Comment by timr
4 hours ago
You balked at the idea of volunteerism, but then I gave you less...demanding...versions, and you criticize them as being imperfect. It's clear that I'm not going to convince you, and you keep cherry-picking the most expensive / burdensome examples I provide, so I'm done replying after this.
But since I didn't explain it explicitly, the principle is that while all travel is damaging, you can thoughtfully pick activities which:
1) Will help offset that damage (e.g. volunteering)
2) Require that you be in a place (e.g. seeing family / friends), or
3) Otherwise spread out your impact and/or engage with locals on a more authentic level -- even the horrible, very bad, "extremely artificial and damaging" yoga retreat (lol, come on) will put you in a small minority of travelers, many of whom will be locals themselves.
Despite your repeated mischaracterizations of my argument, it doesn't have to be expensive, and perfect is not the enemy of the good. It doesn't take much more than creativity and effort to do better with your travel.
That's rich. You haven't proven any of your alternatives is any better. Like, none of them. They are all as artificial as sightseeing, but if it makes you sleep better at night...
Your "yoga retreat" is the worst of the Eat Pray Love kind of tourism, I cannot believe what I'm reading. It's artificial as fuck, please don't suggest it ever again.
I also do not want to visit friends and family, that's a different activity entirely!
You mischaracterize all sightseeing tourism as "damaging" and the equivalent of TikTok and Mario Kart tours, yet complain that I am mischaracterizing you.
Wow. The sense of entitled gatekeeping I'm getting from you is off the charts.
I have to follow your very strict and arbitrary standards -- you, who by your own admission have lived in "several tourist hotspots" (making you a bigger part of the problem than me) -- because... somehow my visiting several interesting parts of the world where I know nobody is "damaging"?
Wow. That's rich.