The commodification of travel
I've noticed that travel has become, of late, an act of collecting places. I've literally heard people referring to visiting a place as doing that place, as in "Have you done Japan?", assuming that one can do an entire country, and once that country is done it remains as such. As if a place is a product to be consumed and checked off the list. Why bother returning to a place if you've already done it?
I received a gift many years ago which, while being well-intentioned, typifies this idea: a scratch-off map of the world. Each time you visit a country, you can scratch off the metallic coating and the country is now done, according to the map. The work trip I took to São Paulo a decade ago? Brazil: done. Bus tour through Europe? Germany? Check. France? Check. Spain? You get the idea.
This kind of mentality is typified in the question I've heard asked many times: "How many countries have you been to?" This is often followed by a debate on whether layovers count towards your tally if you don't leave the airport, as if stepping beyond the airport boundaries bestows doneness.
Like many things, I blame social media. It's changed travel from an exploration to social status signalling. I started thinking about this a few years ago while visiting some waterfalls in Indonesia. I love a good frolic in a waterfall, but all of them were just lines of people waiting to take their photo under the falls, and then they'd better get out of the way for the next photo-goers. No frolicking allowed! People need to do these waterfalls!
I spent this morning in a beautiful garden outside of Kyoto, which exemplifies the cultural ideals of appreciating nature and meditating on the beauty that surrounds us. It was lovely during the early morning, but then the rest of the world showed up and all they wanted to do was take photos and move on to the next spot to do. There was one moment, in perhaps one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful places I've ever visited, where I was surrounded by about 20 other people, all of them either in the process of taking a photo, or looking at what they had just taken on their phones. No one was looking at the amazing stuff they were doing!
That isn't to say taking photos is bad. They're a great way to share an experience with others and save a memory of a time and place—but I think the threshold of what is enough has been crossed in the age of Instagram where images and video are socially valuable. Now beautiful places are commodified. And I don't know if we'll ever go back.
I appreciate that many places in Japan limit photos and videos, such as on trains or in gyms, for the sake of not annoying those around you. Perhaps once sunglasses cameras take off and people can record their entire lives they can finally experience where they are, instead of trying to capture it perfectly for later.
All that being said, I don't want to gate-keep. If this is the form of travel that makes people happy, then they should do it to their heart's content. Similarly to how some people collect Magic cards while never playing the game, sometimes the fun is in the collection itself. But perhaps look up from your phone once in a while. The world is prettier in full resolution.