6 traveller habits that deserve a second thought

If you’re passionate about travelling, there are two questions you might want to think about:

1. What am I looking to get out of this adventure in terms of personal growth?

2. How am I affecting the cultural landscape of my chosen destination?

The first is one that you can often answer as you go along. Goals shift as the mind expands. You might want to focus on tiptoeing—or barrelling—your way out of your comfort zone, seeing how well you adapt to stress and change, or creating lifelong memories.

But what about the second question? Like it or not, there’s no such thing as leave-no-trace travelling, regardless of your travel style. It’s not unethical to travel, but travellers can often have a negative impact despite the best intentions. Fortunately, there are actions we can take to lessen the negative impact and improve cross-cultural understanding.

Full disclosure, before I introduce the following list, I’m guilty of a handful of the below actions. Mistakes happen—we don’t know what we don’t know! I’ve learned not to shame myself for my past ignorance. Helping each other do better is the spirit of travelling and I’m grateful for many late-night discussions about these topics at hostels. This is a key part of the personal growth many of us intrepid souls may be seeking. With that caveat, here are some travel practices you may want to reconsider.

1. Relying on translation apps

Language apps have changed the game in a major way. For many of us, they enable us to communicate with others when we lack fluency in each other’s native tongue. I’m grateful to them. They’ve rescued me many times from booking the right overnight bus ticket in Laos (you’ll share a bed with a stranger if you don’t ask some clarifying questions!) to asking a passing rice truck if my mother and I could hitch a ride when we were stranded in Northern Thailand. What’s also rescued me is learning a few words and phrases in my destination’s language. You won’t always have access to Wi-Fi or a data signal. When you’re lost in Venice at 3 a.m. and almost fall into a canal (not that I’m speaking from experience…) it’s helpful to flag someone down and know how to say “Per favore aiutami.”

An action you can take: You don’t have to learn a whole new language, but the bare minimum can be learning greetings, “please”, “thank you”, “I need help”, and “where’s the bathroom?” People appreciate it when you make an effort. You can memorize these on that long train or bus ride. If there’s no more space in your travel-stressed brain, use some good old-fashioned pen and paper. You’ll thank yourself later.

2. Taking pictures of people (without their consent)

When you’re at a big event, festival, or tourist hotspot, strangers are inevitably going to end up in the background of your photos. That’s unavoidable. This isn’t about that. This is about being sneaky and taking photos of others without asking them. How would you feel if people were taking pictures of you without your knowledge, for whatever reason?

This goes double if you’re travelling to an impoverished area. Think about your motive behind snapping that photo. Would you take a picture of children you don’t know in your home country? Are you snapping photos of people at their homes doing chores? Are you capturing suffering you don’t understand which you’ll later display on your Instagram? It’s voyeuristic and dehumanizing. As Kennedy Odede wrote in an op-ed on poverty tourism in Kenya for The New York Times, "They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity."

An action you can take: If you’d like to take a picture of someone, ask! If you don’t have the vocabulary, gesture! If they agree, thank them. And remember to respect the biggest rule: no means no.

3. Mistreating animals

Alright, so most of us aren’t going around kicking monkeys or buying pangolins from shady street vendors. That said, there are so many ways where we may be contributing to the mistreatment of animals without even thinking about it. For example, when you see the (near constant) advertisements for riding elephants in Thailand, taking selfies with tigers in Indonesia, or swimming with dolphins in Mexico, it’s crucial to understand that these practices also fall under the umbrella of animal exploitation. Many of these animals are kept in cruel living conditions, abused as part of their “training” and forced to work long hours under physical duress. Yes, even the dolphins.

An action you can take: Seeing and/or interacting with local wildlife is often a draw for travellers to visit places they might not have considered otherwise. You can support the economies of the destinations that rely on wildlife tourism by:

• Visiting sanctuaries focused on conservation — and of course, never mounting the animal.

• Taking a responsible tour to see animals in the wild (by land or by sea) — and keeping your distance.

4. Harming the environment

You might be hurting the local landscape more than you realize. While we’re on the subject of taking pictures, a remarkable uptick in damage has been done to the environment by travellers chasing Instagrammable shots (or visiting locations people found out about through a location tag on social media). Trampling on delicate plants and breaking rock formations are two common examples of ways that active travellers cause damage to natural landscapes. A sunflower farm in Ontario had to ban visitors after a viral image led to the sensitive crop being destroyed. In Thailand, Maya Bay was closed for two years to allow its ecosystem to recover from overtourism.

An action you can take: You don’t need to stay in your house for fear that stepping a pinky toe outside will make you personally responsible for climate change. However, you can be mindful. Regardless of whether or not you’re taking GoPro shots for the ‘gram, always bring bags for your trash, try to visit national parks and nature preserves on weekdays to offset the number of people there at one time, and— this can’t be stressed enough— watch your step (or your fins, if you’re near a coral reef)!

5. Misunderstanding the host culture

This is something else you might not even realize you’re doing. If you’re an avid traveller, it’s important to note how small interactions can make all the difference and can vary hugely from place to place. This includes everything from food etiquette, to unspoken clothing dress codes, to whether or not it’s appropriate to bargain for that flea market bracelet. Avoiding cultural missteps as much as possible will make you a better global citizen, and even if you don’t agree with the reasoning behind certain customs, it’s important to respect them.

An action you can take: These days, you have the whole internet at your disposal to look up basic cultural norms before your flight leaves the runway. Jetting off to Japan? Tipping after a meal is considered disrespectful. Travelling to Turkey? You could face fines for wearing a bathing suit while not on the beach. Read up on when to cover your shoulders, how to greet people, and how to manage consuming alcohol. It’s helpful to look to locals for social cues too.

6. Having a superiority complex

I’m not only talking about feeling superior to the residents of the country you’re visiting (if you catch yourself feeling this way, interrogate why… please!). Have you ever been to a hostel and gotten into a conversation with someone who went on a rant about how they were a traveller and not a tourist, or a backpacker who scoffed when you told them how many countries you’d visited? Travelling and exploring the world is not a contest. There’s no prize. Stop acting like it is.

An action you can take: If you find yourself about to say something along the lines of “Oh, you’ve never been to Son Doong Cave? Then you’ve never really experienced Vietnam,” stop and check yourself. You’re all travelling because you are curious about the world and are hoping to get something out of the experience. Instead of asking how many times someone has hitchhiked naked in a hailstorm in Peru, why not ask your fellow travellers the two questions listed at the top of this article? What are you looking to get from this adventure in terms of personal growth? How are you aiming to ease the effects of your presence here?