On Bill Bryson and the Responsibilities of the Traveler

Saturday Profile: A Colonial Is Welcomed Back by Mother England

The NY Times on Lost Continent and Notes From A Small Island author Bill Bryson. I envy that man's career. Anyone who has the ability to travel - like Bryson, Ian Frazier, and Robert Kaplan - for a living has been given the most amazing gift. Bryson, though, warns of the growing desire of travelers, particularly American and British travelers, to desire sameness wherever they go. Starbucks on street corners in Caracas, just down the road from the nearest McDonalds. That desire for sameness is ruining places.

Just last year, I attempted to write my travel story about Aruba. It was a decent vacation, made slightly irksome by the passive aggressive way a relationship of mine was crumbling like an out-of-fashion Vegas hotel. The part that drove me utterly batty, just sixty miles off the coast of Venezuela, was that it was easier to get a sandwich from Subway or a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee (Aruba is particularly popular with New Englanders, who I blame for the prevalence of Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme chains; what is this fascination with lard-smothered, fried bread?) than to find a place to listen to calypso, to eat traditional sopapilla or to see something that wasn't, in some way, a distorted reflection of self.

The Arubans, I suppose, have the right to chose to homogenize (I'd say "Americanize," but it goes beyond that; America, itself, used to be varied; when one traveled through the Southeast, one got wildly different food, culture and experiences in comparison to what one would experience in the Desert Southwest or New England). It makes life easier, and there's less concern about satisfying needs. After all, when things are homogenized, people are mostly satisfied. No one's thrilled by the world, and no one is greatly horrified, but everyone is mostly content.

The thing I think they lose from such a choice, though, is an element of their souls. Culture, tradition, passion, and pride - these things have no place in the homogenous world. Somehow, the economics of travel must allow for the continued existence of the beautiful and the non-corporate. While I don't believe that governments need to do this, that we need to regulate out the influence of "the man" or something as silly as that, I think that, as travelers, we need to recognize and support those differences that we believe are valuable. At the very least, we need to drink them in, for tomorrow, it might be replaced with a dunkachino and a cruller.

update Bill Day has some thoughts on travel writers as well.

Comments

[transmogriflaw]

I think that the very rich and the very poor tourist destinations will maintain unique identities. The poor, because the less adventurous (who seek safety in food) won't go there. The rich, because rich people will pay for diversity.

There weren't any Starbucks in Nicaragua. It's far too poor. Conversely, the week at an exclusive Austrialian island that we went to for our honeymoon, courtesy of a travel agent auntie, was very unique.

But otherwise, the train of Americanization crushes on.

I've got some good Nicaragua stories saved up; I'll try to get them out soon.

[Helen]

I liked Bryson's "Notes from a Big Country" immensely, and his "Notes from a Small Island" elicited laughs when I was familiar with the areas he had been to.

I don't think a Starbucks is what renders an area "American-ized", I rather think it's the number of American tourists. Not the chain establishments. Sad though, that they lost their (correct me if I'm wrong) Portuguese identity from what I understand is such a beautiful island.

[j-a]

correct me if you will, here's my tuppence' worth:

in most developing countries, it is somehow seen by the locals as 'posh' to frequent foreign establishments. be it starbucks or l'occitane, the point is - it's not local, it's foreign. it's exotic. it's a status symbol.

it just happens that some of the more aggressive expansionists are american companies.

it's not just the influence of travel. it's the effect of globalisation (although travel is a part of it).

if you're a real traveller at heart, you know where to find the local stuff - even in a developed country like hong kong where all the high end brands in the universe exist, there's always somewhere to grab a ten dollar (HK) bowl of won ton meen.

[transmogriflaw]

I think j-a is right.

However, I think that in some places it's becoming harder and harder to find the local place. This is probably most apparent in the US itself; think about how many small towns in the US have lost distinctive cafes in favor of fast food.

In cities, there is always an alternative, but not always in small towns.

[Chris]

In my experience through the smaller towns of OK, the smaller the town the greater the likelihood of there being a town diner, etc. It is the towns going through the growing stages that experience the chain/fast food phenom.

And then, once they reach a certain size the locally owned places sprout up again and are successful. For instance, there are two Mexican restaurants within about a mile and half of my house. On the Border and a locally owned place. I have been to the On the Border, once, and that was because someone had given us a gift card. The locally owned place gets 99 percent of my Mexican eating business.