The Post-Tourist: What do Modern Day Travelers and Reality TV Have In Common?

As an avid reality TV enthusiast as well as a travel-fan, I think it’s fair to compare the modern-day nomads that are post-tourists with the brilliance of TV that just doesn’t imitate reality, but lives through it. Jersey Shore was my ultimate guilty pleasure on TV for a long time and an accidental discovery of reality TV having common traits with my last travels and trips has made way for an interesting and fun exercise of thought. A little self-irony about travelling is always fun, so I’ve decided to introduce the idea of post-tourism through the prism of reality TV, if that makes sense… It will, later, trust me.

(And all photos will be Instagrams for the sake of an argument – you’ll understand later)

Observe vs participate

Photo credit: Juan Nosé

Have you seen television lately? Besides the usual comedy-tragedy-hospital series, the new medium caught attention in the last decade. And the reason why reality TV entails audiences, is that it doesn’t merely reflect an outer reality to passively watch and observe, but reality TV as a medium demands participation – your vote is what decides will America’s Got Talent be won by acrobats or singers, you’re urged to have an opinion on Honey Boo Boo Child’s  dietary regulations or the ethics of children on television in general. And, its all real – it isn’t just acting, the people are real. They don’t change from an American Dr. House to an English Hugh Laurie, but they’re the same people on screen, in magazine-interviews and off screen.

The shift from observe to participate appears to be happening in tourism, as well. Imagine London. Two questions. How excited would you be to ride the London Eye? But how would you feel about taking bus, getting off at a random stop and jumping into the first small cafe and a conversation with a local? The first is predictable, yet safe, second one is uncertain and certainly very exciting. Surely, the former is valid – see what makes the city what it is, see history and find art, but more and more travelers opt for the latter, changing from tourism to post-tourism, from being just a visitor to becoming a part of the city for a little while.

Reality TV is accessible, easily produced and cheap, occasionally offering surprising facts and intricate details of the subjects’ lives (which you sometimes did not wish to know). Most of the qualities are occasionally not very appreciated in TV, but surely are useful when travelling.

The post-tourist and Jersey Shore

Photo credit: koalazymonkey

Jersey Shore is a cultural phenomenon – a gift to the world (and you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!). The show consists of an odd sub-culture of people who are brought out of their local everyday life of parties, living off not-so-hard-earned-money and complicated relationships, thrown into a new environment and then, they are filmed. We cheer when Snooki gets a job and feel bad, when she runs out of bronzer, we feel happy the Situation is able to keep up with his workout schedule. Okay, I understand most of you might not be such huge fans of the show, but the point is: in the same way, we can rejoice along the post-tourist’s struggles exploring in a new city.

The post-tourist will throw themselves into a new city, trying to blend and take in the lifestyle. You can easily spot the post-tourist seeking through the mazes of dodgy districts carrying a huge back-pack, away from the touristy part of the city, trying to find the couch surfing address located away from central hotels with nothing but a piece of paper with a scribbled address, probably something difficult to pronounce. They will shun city center cafes and restaurants and opt for the odd corner-shops. They are reluctant to take out a map, preferring to get lost for a day and see where the city takes them.

Scripted vs Non-Scripted

Photo credit: [TakA]

A regular tourist’s planning period consists of buying tickets, booking hotels, finding sights and booking tours, as well as buying a guide book (if not three), having a daily planned schedule. This looks like the hospital show where the script is made months ago, actors just play them out, with an occasional improvisation, but not straying too much. Nobody is as clever as Dr. House in real life, even though we’d love to imagine we are. And Big Ben will always be there, with or without you taking a city-tour to see it. The results are predictable, and well, occasionally good (who doesn’t like Dr. House?), sometimes not filling expectations (How I Met Your Mother did get a bit boring after a few seasons).

Now, the post-tourist is a lot more loosely scripted. The plans are simple: getting tickets there and back, possibly making sleeping arrangements as well and usually a tiny bit of sights to seek out. The preparation could involve a guide-book (Lonely Planet is cool, that’s still pretty post-tourist), but is usually more focused on TripAdvisor, for example. Finding what others like as well as asking friends and locals for hints and tips. The most avid ones will spend an evening googling “weird bars in *insert location*” before their every journey. A modern traveler will also be likely to couch surf or get a hostel. A post-tourist will be very loosely scripted, leading to crazy adventures that would sound like over doing it, if they didn’t happen in real life.

Post-production and Instagrams

Photo credit: Intrepidteacher

A lot of Jersey Shore’s fascinatingness is due to the extensive post-production – the tension and the excitement comes from zooming in on Snooki’s face and adding dramatic music. Slow motion captions of Sammy and Ronnie’s last disagreement. Exciting! A good post-production entails audiences, makes them feel connected to the show. With the possibility of filming everything, the production crew face huge decisions of what the share with the world and what might seem too mundane or “old” and boring and needs leaving out.

The post-tourist doesn’t only travel for the experience. They also travel to share the experience. And only one weapon of post-production is needed for this – a smart-phone (with roaming, of course). How else do you take instagrams of pigeons in front of the Eiffel tower. Bear in mind, the tower itself is not an object of the post-tourist’s interest, it is just a reason to talk about the hoards of tourists queuing up, which they of course, will not take part of. The Mona Lisa seems too mundane, they’d rather hunt for the grave of  Wilde.

Without the smart-phone, how can you Foursquare into small random neighborhood cafes of Berlin? The direct access to Facebook makes a trip instant and graspable. During the old times, people had to sit through odd slide-shows of travels, but we have developed enormously since then. Now, you are just see it in your live stream, the post-production is quick and made really easy with the wonders of technology.

Mapping the Hidden

Photo credit: Sami Keinänen

But not all reality TV is useless relationship drama that can go on for seasons. There are some really cool ones: Ice Road Truckers, Pawn Stars and American Pickers (I clearly just like the History channel, which clearly doesn’t focus on history anymore). Reality TV allows a peek into the hidden aspects of a trade you didn’t even expect to find interesting – I clearly had no idea huge trucks on an icy road would offer footage for a whole series.

Just as the cameras set up in work-shops and roads allow us to map and see hidden, the post-tourist will spend their time hunting for the craziest locales,  shunning the touristy gathering places in the old town.

A great example from Tallinn would be about five Finnish guys who mapped 138 bars in Tallinn in a book “Baarimehen Tallinna” (or, a Bar Man’s Guide to Tallinn). This is something that takes skill: they just jumped on trams and buses and went for it. Our Northern neighbors ended with a conclusion of after all of this bar-crawling  they stopped being Finnish. This also implies just as the post-tourist’s manifesto insists, becoming a part of the city for a while is fun.

Sum-up: the post-tourist’s checklist

Back-pack: make it easy to switch locations really quickly by just throwing everything into an oversized bag and walking away.

Ray-bans: hide your eyes that are secretly glimpsing at famous tourist attractions to not ruin your image or protect from sunlight after getting home around 5AM from the weird back-alley bars.

Smart-phone: it’s been said before –Foursquare & Instagrams! Also useful when getting really lost but feeling embarassed to take out a map. It’s easy to pretend you’re just sending messages.

Scribbled names of cafes and restaurants: preferably from TripAdvisor or Like a Local, but guide-books work as last resources, as well. The cafes have to, though, be at least one mile away from the biggest tourist attraction of the city. Also, plus points if the cafe is located inside an old power-plant or factory or hospital or anything typically not related to the food and restaurant industry.

Check-list of weird places to see: for example, in Tallinn, the Nevsky Cathedral is fun for a tourist, but a post-tourist would find the small Ukrainian Greek Catholic church. When looking for a park, leave out the Kadriorg area and head for the Kalamaja one (hey, both of them have beautiful things from the tsarist times close by: one has a palace, the other has.. a prison).

Couch to surf or local buddy: not a definite must, one or both of these will surely boost your post-tourist meter. If lacking a local, you can just ask locals for recommendations randomly on streets.

A look for adventure: something to define a post-tourist is definitely the want to see and experience unexpected and unplanned. So an adventurous mind is definitely needed.

So, log into couchsurfing, pack a bag and don’t forget your phone-charger, you’re gonna need it. I agree, Big Ben is what makes London what it is – London. But there is so much more to it! (the same goes for Tallinn..)  Be sure to discover the lifestyle and weirdness, too!

… And just to wrap it all up, here’s an instagram of a pigeon in Paris:

Photo credit: sfavillotto7