It’s Completely Fine to be Tourist

As a travel enthusiast, I have travelled across length and breadth of India and many countries and cities outside India in last 12 years. And I must say that way travelling has changed in last few years is nothing less than phenomenal.

Travelling has picked up pace in India more then anything else in last few years. Large section of youths has taken travelling much more seriously than ever before. Along with changing times, travelling has changed too, gone are those days where we use to see tourist holding a paper map in hand and walking on the street.

While it’s nice to see more and more people travelling from India, at times it looks like reason for travelling has got totally different meaning. Few people are travelling because their friends are travelling, others are travelling so that they get something to post in their social media platform, few travels simply because that’s the trend and they want to be part of this new trend but when we look closely then we see that there are very few who travel for the shake of travelling and nothing else.

One most talked about topic these days in travelling is” offbeat travelling”. Very often we hear people talking about things like, “Oh I don’t like visiting touristy places”, “I don’t like visiting big cities”, “you should travel like local”, “Be a traveler and not tourist” and many more. If you happen to visit touristy places, then you are not treated as a serious traveler. Say if you travel to Hampi and visit temples and stay in hotel without crossing the river and staying in some kind of homestay, you will be treated as tourist and not traveler, same way if you visiting Himachal and only touching Shimla or Manali then your visit to Himachal is treated as waste and so on and so forth.

Idea here is not to say which way of travelling is right and which is wrong, but is to understand that no matter where you travel and how you travel only thing which is important is, you are travelling, you are travelling for the shake of travelling and for your own happiness and nothing else. So, it doesn’t matter if you travel to touristy places or off beat places, it doesn’t matter if you do a bike trip or use public transport, book a homestay or in hotel, travel completely on your own or take a tour package as long as it makes you happy you should take that way.

It is completely fine to take loads of pictures in front of Eiffel tower or Taj Mahal, it is also fine to take a road trip to visit small tiny villages Uttarakhand, all it matters is once you back home you have a smile on your face that you had a wonderful time.

So next time when you plan your travel, pick up a place which makes you happy, pick an activity which you enjoy doing it, take some touristy things its completely fine. Your itinerary should reflect your taste and not copied from other travelers. Travelling is a soul refreshing if it is done the way you love the most without comparing to anybody else.