In Defense of Tourism
Of all the modern pejoratives, few are deployed with more casual disdain than “tourist.” We sneer at their backpacks, their selfie sticks, their unquestioning queues outside the Mona Lisa or the most Instagrammed croissant shop in town. We deride them for going where “everyone else goes,” for eating at the restaurant that’s been reviewed a thousand times, for photographing their breakfast in a place that is, apparently, beneath the dignity of a “real traveller.”
But to romanticise tourism is to defend one of the most sincere and beautiful impulses in the human soul: the longing to be moved by somewhere new. A tourist is, at heart, a person chasing wonder. They are not experts or insiders. They are visitors—often first-timers—who’ve likely saved for months, planned meticulously, and dared to interrupt their routines in the hope that the world might offer them something marvellous.
And where, really, are they to begin? They’ve never been to this city before. They don’t have cousins in Rome or best friends in Tokyo. They turn to what’s available: Google, Instagram, TripAdvisor. Not because they’re unimaginative, but because they’re sensible. Why risk a potentially bad €25 meal at a hole-in-the-wall with no online presence when you could be eating at a place a thousand people have loved? What is called “mainstream” is often, quite simply, reliable. There is wisdom in the crowd.
To eat the famous dish, to see the famous painting, to stand in the famous square—these are not empty gestures. These are acts of homage. The Mona Lisa is not a cliché. She is magnetic, elusive, eternal. People don’t flock to her out of ignorance; they do so because they wish to feel, even fleetingly, the collective awe of humanity. That instinct is not shallow. It is deeply noble.
And yet—admittedly—I have been one of the “haters.” I’ve scoffed at queues, sneered at itineraries, rolled my eyes at people earnestly ticking off “top 10 things to do.” I’ve felt that peculiar pride that comes from going against the grain—finding the hidden cafe, the quiet museum, the unloved corner of the city. And in those moments, I now realise, I wasn’t necessarily more curious or insightful. I was feeding my vanity.
So I remind myself, often: do not lose your humanity to feed your pride. Do not forget that those tourists you deride are people, just like you, searching for beauty in unfamiliar places. They’re trying, in their own way, to feel alive. To step out of the ordinary. To bring back a story.
Tourists are not the problem. They are the evidence that people, no matter how far-flung, still dream. That they still believe in the possibility that the world might surprise them. The crowds at the Eiffel Tower, the clumsy map readers in Venice, the overwhelmed diners in Tokyo—these are not embarrassments. They are monuments to hope.
Let us be kinder. Let us allow others their awe, even if it’s of something we’ve seen a dozen times. Because reverence, however common, is never trivial. And the desire to be enchanted is one of the most admirable instincts we have left.