Has Travel Become Another Exercise in Narcissism?
I’m sorry Expedia, but it sure as hell doesn’t make you more interesting
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“Travel yourself interesting…”
The concept invaded my consciousness as only an insidious radio advert can.
I was on a South London bus, headphones firmly implanted to drown out the school-kids’ Friday morning hullabaloo, when amongst the usual litany of shouty commercials came the sound of waves and seagulls.
A soothing voiceover inquired: “Why be Andy Nuttall when you can be…” and suddenly there arose the voice of Andy himself, assaulting my eardrums in a strangled underwater scream that proclaimed his name in affirmatory joy: “…A-N-D-Y N-U-T-T-A-L-L?!?”
Then came that slogan: “Travel yourself interesting,” and here was the rub — the once tedious Mr. Nuttall had been injected with an ebullient charisma by way of a simple trip abroad.
As I pondered this seductive message, part of a tongue-in-cheek promotional campaign by internet travel company Expedia, one question nagged: if travel makes you interesting, why are so many ‘travellers’ such a bore?
Anyone who’s spent a fair amount of time in the world’s hostel dormitories will have met the culprit. He sits there on the bottom bunk, emaciated tanned limbs protruding from a Bintang vest and a pair of baggy pyjama trousers printed with a flailing dragon, and then he starts to witter. Whether you like it or not, you are hearing his story, each twist in the narrative prefaced by the dread-refrain: “when I was in…”
He’s been away for two months, spent most of it dancing on the beach addled on diet pills and Sangsom sets—perhaps punctuated by a week of hungover volunteering building a retaining wall that is destined to collapse within a year. His destination’s merits can all be surmised with the brain-dead epithet “amazing”; the natives were “so friendly”. But this facsimile, off-the-peg experience has invested him with unprecedented insight into Thailand’s society—indeed, into the very essence of the human…
