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OK, here I go. My first blog. It isn’t recent; I actually culled it from an old travel account that was never finished. Maybe the cheers and attaboys I get will spur me on. Who knows? The Antitourist.
I hate tourists! I hate crowds! I love to travel, to see new places, actually old places mostly, to go where no man has gone before, except the early explorers, the Rogers and the Clarks, the homesteaders, the surveyors, the civil engineers, the operating engineers with their multi-tired hundred ton machines, the moveable stationary cement plants of the road builders, the sign puter-uppers to tell you where you're going, where you are, where you've been and how many people have been there before your discovery of, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, New York City and Indian pictographs done with Sears Weatherbeater paint.
I steadfastly refuse to become one of them. Even though, at times, I have been mistaken for one of them with my sunglasses, khaki shorts, denim shirt and funny hat. The hat is the most important badge of the tourist. It sets him apart from the herds out to trash the treasures of our land, apart from the locals who tolerate the tourists in the economic love-hate relationship generated by big-time tourism. The tourist's hat must be chosen with great care and worn with religious fervor no matter what. My hat, or should I say hats, are perched on my head for good reasons: to keep cool, to keep warm, to provide shade, and most of all, to set me apart from those that are already set apart. I AM NOT A TOURIST!
I am an anti-tourist. The paths I travel may be of concrete and asphalt; but, but the mind is blind to such everyday things. The eye sees beyond the flashing lights and billboards proclaiming gas for less and the appearance of the virgin mother in some far away place that I can't even begin to pronounce. A tourist will plot and plan, will write or call ahead, leave on time and arrive per schedule. How does the anti-tourist do it? Stay tuned to these pages and you will see. Prepare to be unprepared, plan the unplanned Go where no man has dared to tread, well..... maybe just a few.
The best plan for your trip is --no plan. Yes folks that's what I said--no plan. No alarm clock to make sure you get-up-on-time, no reservations at the Happy Holiday Hotel 657 miles away, just the desire to do it, whatever it is or wherever it may be. You probably don't even know. Just get up when you feel like it, throw three times the amount of clothes you will actually wear into a soft bag (Samsonite or Hefty-your choice). Hop climb or slink into your trusty mechanical steed with your best friend, wife, girl friend, boy friend, old lady, old man, mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, nephew, lover, room mate, cat, dog or whoever is crazy enough to put up with you in close quarters for what might be an extended period of time. You cannot go alone. There would be no one to argue with or enumerate your faults when you run out of gas on a dirt road 40 miles from the nearest human, or as it usually is in those instances, sub-human. Also, you cannot take the kids. Their tender ears shouldn't be subjected to some of the language that might foul the air when one is beset by the travails of travel. They can go when they are old enough to drive, afford their own vehicle, be it car, truck or van, and above all, find some insurance company willing to cover them without having old dad put his John Hancock on the dotted line. If you cannot leave them behind for whatever feeble reasons you or mother may conjure up, do not go! Wait a few years to embark on your very own exploration. Meanwhile, take them to Wally World, Disney Place (east and west), Six Flags Over Alamogordo, and the ever popular--Universal Joint? They will love it and it will help ease your egg bag when you leave them behind with aunt Thelma or sister Louise. Did I hear you ask, "who was the lucky person that you chose to accompany you on this trip?" No, well I'll tell you anyway, my wife, all the others were busy.
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Ali
Ali Watters
Not a tourist.
I agree with your sentiments on the term tourist. To me the term brings up the clueless, unadventurous and bland trips made by many during their limited time away from work. I have sympathy for them though, often an alternative has never even had time to occur to them, another sympton of todays corporate and consumer lifestyles.