Comments on: Searching for that authentic travel experience

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:24:54 +0000

very interesting thoughts my friend. I agree with you totally about how in our interactions with people, we truly can find the authentic side of a destination. Assuming those conversations are genuine, warm, and respectful. My advice would be to catch those workers maybe at their post-work watering hole and skip the Bubba Gump in Times Square though, lol! Thanks for the thoughts!

By: Dani Good

Dani Good — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:40:53 +0000

When talking about an authentic travel experience, we can say that any trip you do is a authentic experience. When we visit new places and enjoy new cultures we are just opening our doors to the real thing. However, in a globalized wolrd, some times this is lost. Some countries like Costa Rica bets on agricultural tourism, offering pinapple tours, banana tours and coffee tours, to get to know Costa Rica true esence.

By: Andy Jarosz

Andy Jarosz — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:24:03 +0000

Thanks Soan and Sara for your thoughtful comments.
Sara, you reminded me of our visits to the boroughs when we lived in NY. We would take visitors to experience an authentic Brooklyn experience, an authentic Queens one and a trip to the Bronx to see another ‘real NY’. And was it any more real than what they found in Times Sq? Of course not. For each person their own environment is authentic to them. As other commentors have said, it’s up to us to make the most of each encounter.

By: Sara C.

Sara C. — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:46:43 +0000

It’s funny, when you think about it, Times Square is probably the most “authentic American” part of New York City. Especially if you think of New York as “not really the authentic America”, and the “real” America being strip malls and chain restaurants, or people who talk like the characters in the movie Fargo (and wear white sneakers and sport-socks with khaki shorts and blow-dried hair). Because Times Square is where those people go when they come to New York, and it’s been fitted out with businesses that will remind them of the world that is familiar to them, “authentic” America.

When you walk through Times Square, it’s likely that you’re surrounded by the most “authentic” Americans you’ll ever meet as a traveler through the USA. On the other hand, we New Yorkers, the ones who aspire to look and act like Europeans, avoid Times Square on pain of death (unless, like you mention in the post, we work there).

Of course, I like to see New York as its own place, not as an example of America. And in that sense, we are authentically ourselves, just as the Ohioans in Times Square are authentically themselves while borrowing a little of our real estate.

By: Soan

Soan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:30:49 +0000

How does one know that a place is authentic enough or not? Surely even a village never visited by tourists is not same as it was 50 years before. People change and as a result places change too. What once was meant for tourists can be an integral part of a place now.
As you rightly said, it’s the people who count and taking time to know them makes your travel worthwhile.

By: Laura

Laura — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:59:08 +0000

Great post. Just experienced similiar feelings traveling through Australia. Kept trying to find that truly authentic Oz experience. Filled with Thai restaurants, French bakeries and Italian coffee shops, we kept thinking, what it authentically Oz? We soon realized it was all around us.

By: Ollie

Ollie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:41:27 +0000

Great post – over tourism is making an authentic experience hard to come by. Online travel guides are also making it easier to find out a new experience, which is no bad thing?

By: I'm a traveller maann

I'm a traveller maann — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:50:47 +0000

Why should places remain “authentic” to satisfy the created, consumerist (yes, we “consume” places as much as things) desires of young (wealthy middle class) Western travellers?

That’s the real question.

And the real answer is if you don’t want somewhere to “change” don’t go there. Leave the place alone.

As soon as any Westerner arrives and brings their needs with them it will change forever (I personally have no problem with that).

Even the very notion of “authenticity” is carefully put together – our fantasies of what the East (or any other place) should be like are rooted in a colonialist discourse that goes back for centuries.

Take Thailand – most of what people consider “authentic” Thai food is not Thai at all but has its roots in China, Laos and even Mexico (yes, that’s where the chili came from).

The gap between how locals actually live somewhere and how outsiders, with their expectations rooted in powerful imagery of what a place “should” be like, is absolutely massive. And always will be. I see it in London as much as I see it in Bangkok.

We can never escape our own histories nor fully experience someone elses.

What we can do is enjoy ALL of what our host culture offers, even if it doesn’t fit our fantasies of authenticity.

By: Andy Jarosz

Andy Jarosz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:49:48 +0000

Many thanks Mark and JM for your comments. We can feel sad about the loss of individuality of a place, yet at the same time see the unique circumstances of those who live there and learn about them as individuals. I am convinced there is something we can learn from everyone we meet in any situation.

By: Travel Photography

Travel Photography — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:54:56 +0000

The counterpart of searching the “Authentic” Experience is that lots of places already lost their roots, and you can’t find the experience you are looking for. The civilization and globalization killed the roots of the people, something sad, but I think that if we were already in this roots we wouldn’t search for other cultures. Sometimes I think we feel lost in the planet and that’s why we try to search other cultures and places to know. At least, that’s how I feel sometimes.

Travelling Lost
JM Leon.-