The world is the size it always was – travel beyond the algorithm
Take a glance across the internet, and you could think that the globe has shrunk, that tourists have blanketed the world, and that nothing is left to astonish us.
All this is an illusion.
The golden age of travel may be over – we can no longer see the Bamiyan Buddhas, experience the original Bali, or cross the Sahara by 4x4 – but the world is the size it always was and much of it is little visited.
A little imagination and enterprise can take you into uncharted territory.
Such as my trip to Tibet, when I did not see another Westerner, and met just two non-Tibetan travellers — both religious pilgrims.
I visited the inner sanctums of monasteries, walked Koras around glistening Stupas that few Westerners have seen, rode on motorbikes with Nomads across green pastures, and meditated with a High Lama in a mountain cave. The stuff of dreams (mine anyway).
All of this is in a place that barely registered on Google. Read my Tibet story here.
These experiences restored my sense of wonder at the world.
They also got me thinking:
My most profound travel experiences have happened in the overlooked places, the in-between places, and the remote places:
The spent three weeks on an expedition in the vast, creaking expanse of the Greenland Icecap.
The quiet evenings spent by the less well known ruins on Inca Trail — not watching the procession of tourist coaches wind their way up the hill towards Machu Picchu.
As impressive as Machu Picchu and other wonders are, the experience of seeing these spectacular sites is often disappointing – as we dodge the hawkers and the selfie sticks.
The world has always travelled en masse – I only have to look at my parent's holiday photos to know that.
But increasingly, our journeys are steered by algorithms and influencers, funnelling us into just a few places – where everyone else on Instagram seems to be - resulting in over–tourism and under–imagination.
But venture beyond the digital noise, and we can encounter the true riches of travel - encounters where there is opportunity to learn, unlearn, and cultivate a sense of re-enchantment with the world.
So why not be an explorer for a few weeks? – climb the unknown peak instead of joining the circus on Everest.
Gather up your courage and follow your curiosity – join that adventure trip, buy that campervan, put that pin on the map, and go.
It just might transform you.
Beautiful. We all want to go where others don't go. But how to implement it? My favorite (and patented, but I grant you permission because I like you) method is the Red Marker method . Here is how it works: you need an old-fashioned, paper-printed map, a Lonely Planet guidebook and a red marker, and some patience. You open the guidebook and using the red marker you patiently mark on the map and cross over all the places mentioned in the guidebook. Then you look from distance, with satisfaction. The red-marked places are where you will NOT go. But the entire rest of the country is the white spot for you to discover. Voilà!