Assignement 4: Traveller or Tourist

What is a traveller and what is a tourist? It may be safe to say that as long as one is venturing outside of his/her home one is travelling. And by this definition a tourist is a kind of traveller.

Some may not agree entirely and want to assign a more prestigious meaning to the denomination "traveller" as oppose to the fast-food reputation of the "tourist" label but having one term encompassing the other does justice to both as well. Let me explain. A tourist is a very well known term that has been defining a very specific group of people over a number of years. This category or group of people has done everything from climbing the pyramids in Egypt to fuelling economies in places like in lots of Caribbean islands whose economies are geared toward catering for them. Tourists have done everything in between including abusing there powerful position in a lot of places from crazy behaviour in hotels to indecent conduct and outfit at the beach. There is no getting away from it. There is a bad reputation associated with tourism.

So more image conscious people call themselves "travellers". They avoid going into typical places that most foreigners visit, place labelled "tourist attractions" and they try to concentrate so called more "authentic" experiences. This has been a new trend for some time and an attempt to restart the activity of visiting foreign places from the basics but this is the same basic activity. This is why a tourist is necessary a traveller but a traveller might not be a tourist.

To simplify further the distinction between the two let's confine the tourist designation to pure recreational vacations and traveller to every other type of foreign journey.

Following this definition I have been both during this marvellous trip to South Africa! Most of the time I am working in my place of internship at the science centre and this falls nicely as a non-recreational activity necessary to differentiate myself from a "tourist". But I had the chance to go on a short "vacation" to the beautiful city of Cape Town and there was nothing in mind than enjoying the beautiful scenery, climbing the gorgeous "Table Mountain" and going to see Nelson Mandela prison cell on the nearby island with all the other tourists!

I think there is no inherent bad in being a tourist from time to time. As a Caribbean guy I was quite happy to finally being one and enjoy a week-end of care-free relaxation in a place that was truly exotic to me. It is like everything in life if it is not abused it's all good.

Since then I've been back to my placement and I have been working hard to make the most out of everything. Working for more than just a few weeks really makes me start to feel different about everything and by now I feel a lot more like a foreign worker than even a traveller let alone a tourist...

Thanks for reading!