Travel to Third World Environments
Travel, according to Mowforth and Munt, is a way of influencing world perspectives, of recognising how diverse societies and ecosystems blend through a global perspective (6). One of the forms in which travel changes one’s perception is through the creation of geographical imaginations. Through inventions that provide a framework for understanding the environment, through age, gender, nation of origin, and through factors that reflect identity, spatial creativity offers a viewpoint on how the world is created. Mowforth and Munt state that “these differing geographical imaginations emphasize the images of the universe are historically and politically built, and there are a range of influences that lead to our perception of the world.” (6).
Part of the problem, however, with geographical imagination is that it is based on impressions rather than experiences. Novels such as When the Going was Good (Evelyn Waugh), Abroad (Paul Fussel), and The Beach (Alex Garland) present a bleak impression of certain areas of the world, thus suggesting that the dangers of travel are far more exotic and threatening than they might actually appear. As literary excursions, they provide a balance between the banality of middle class life and a desire to see and feel violence that exists in a precarious space within the human experience (Huggan 132). However, the reality is both more terrifying and less romantic, thus the traveler may be more essentially unprepared than he or she may believe as they foray into the unknown spaces where philosophical, national, and political differences leave them vulnerable to circumstances that are beyond their experiential understandings of culture and life.
While travel is a wonderful event that allows for experiences and memories to fill the spaces of a life, the joys of becoming acquainted with new cultures enriching one’s own culture, some areas of the world hold dangers that are built upon political oppositions. When a tourist chooses to enter into a zone that is unfriendly with his or her own nation, this can become a dangerous position causing the tourist to be at the mercy of events that she or he may not have expected. Political tensions are sometimes difficult to predict, the result becoming a global problem more quickly than one might expect. Tourism in countries such as Egypt, Colombia, Cambodia, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Peru and Morocco can have hazardous results. In Egypt, in November of 1997, tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut experienced an act of terrorism that took 57 lives. As a result, tourism revenue in 1998 dropped by 45%, thus creating a cascade of problems from the horrific initial event (Mowforth and Munt 294).
Some of the most dangerous places in the world to travel are Somali, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan, Sudan, The Democratic Republic of Congo Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and Palestine. Going into these countries can represent a direct threat to one’s safety and are considered high risk areas of travel (Tarabanov). According to Collier, “democracy is a force for good,” and as such brings out problematic tensions because of opposing ideological forces that have not been indoctrinated through the true needs of a state (p. 11). Even though democratic values have emerged in many of these regions, the West has “promoted the wrong features of democracy: the façade rather than the essential infrastructure” (8). This has led to a lack which directly promotes criminal behaviours and responses that lash out against those who may be innocent, but represent an ideology that is failing one faction or another within a state that is still full of internal conflict.
Despite the dangers, however, traveling into these areas can provide one with a sense of the entire global status, the differences in culture and the way that despite these differences, human being still are driven by the same needs. In discovering diversity, one can find similarities on which to break the sense of ’other’ as it is represented in persons from different cultures, and engage in understandings of how human is essentially a familiar state no matter where one goes. Travel in high risk zones has advantages to experience that controlled tourist areas may not provide. In addition, the traveler is contributing to the economic welfare of a nation when spending dollars for tourism pursuits.
Economics, Environment, and Tourism
Travel has become an economic advantage to many developing nations. With many nations that are underdeveloped having high levels of debt, tourism is one way to sustain their natural resources, while exploiting an industry that is financially lucrative in order to raise funds for citizens and the state (Mowforth and Munt 6). One of the impacts that tourism will have on an area is in participating in destroying the natural environment as the infrastructure required to support the event of tourist activity must be established. However, some regions of the world have been able to preserve their natural resources while creating tourism that panders to those who like risk involved in their travels. Eco-tourism has provided an economic boost to some regions, while providing a natural space of athletic challenge through activities that take advantage of the natural space within a country.
According to Equations, “some communities resisting development impositions on their lives have also experimented with small-scale, locally controlled and sustainable tourism” (93). However, not all agree that this is a viable possibility. In opening up a natural area to tourism, the area becomes vulnerable to the impact of tourists that can significantly alter the environmental balance, costing the state the advantages of those resources. Examples of this can include pollutants entering water resources and tainting biological systems, thus creating an introduction that controverts sustainability (Equations 93). Therefore, in seeking risk-taking activities, tourists are providing for economic boosts to local economies, while also creating a danger to the environments that are entered through misuse and pollutants that come from Western ideologies of environmental use.
Additionally, areas that promote eco-tourism must also ensure that those who come to participate have the skills to navigate the natural environment and to integrate into the risks in such a way as to know how to negate them. An example of this type of risk can be seen by the American native Timothy Treadwell who took to the Alaskan wilderness in order to live among bears. Treadwell, while not a trained naturalist, lived among bears to prove that they were not an aggressive species. However, at the end of his 13th summer he and his girlfriend were mauled to death, parts of their body found as the evidence of the attack (Lapinski 143). Australian animal expert Steve Irwin was stabbed by the barb of a stingray, causing his death and leaving a world shocked as they saw someone who knew animals killed in an event that was not uncommon to tourists (Irwin 3).
According to Kay Showker in her book Caribbean Ports of Call: Western Region, one of the authors favorite tourist attractions is the event of swimming with stingrays. The contrast between the death of a known animal expert compared to the tourist attraction might suggest that the tourist event is somehow safer. The average tourist assumes that all events have been designed for their safety, but this is not the case. A risky adventure is such because there is risk. Thus, traveling to exotic locations with eco-tourism attractions and guides must be undertaken with a foreknowledge that it is an adventure because there is risk.
Neth discusses the opportunities for Cambodia and the natural resources that have started to attract eco-tourists to explore the virtually unknown regions. There are a great deal of issues that, if addressed, will ultimately alter the region in such a way to deny its naturalistic attraction. Sanitation and hygiene infrastructure is sorely lacking, thus creating risks through adaptations that tourists must make to accommodate them in these areas. Food safety is non-existent, thus the food that is served is not subject to any kind of regulation that ensures that it is without taint. Travel, in and of itself, to and from the region has hazards which include poor boat maintenance, high incidents of tornados and hurricanes, and environmental disturbances that are sometimes oddly predictable, as much as they are unpredictable (Neth 129). This doesn’t include the dangers presented by criminal behaviors and ideological diversities that allow for aggressions.
While the dangers of an eco-tourism adventure taken in an exotic, decidedly uncommon tourist center, may seem attractive, the adventure may hold more exoticism than is expected. Though a tourist may read all of the relevant literature and ‘prepare’ through second hand knowledge, there is no way to fully be prepared for the immersion into a culture and environment that is outside of the traveler’s frame of reference. Additionally, the message that can be found through the deaths of experienced naturalists in environments of danger from animal and wildlife suggests that to believe that because an area is designated for tourism, does not mean that the wildlife got the memo. Learning to accept the unknown and the uncontrolled is the only way to begin to prepare for such a journey.
The Greatest Danger
The greatest danger to people as they travel will always be other people. While there will always be tragedies with transportation and accidents within the natural environment, the most common problems will occur when people intend to do harm. This type of harm can come in the form of criminal behaviors, fraud, and aggressions based on political diversities in ideologies. Any parts in the world are not hosting citizens of another region without the possibility for conflict. Many of these places are already experiencing internal conflict, thus it can spill over onto the traveler. It is in these circumstances that the difference between the tourist and the traveler can be noted. A tourist is coming to observe, their experience placed behind the lens of a camera as they gawk at the culture in which they have come to experience. A traveler might be framed as one who embraces the culture, thus creating a connection to its realities and not looking for an expectation of safety, but believing that the underbelly of the culture is simply a part of the experience, thus it must be acknowledged and respected.
The wise traveler will adhere to some basic concepts that prevent dangerous situations. The first place a person should become geographically aware of is the embassy that represents their nation. Knowing where to go for help can be a tremendous help when trying to discover how best to navigate a situation. Avoiding wearing expensive jewelry and having expensive luggage will keep one’s status off of the radar of those who might notice. As well, answering questions that seem innocent, such as ‘What do you do for a living’ can provide too much information to a person with mal-intent (Lori and Sohanpaul 666). Revealing where one is staying, even in passing, can set one up for a conflict that occurs later. Friendly does not always mean friend. The trick to becoming a traveler instead of a tourist is in blending in as much as possible, downplaying any financial status one may have, and in providing the least interesting or attractive package to those who might interpret the traveler for a means to an end. The art of the traveler is beyond the skill of the tourist, creating a differentiation that can save a life.
Conclusion
The idea of moving to a place has dangers should never be discouraged, but doing so when proper preparation has not been made is undeniably a bad idea. It might be considered correct to say that one should never be a tourist in a risky environment, whether that environment is natural or man-made conflict, but should always be a traveler. Travel denotes the idea of moving from one geographical space to another, but tourism suggests the fishbowl syndrome, with a tourist looking in at a culture without having taken the time to find out how best to immerse into it. Tourists are very often naïve, believing that because they have entered a space designed for tourists, they have entered a zone that has been made safe for them.
With the rise of eco-tourism, the nature of adventure travel has become both an economic boon for the hosting state, and a space in which the needs of the tourist can be fulfilled for engaging nature in an event or experience that provides thrills and challenges. However, just like traveling to a dangerous nation, entering natural environments require the same type of respect and preparation. A healthy level of trepidation will provide the traveler with enough incentive to build a base of knowledge that will provide recourses for problems that might occur. While visiting nations outside of the common course of travel and risking conflicts in exchange for depths of cultural experience has a great deal of value, traveling to areas that are known for threats must be done with serious contemplation and after a great deal of research on how to best behave and integrate into the surroundings. Being just a tourist can have high costs.
