Travel and the algorithmic trap
perell.com
perell.com
But you can also approach a place with an attitude that there are a couple places/activities you really want to see/do/eat but let the rest develop more organically. It's easier once you've checked the "must-dos" off your list admittedly. There are a number of places I enjoy returning to in part because there's nothing I feel I must do. But if I spend a trip just flitting from attraction to attraction and don't spend time just wandering around, I feel that's a miss.
I know a number of people who travel rarely, as they can't often afford major trips. Their trips frequently include a relatively large number of must-do items, because they've spent a lot of time planning the three or five or seven days they can afford halfway around the world.
And this is before getting into what the obsessive planners I know do when on vacation!
Of course, it you're spending a little time in a place for what might be the only time there are probably one or two things you sorta have to see. But you should mostly avoid (IMO) just checking off sites.
The trap is, of course, that it's monumentally stupid to cram "seeing London" into the timeframe of one week. The bigger the city, the longer the time it takes to properly take it in. Otherwise your travel experience is a 200 km/h carousel ride: what can you even retain and process, at that speed?
What's the difference between seeing the Milan Dome in-person for a brief 20 minutes (because you have a laundry list of stuff to do) -- and seeing it in pictures? Not much, in my opinion.
Personally, I'd rather see only 1/5 of the "objectives" available to me, if the ones I DO end up visiting stay in my memory.
Absolutely. I’ve been visiting Scotland since childhood (family is Scottish) and the last few trips have been fantastic precisely because I’ve seen the must-sees (as has my wife, who has now visited twice) and can now just drive around and take in the beauty.
And now that we’ve visited several other countries, we seem to have found a balance between “see all the things” and “relax and smell the roses”.
But, admittedly, we have the budget to travel internationally once a year or more.
My best ever holiday was pure serendipity: Inter-railing, before the advent of mobile phones. We had the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable and no other guidebooks, doing the whole thing on signposts, local info, helpful bystanders, and simply wandering around interesting-looking bits of city centres.
(But for working Americans the thing in short supply is time, not money, hence the tremendous rush I guess)
Not in the US.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/mobile/73-percent-of-all-c...
That is to say that time off will pay off in increased productivity.
Another way to say it, insufficient rest has its own cost.
To each their own but seeing travel, or even a short non-work break of some sort, in purely economic value might not be the most healthy outlook.
Who knows -- if you were to take even a one week trip somewhere else maybe the time away from your work will give you better insight into it, or even better thoughts/ideas, that might lead to more money / economic power, if that's your goal.
I actually disagree with this (in part).
I get what he's saying. Why wouldn't you go to some objective best in terms of scenic beauty?
But I'd argue that, at least in some cases, there are almost as good locations that are far less crowded that may make for reasonable alternatives all things considered. US National Parks tend to be National Parks for a reason and they are usually worth visiting. But, in many cases, there are nearby Wilderness Areas and National Forests that have many of the same virtues with a fraction of the people.
I've observed the same thing with hikes in Yosemite. Many of the best hikes are off the beaten path. With that said, I stand by my general point. I don't think the Algorithmic Trap applies to nature quite as much.
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback and thank you for reading.
We see his opinion about the essential sameness of places visited by tourists in a few places in the book;
A confidence trickster bums a meal at a tourist cafe at Place Mohamed Ali, Alexandria:
""
Maxwell Rowley-Bugge, hair coiffed, mustaches curled and external clothing correct to the last wrinkle and thread, sat in one corner, back to the wall, feeling the first shooting pains of panic begin to dance about his abdomen. For beneath the careful shell of hair, skin and fabric lay holed and gray linen and a ne'er-do-well's heart. Old Max was a peregrine and penniless at that.
Give it a quarter of an hour more, he decided. If nothing promising comes along I shall move on to L'Univers.
He had crossed the border into Baedeker land some eight years ago—'90—after an unpleasantness in Yorkshire.
…
How he had come to Alexandria, where he would go on leaving, little of that could matter to any tourist. He was that sort of vagrant who exists, though unwillingly, entirely within the Baedeker world—as much a feature of the topography as the other automata: waiters, porters, cabmen, clerks. Whenever he was about his business—cadging means, drinks, or lodging—a temporary covenant would come into effect between Max and his "touch"; by which Max was defined as a well-off fellow tourist temporarily embarrassed by a malfunction in Cook's machinery.
A common game among tourists. They knew what he was; and those who participated in the game did so for the same reason they haggled at shops or gave baksheesh to beggars; it was in the unwritten laws of Baedeker land. Max was one of the minor inconveniences of an almost perfectly arranged tourist-state. The inconvenience was more than made up for in "color".
""
And later, Pynchon revisits his thesis about tourist-land more directly:
""
V. at the age of thirty-three (Stencil's calculation) had found love at last in her peregrinations through (let us be honest) a world if not created then at least described to its fullest by Karl Baedeker of Leipzik. This is a curious country, populated only by a breed called "tourists." Its landscape is one of inanimate monuments and buildings; near-inanimate barmen, taxi-drivers, bellhops, guides: there to do any bidding, to various degrees of efficiency, on receipt of the recommended baksheesh, pourboire, mancia, tip. More than this it is two-dimensional, as is the Street, as ar the pages and maps of those little red handbooks. As long as the Cook's, Travellers' Clubs and banks are open, the Distribution of Time section followed scrupulously, the plumbing at the hotel in order ("No hotel", writes Karl Baedeker, "can be recommended as first-class that is not satisfactory in its sanitary arrangements, which should include an abundant flush of water and a supply of proper toilette paper"), the tourist may wander anywhere in this coordinate system without fear. War never becomes more serious than a scuffle with a pickpocket, one of "the huge army … who are quick to recognize the stranger and skilful in taking advantage of his ignorance"; depression and prosperity are reflected only in the rate of exchange; politics are of course never discussed with the native population. Tourism thus is supranational, like the Catholic Church, and perhaps the most absolute communion we know on Earth: for be its members American, German, Italian, whatever, the Tour Eiffel, Pyramids, and Campanile all evoke identical responses from them; their Bible is cleraly written and does not admit of private interpretation; they share the same landscapes, suffer the same inconveniences; live by the same pellucid time-scale. They are the Street's own.
""
Later, after inexplicably peering into the mind of a train conductor operating a service that some of our protagonists are riding, Pynchon seems to explain why he's doing this:
"" Merely train's hardware for any casual onlooker, Waldetar in private life was exactly this mist of philosphy, imagination and continual worry over his several relationships—not only with God, but also with Nita, with their children, with his own history. There's no organized effort abot it but there remains a grand joke on all visitors to Baedeker's world: the permanent residents are actually humans in disguise. ""
If you're ever in Madrid -- the Prado has a copy of the Mona Lisa, made in the same studio, at the same time, probably by one of Leonardo's students. It's also been restored, and you'll be the only person there to see it.
Planning a Madrid trip so I’ll try and do this.
I enjoy travel more if I've studied the place I'm traveling to. If I haven't had a chance to read a book about the city before arriving, the first thing I do as a tourist is visit the history museum.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/06/hipste...
WELCOME TO AIRSPACE How Silicon Valley helps spread the same sterile aesthetic across the world https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12325104/airbnb-aesthetic-...
The algorithms just play a supporting role. If you went to Goa in the 1960s or drove a motorcycle across China in the 90s, you were adventurous as hell and you didn't need things to feel familiar. That was the whole point.
Most people going to Bali in 2018 not as creative as those pioneers, they are looking to have a relaxed time and down a few beers, take some Instagram shots at a temple, go scuba diving, they want a safe and predictable experience, bonus if there are many totems of home they can seek as refuges when the world gets too weird, like a Starbucks.
So as international tourism becomes a more mainstream activity, the destinations themselves grow more mainstream. This won't necessarily kill the trade either because there are a lot of first-time and occasional tourists for whom going to a good aquarium in the tropics that has unusual fish and coral, or something like that, is a pretty novel experience.
What the internet has mainly done is accelerate something that was already there. Where in the past something could go from being a quirky find to a packed tourist trap over years, now it can be months. I do think the proprietors of the old “tourist traps” are now actively catering to different tastes, to actively target the type of taste and aesthetic that does well on Instagram etc. but that’s perhaps even an improvement.
The good thing is that all these online discovery platforms pair well with old fashioned serendipity: walk around until you are lost. Then check to make sure a place is not too popular on Foursquare or Tripadvisor :)
>"And yet, this coffee shop is packed. Here, you’ll find nothing but trend-hungry foreigners in search of familiarity and a neon-lit stage for their next Instagram post."
And then they go on to post a picture of "Bathtub Gin" as their favorite hometown bar.
This is a bar in NYC that is a generic "mixology" bar with exposed brick and velvet chairs in the trendiest and most hyper-consumerism neighborhood in Manhattan. This is the same high end cocktail bar you can find any major city. The author even refers to it as a "speakeasy" - a marketing term re-appropriated to describe a certain ready-made aesthetic. There is nothing unique or "local" about it. It's full of tourists who staying down the street at the Maritime Hotel. Needless to say there's lots of Instagramming goin on there.
The reasons for those are that, a majority of tourists(not travelers) like that 'generic services' about the basic things, like the food, transit, conversations etc. Quite a few of them want to go to places others have already gone to, and want the least surprises (hence low anxiety) and hence this generic trend is kicking on. Source: user interviews. I run a travel startup - in early days - and have been talking to the users a lot. The ones I talked to, do not see travel as a unique or surreal experience, but something to take a break out of their mundane lives.
So, these generic experiences are becoming more mainstream. My hometown is Udaipur - the city of lakes in India. You would find all those generic things that author describes in that small city too. However, there are specific hubs, places that are formed only to cater to those travelers who want to experience the local culture - food, clothings, living like a local, and so on. These places get a lot of traction. But are not publicized anywhere on tripadvisor or those popular blogs [1].
Just how things have evolved. People want to experience different culture, only in the things they like, and want other things to be same.
[1] https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g297672-d311645... One such place.If you look at the reviews, it is not that high. But you can find it easily if you are willing to talk to travelers been here, or read the blogs and accounts of those who visited here.
Also, getting out of the big cities helps.
Nope. The world is becoming ever more communicated. Ideas travel faster. Good ideas - and sometime bad ones - are copied around the globe.
Why should I be able to eat sushi just in Japan?
> I swear: every trendy, optimized-for-algorithms place has the same lights, the same chairs, and the same damn avocado toast.
It is difficult to be unique in a 8 billion people world. If your design is good, I will copy it. That forces people to look harder for new things. There is more originality and novelty than ever before in human history. That so much people has access to it, that it can be produced cheap and enjoyed by millions is not a bad thing.
> The issue is this: hotel visitors know they’re getting something generic. That’s the point. Mid-tier hotels advertise safety and reliability. They sell risk minimization, not experience maximization. Algorithms, though, advertise authenticity while selling commodities.
McDonalds (1955) predates Intel (1968) and the rise of the algorithm. Algorithms has nothing to do with your travel experience. You may get the recommendation from an algorithm that you should visit the Eiffel Tower. 50 years ago was a travel agent doing that job.
> At first, authentic travel experiences such as tours and cooking classes are too expensive to buy. As they gain popularity, they become standardized and mass-produced.
Should travel be only allowed for the rich?
> In fact, the best parts of travel are precisely the things that technology cannot touch.
In my travels in Japan I use technology to move around. I use technology to read signs and museum notes (I do not speak Japanese). I get lost in a city knowing that I just need to look at my phone to get back to the hotel.
> One caveat: Avoiding algorithms doesn’t apply to traveling in beautiful places. I depend on algorithms in expansive natural parks. When I’m in Patagonia, I want to do the best hike.
Yep. Algorithms looks like a solution, not a problem.
> City travel works best when we put down our phones, seek serendipity, and lean into another culture.
If you really want to know a culture forget about traveling. You need to live there for a few years. Some people may thing that traveling with the locals is being part of their culture. It is not. Working there, getting the same salary, getting the same laws, looking for a job, looking for an apartment... it is very different that hanging out with interesting people. I love to do the later, but it is not being part of the culture, you are still a tourist.(tourism: the commercial organization and operation of holidays and visits to places of interest.)
> I see travel as a method of learning. It’s an investment. I rarely travel for leisure, recreation or relaxation. I understand why people do it, but at this time in my life, that’s not where my priorities lie.
I feel the same. But I still thing that the people that looks for leisure are traveling. The people that want to relax are traveling. I would have liked the article if it has been less judgemental, eliminated or explained what it means by algorithm - because it makes no sense in some context - and kept things as an opinion not as a truism.