Travel vs Tourism

My time Puerto Rico has led me to ponder the distinctions between travel and tourism. I have done a lot of travel in my life, and I love it. I train-hopped from Paris to Barcelona, lived with a family in Singapore for a week, and slept in the living room of total strangers in Romania. Travel has it's own cultural and moral value. It connects us to new people and perspectives, helps us remember how small we are in the scheme of the planet, teaches us to relinquish control and thrive in uncertainty. As a traveler I scorned tourists, the way young hip ignorant kids do. Tourism was hedonism with no redeeming value, belittling to the locals and damaging to cross-cultural relations. How middle-class, ugh. Then I spent four days on a beach drinking mojitos.

My San Juan trip was undoubtedly Tourism. We stayed on the hotel strip, ate at fancy restaurants in tourist districts, and basically failed to see a single culturally significant landmark in the city. The extent of our interaction with residents was to converse with hotel employees and ask directions of people on the street. Even the big box profusion was welcome. Our first afternoon we walked across to the 24 hour Walgreens and bought Go Lean Crunch, Dannon Light and Fit Yogurt and 2% Milk. I ate the same health-conscious breakfast in PR that I eat every morning in Oakland, California.

I'm not saying we were uber-tourists. There are some tourism behaviors I don't think I'll ever adopt. We rode the bus around the city instead of taking a taxi. We did make it to the open-air mercado to buy one of every kind of fruit we didn't recognize, to supplement our standard breakfast. And for one day we left the beach to visit the rainforest and bioluminescent lagoon, which was an amazing experience deserving of its own post. But basically, I alternated between the ocean, the hotel-provided beach chair, and my bed. And it was perfect.

My life lately is one big ball of stress. Frances' job is enough to drive most people barking mad. We needed a vacation, not an adventure. We needed to be physically and psychically comfortable for a few days. We were looking for mellow pleasure, not the thrill of the new. We wanted to eat the same breakfast every day, and go to a comfortable and delicious and easy restaurant every night, and have no obligations in between. We could have done most of these things if we stayed at home, but we also needed the escape. We needed to be tourists.

There were a few things about our trip that were certainly not good for the island. Buying food at Walgreens doesn't do much for the economy of Puerto Rico. But generally we were a pretty benign presence. We ate at local restaurants, tipped like crazy, respected the natural beauty of the place, and smiled at everyone we saw because we were so happy to be where we were. This dedicated traveler has discovered that tourism has its place.

The Joys of a Sugar Momma

Despite being unemployed, bored, and perpetually anxious, my life does have some perks. For instance, my roommate and good friend from college happens to work for Google in a fancy-pants position. This means she makes an absurd amount of money, and is often happy to share it with me. Two weeks ago was "Google Bonuseve", otherwise known as the week that Googlers receive their bonus packages for the previous year. (We are inventing a whole set of greeting cards around the specific holidays of the tech sector. Ex: Congratulations on Your Cliff Date!) When we realized exactly how much money she was going to get, we decided that a tropical vacation was the only possible response. So that Saturday we bought plane tickets and reserved a five-star hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We left the following Thursday. I planned the trip, and she paid for it. Like I said, perks.

Puerto Rico, for those of you who aren't aware, is gorgeous. I think a lot of people still associate the island with the tap-dancing gangs of West Side Story, but a lot has happened in the last 50 years. Large parts of the island are still rural, spotted with small towns, but the few metropolitan areas have become tourist hot spots, especially San Juan. This has some unfortunate side effects, like an explosion of fast food restaurants and big box stores vomited across the landscape. On the other hand, if you're willing to venture away from the hotel district you can discover as lovely fusion culture. And even a strip mall feels a little different when it's 85 degrees with a breeze and 100 feet from a glowing blue ocean.

One thing I will say for San Juan, they have done a great job of protecting their beaches despite the waves of tourists. The beaches are clean and welcoming, and even crowded they feel authentic because just as many locals are on the sand as tourists. I am a water creature, so for me the ability to simply bob in salty water at body temperature is a kind of heaven. As Frances said "My hindbrain is so happy right now."