I have realized that I no longer find meaning in the constant change of location and the hostel-jumping. Although I have seen and learned a lot of new things, I think that the time of haphazardly wandering through a country is over for me. The whole thing was too unstable for me, too free in a way and too meaningless.

So I asked myself the question: is what I'm doing here simple stubbornness or does it also have good sides?

I'm curious to see if I can find an answer to this.

From the beginning

First of all, I believe that hardly any of us backpackers are travelling out of altruism. We all want to see the world and have a good time doing it. With this in mind, we put our needs first. But that doesn't mean that we only have our personal well-being in mind. As with everything else, it depends on how we do it.

In terms of long-term travelling...

In order to find out whether I can morally justify my life, it was necessary to take a closer look at the characteristics of my life.

First and foremost is the fact that I am not traveling for a limited time, but that it is my life. It's easy to forget that and I have to stay alert in order to not travel to my next destination already in my head.

As traveling is not a phase for me, no exceptions apply. My values and beliefs must be just as valid and applicable as those of someone who has a permanent home. This is probably also the reason why I have become increasingly displeased with the hostel hopping I have been doing over the last 4 weeks.

Things are different when traveling is the hub of your life. After all, who in their normal life would want to miss out on finding peace and stability? These are things that hostel life doesn't provide.

Much more important than that, however, is the realization of why it feels meaningless to travel like this. I notice more and more that the feeling of belonging and authentically getting to know a place and its people is what travelling is all about for me. I find no value in ticking off a list of places and attractions. A place remains as flat as it was on the first day if I don't get to know people who fill it with life and love.

Time changes everything. A place is not the same on day 1 as it is on day 7 or 30.

I think that this is the real value of travelling and the magic of it. It takes time and dedication to see true beauty. This applies to places as well as people.

But with the increasing speed at which life happens traveling happens. I meet only few people who really take the time to linger in a place and get to know it. We quickly start to get bored and decide that some places are not worth spending more than two nights in.

But what if we only visited two places in each country we travelled to and stayed longer in them?

Would we perhaps even get to know the country better?

I have the feeling that could be exactly the case. It would give us time to get to know the person at our favorite breakfast place and the barista at the café. It would finally be worthwhile to connect with the locals and create memories that will make us feel good for a long time to come.

What makes me different from a normal tourist?

It was important for me to realize this point in order to find an attitude towards the topic. Because while tourism is one of the main industries for many countries, it is also an unfair and exploitative one. I know that I want to contribute as little as possible to this and so alternatives have to be found.

To find an answer, I talked a lot with like-minded people and searched a lot on other blogs for different opinions. As a result, I realised that there are three fundamental differences between us. These are

Time, money and motivation.

How does this influence the way we travel?

For us backpackers, it is important to be traveling for as long as possible. This desire is usually offset by a tight budget. This almost automatically drives us to small and local restaurants, away from the big fast food chains. This means that our money ends up directly with the local people and stays in the community. The same applies to accommodation. Here too, the cheapest option is usually local. In addition to backpackers, there are often many locals among the guests. This has already provided me with many interesting conversations and a first insight into the culture of the country.

Nevertheless, the budget limit does not only lead to good things. The most popular destinations for backpackers are often countries where the cost of living is low. In many places, this leads to a stark change in culture and in living conditions of the locals. And while I would love to visit some of these places, I feel in conflict. As much as possible, I want to try not to contribute to the destruction of cultural heritage. In my opinion, we can all keep an eye on it and I think we all should.

Our modern world offers access to endless, easily accessible knowledge. As a result, hardly anyone can make the excuse that he or she was unaware of the deficiencies that prevail in their holiday destination. If you want to travel the world these days, you need to move away from ignorance and excessive selfishness and try to align destinations and values.

This is where time and motivation come into play. The opportunity to stay in places for longer opens the door to alternatives from hostel and hotel tourism. Participating in volunteer projects is becoming more and more important to me and is perhaps the most sustainable way for modern day backpacking. This is because it enables a kind of exchange: I get the chance to see a part of the country and my hosts get the support they need. In this way, I give something back to the place I am traveling to without merely taking advantage.

Meanwhile it also depends on how you do it. For example, it will be difficult to integrate and give back to the local culture if the volunteer project is run by expats. And in the project you can be given as many chances to get involved as possible, but it's of no use if you don't seize these opportunities.
If there's one thing I've learnt in the last few weeks, it's that it comes down to me. No one else is going to do the work that it takes to get the experiences I'm after.

The importance of why

In answering my question about the selfishness of my life as a traveller, I realize that nothing can be judged without context and that there is simply no one way of doing things.

I meet travelers whose lives are characterized by so much goodwill towards their surroundings that it truly inspires me to want to be a better person. Others however make me realize that you can travel completely without striving for fairness and community. There are so many ways in which to travel and shape your life. There are as many ways as there are travelers plus an infinite amount of others that only exist in our heads. What is important in all of this is simply that my life corresponds to what is important to me and what I imagine for it. Nothing else.

With every day that passes, I know more about why I do what I do and at the same time develop a better sense of what I still need to work on.

Nowadays I am traveling because getting to know new people and cultures excites me like few other things in this world. I travel because I love the challenge that this life presents me with. I travel because I want to learn and grow and nothing promotes that like traveling to faraway, foreign countries.

Having a deep understanding of what it is that I love about my life allows me to align it on exactly that. This gives everything more authenticity and allows me to feel what I have been missing for so long - the feeling of actually participating in life.

When I travel, I bring time and love with me wherever I go. That wasn't the case when I was still firmly rooted in my hometown. The travelling life makes me aware of what is truly meaningful to me and at the same time gives me the freedom to incorporate these things into my life.

About my concerns

In addition to the voices in my head that arise from the injustice of our world, it is the voices of the dissatisfied people in my home country that sometimes bother me.

People who think they are carrying us travelers on their shoulders. People who say that there must be people like themselves who continue to work hard so that people like me have the opportunity to live their dream. I now think that's complete nonsense.

It's an unfair statement because the people I meet have worked months, sometimes years, to go on their journey. They so often summon up all their courage to fulfill their dream. They were unhappy for a long time because they couldn't live the life they so desperately wanted.

At the end of the day, it's not the long-term travelers' fault that jobs aren't being filled and some industries are chronically understaffed. After all, we backpackers are not a sustained mass movement. Most of us return home at some point. They return with a clearer head and a better understanding of themselves and the world.

Perhaps the origin of these words simply lies buried in people's envy and dissatisfaction. But none of us travelers can help it. It is up to each and every person alone to resolve them.

Sometimes I also have the feeling that I should have a guilty conscience for leading a satisfying life according to my own ideas, while other people are trapped in theirs. But if I and others lived according to this principle, there would be no happiness in the world.

But what is life worth if we are not happy?

If the people with the courage to change were to join the silent masses, things would quickly become even darker in this world. So I think everyone is better off if I continue to do what suits me while learning with time what it is that I want to give back.

Concluding: Can I represent the life I live myself?

It took me just as long to organize my thoughts for this text as it did to find my approximate position on the pros and cons. And it is still more or less that: a for and against.

In this way, I can convince myself that I am living a life that I can morally justify, while at the same time the opposite is the case.

I think I still have to learn to be okay with my lifestyle. An important step is to try and shed the guilt that I enjoy privileges that others are denied. Because the thing is: I can't do anything about the color of my skin or the place I was born. What I can do something about, however, is my behavior, my decisions and my words. So I want to be careful not to drown in guilt. Instead, I want to transform it into energy and use it as a drive to give back and make amends.

For a long time, I underestimated the influence that interpersonal relationships and a positive attitude towards life have. I was overly focused on all the measurable things in this world. I'm realizing how society has taught me that money is what gives things value. But in reality, it's everything I don't pay for or get paid for that makes my life worth living.

I am a valuable part of the whole because of the things I do and the words I say. Because of how I make people feel and how I treat them. I define myself by keeping my word. To myself, to you and to the world. Having reflected on that, having noticed that - it makes the biggest difference.

Never and nowhere have I ever learned so much about life as when traveling. Never so much about myself. Through traveling, a thousand worlds unite in me and become one in a unique way. Nobody shares my view of things and hopefully this is where the potential for change lies.

I may be traveling out of selfishness. But what I do is not selfish. Most of the time, at least.