KEEPING IT REAL: The Myth of Authentic Travel
What are all these tourists doing tramping around in these small towns, smashing what is left of rural life? That was my uncharitable thought when I returned to Ohio for a class reunion and drove up to Berlin (pronounced BER-lin ever since World War II) and Walnut Creek, and Charm. These little towns stand in the heart of Ohio's “Switzerland” – Amish country--and I was on my way to buy some locally made Swiss cheese. I came away with Swiss cheese and culture shock.
by leezie5 via flickr.comI grew up in Holmes County, Ohio. While not as well known as Lancaster Pennsylvania, Holmes County and neighboring counties are the homeland of the Plain People--the Amish and their slightly more permissive cousins, the Mennonites. Back when I was a child, we knew several things about the Amish. They wore mostly black. They managed excellent farms and if we wanted a cabinet built, we would look for an Amish carpenter. But mostly, our interaction with them was on the road. Because they do not drive anything mechanized, their horse-drawn buggies were a road hazard to our '57 Che vies and '60 Pontiac, frequently causing lines of traffic to crawl along narrow county roads.
On my drive in search of cheese, I enjoyed the gentle hills glowing soft green in the humid air. The Amish farms stand out with their sprawling white houses extended by additions piled on like a collapsed stack of children's blocks. Depending on the season, you may see a horse-drawn plow in the field, or geometric patterns of domed haystacks stretching across the fields. The countryside has a Grandmother-Moses-was-here look about it.
I chuckled as traffic slowed to a crawl and I stretched my neck expecting to see the familiar buggy that was blocking traffic. Except it was not a buggy. It was a tour bus. That is when culture shock set it.
Berlin was a tourist destination? BERlin? One of those small towns that we who grew up there could not wait to get out of, was now a magnet for day trippers from Cleveland and Columbus and Chicago? From my youth, I identified Berlin as a hopeless backwater, only important as a prime basketball rival. Among us girls it was famous as the home of a family of five boys--all tall, dark and incredibly handsome. I doubted that the tour buses were on their way to a county basketball tournament.
Then I saw the signs along the road. “Tour a Real Amish Farm” and “Home-cooked food, Amish Style”, and “Homemade Pies”, and “Amish Quilts”. And it sunk in. The Amish had become trendy. Holmes County, instead of being a place where the only people who stayed were those who couldn't get away, or those whose religion mandated they stay put, was now a magnet to the over privileged.
All those tour bus loads of people came yearning to glimpse some sort of Brigadoon experience--the rural life they imagined to be so superior to their busy, cushy city life. And they were willing to spend money to try it out for a day or two. And they would spend more money to take home souvenirs. The once utilitarian grocery store, filling station and coffee shop have been crowded out by brightly painted faux-country facades of stores selling candles, pottery, and sweatshirts made in China.
by billrock54 via flickr.comLater I learned that nine out of ten of the establishments in the tourist areas with names like Olde Country Shoppe and Kountry Krafts are not owned by Amish, or even Ohioans, but by people from alien lands like New Jersey. Which may account for the bizarre spelling, who knows?
Aside from regretting the lack of reality prevalent in this recreated vision of rural Ohio, I could understand people enjoying the lovely landscape--patches of dense woods alternating with plush farmland. But what struck me was that these tourists thought they were experiencing something authentic, and by their very presence they had destroyed the real small towns and substituted a Disneyfied version of rural Americana
Just when I thought I had begun to understand this new definition of tourist attraction, I learned that a scenic byway focuses on the small town I came from. The attraction? Swampland. That would be the swamp that swallowed up my great-grandfather's rich bottomland farm. The once-picturesque creek that attracted Eastern settlers in the 18th century and American Indian tribes long before that, began to age and spread flabbily across the valley. My great-grandfather, the town doctor, fought valiantly to have the government clean up the creek to prevent the destruction of such rich farmland. Had he been successful, there would not be a scenic byway, horseback, hiking, biking and canoe trails to attract tourists today.
For the townspeople, the swamp not only means loss of farmland and income, it also breeds mosquitoes, drove away the once plentiful deer, regularly floods the town, and has destroyed roads to nearby homes. But for the tourists, it is a wonder of nature that for all they know has always been there. (And isn't it quaint, they must be thinking, that these people built a town in a swamp?)
Is this me, I worry? Am I enjoying my travel experiences so much that I forget to notice what is authentic and what is created just for my enjoyment? Am I ignorant of the effect of changes on the people who have lived in a place for generations?
Am I this foolish when I go to a Greek island in search of genuine Greek village life or cheer when modern life is disrupted in order to uncover Etruscan ruins in Italy? Do I want people to live a quaint life for my viewing pleasure? Am I just a little sad when an electric cable is strung into the jungles in South American and yet another “uncivilized tribe” sees light?
For instance, I am about to visit a prison, infamous in the 19th century and early 20th century for cruel treatment of prisoners and unsanitary and unsafe conditions. Fortunately for the internees, the prison was finally closed in the 1970's and the prisoners moved to more humane conditions. But how unfortunate for me, the tourist. How much more exciting it would be if there were real people inhabiting those hundreds of cells. How much more exciting to peer into the life of someone in solitary confinement. Of course, I don't want to actually LIVE in one of those cells. Maybe I could just visit for a few hours and call it an authentic experience? Then I could retire to the themed bed and breakfast next door and the gift shop that sells striped t-shirts and make-believe shivs for a little shopping.
Vera Marie Badertscher is a travel writer who reads when she is not traveling. She publishes the blog A Traveler's Library (http://atravelerslibrary.com) where she and several co-conspirators discusses books and movies and other inspirations for travel.
15 Comments
Reader Comments (15)
What a wonderful post. The term "authenticity" is definitely overused. But your final line is what got the message across. But it also cracked me up to imagine the faux shivs and striped t-shirts.
The writer neatly states the irony of the traveler's wish to be immersed in an unchaged world even if improvements would enhance (in our modern view) the lives of the locals. Many of us have experienced this guilt trip about our trip guilt, but it usually disappears while we are planning our next tour of the primitive world, which we anticipate will be somehow more authentic than our own. In any case, it's doubtful driving a Lexus and watching reality TV would be deemed life-enhancing by the remaining Old Order Amish, bless 'em.
Well you're right, this is a conundrum. When I travel I do want to see what is real about the place - how people live, what they eat, what makes it different. Unfortunately that means there often is a tourist industry in the area that "creates" those experiences. I think it's possible to visit without exploiting though.
Great articulation of a perennial truth -- what's quaint and charming to outsiders is often just inconvenience to those experiencing it.
And maybe you can't go home.
I spent years trying to escape Brooklyn, where I grew up, trying to get to the shining land of Manhattan. Now Brooklyn is trendy. I guess Amish tourism started earlier in my neck of the woods. I remember going to Pennsylvania towns to ogle the more rural way of life in the 1970s -- and also to giggle at towns with names like Intercourse.
And there's another layer: I learned in recent years that the Amish are some of the largest factory farmers of dogs -- aka puppy millers. I know it's cultural; dogs are agricultural products to them like chickens and cattle to other farmers. That doesn't make it more palatable to outsiders. So idyllic rural life often has ways that would appall us city folk and tourists of all stripes, if we dug a little deeper.
Beautifully done! Wry humor and a thoughtful question.
Off topic:
I am reminded of the time my husband and I visited the Amazon in Peru. We were invited to an "authentic" tribal meeting in which the traditionally-clad tribe members blew poison darts and all sorts of amazing things. Later we saw them sneaking away from the thatched village in business suits--another show for the tourists but time to get back to work after lunch.
Great story, Vera Marie. The questions are insightful, but I like to go back to your statement "Am I enjoying my travel experience so much..." Enjoyment is why we travel (or at least why I do). Whether the place is "real" as in historically correct or "real" as in today shouldn't interfere with the pleasure you get from visiting.
Kate's comment reminded me of something similar, except it was in Bali, at the Monkey Forest. I walked there very early one morning to see the famous monkeys but none were about. As I was leaving the forest a couple of hours later, the first tour buses were pulling up and I caught sight of movement in a little valley. It was a long line of monkeys heading up into the forest, reporting for work.
Great read and perspective. Seems like you'd almost have to go live with a local for a while to really get an authentic experience, rather than the touristy thing.
You raise some excellent points in your article.
(Background: my company gives curious travellers the chance to meet up and learn from Locals while abroad. This includes dinners in Locals homes among other things.)
I think the difference between authentic and fabricated is sometimes very blurred. For instance, one of our locals was explaining that when she has travellers over for dinner she does do more work. "I try to make things like they are probably expecting to find" . It is one thing to tidy up before your guests come over or make a dessert where normally you would not if it were just your family. However it is another thing to completely alter the reality to meet the expectations and generalization of the travellers. Do you serve a pasta for dinner because they are expecting it when in Italy, if in reality pasta would only be eaten at lunch?!
We naturally want to please our guests. That being said, where to draw the line when it comes to tourism?
Disneylands' aside, providing a local experience in it purest form is difficult.
Thanks everyone, for keeping the conversation going. It is so complex, that we could talk about it from many, many points of view, I'm sure.
Ahh, Rebecca, you navigate that difficult ground daily, it sounds like. And Jane, I totally agree that you need to actually live in a place to feel you know it. But I happen to know that you come from a farming community, as I did, and so you know that sometimes a person can live all their life in a small town and not become an "insider." Maureen, I'm ROTFL at the monkeys lining up to go to work for the tourists. My dad used to say that the Park Rangers trucked the elk and bison around Yellowstone and set them down in front of a line of cars! (NOT!)
Kate: Your experience in the Amazon is very much like watching a Pueblo dance in New Mexico, and mistaking the beauty of the tradition for unsophistication. Just try and hornswaggle one of those sellers of hand crafted pots worth thousands of dollars! They quickly transform from the deer dance costume to the modern business person. But on the other hand, if you talk to them, you'll learn that they are grateful for the outside interest because it helps enable them to keep their traditions alive. Another conundrum.
Excellent article and you raise some brilliant points. Authentic travel is something I think a lot of us strive for but without really knowing what it is. It varies from one place to the next. Does being told you are living like a local in a town mean you are experiencing the real thing? I think the only real way to experience the authentic side of a town is actually live there for a period of time. Work, eat, drink and shop with the local community, engage with the local community and ultimately become friends with the locals.
This is a really cool post. I like how you site your thoughts on that inspiring story of yours. Well done and keep it up.
I'm enjoying the resulting dialogue as much as your article, Vera.
Thanks for bringing the discussion to YourLifeIsATrip.com.
Your stories are consistently among our most popular.
Ellen (YourLifeIsATrip.com, publisher)
Thanks so much, Ellen. Appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts.
We traveled to this area in the early 70s, so I believe we saw the authentic before it became much of a tourist destination. For that, I am glad.
Everything is always changing and the authentic in its purest form exists only as a point of time we freeze in our imagination. Which is fine with me, as it is where I prefer to live my life. The cascade of phenomena that we call the present and the real flitters past us and is of no particular consequence: the terrorist who blows me up with him is no more living in the here and now than I am.
My complaint against turning a real community into a tourist destination is that it derails the cultural tradition that had produced so excellent a community that tourists wanted to see it: it stops the process before we can see what it could have been.