The world is not a checklist

Traveling—an increasingly popular pursuit, thanks to the proliferation of budget airlines and notwithstanding airport indignities—is nowadays largely inspired and mediated by guidebooks, travel magazines, blogs, websites, and Instagram accounts. There are books that speak of “places you must see before you die,” magazines that rank the “best beaches,” “best cities” and “best travel destinations.” Because of our natural fondness for lists, these are often appended with numbers: “top 5 day trips from London” or “7 healthy restaurants in Baguio City.”

Thus, people go to the top-rated restaurant on Yelp, try to accomplish the “top things to do” and “top things to see” on TripAdvisor, and copy the same “cool” poses that others have done before them on Instagram (for example, “pushing” the Leaning Tower of Pisa). And then, at the end of the trip, people would say: “I did everything!”

* * *

There is, in itself, nothing wrong with following others’ advice. But when we rely too much on the opinions of others, there is the risk of the world becoming a list written by others: of places to see, things to do, activities to experience. What are the consequences of this phenomenon?

First, it reduces the world to a predetermined set of destinations. India will be New Delhi and the Taj Mahal; the Philippines will be Palawan and Boracay. Because the Mona Lisa is one of the “must-sees” in Paris, people crowd around it, waiting for their turn to have a selfie with the famous painting, totally oblivious of the many other wonders in the Louvre. People fall in line for several hours to see the Statue of Liberty, even though a walk around Brooklyn would probably be more rewarding of what liberty has meant for the city.

As the disparate reactions between the recent Paris attacks and those in Beirut made plain, culture plays a big role in this predetermination of places. We feel more comfortable in places with which we’ve been familiarized: the America and Europe of Hollywood, the Korea of telenovelas, the springtime Japan of animé. On the other hand, there are some places that we will never consider at all, because we think they are unsafe (even though part of the reason these places are deemed unsafe is no one really knows much about them in the first place) or because they receive negative attention in the media. Mindanao, for instance, is generalized as “dangerous”—even by many Filipinos—even though I would feel safer in many parts of it than in some parts of Manila. Africa, though a vast continent, is also seen as a singular place, and something that happens in one part of it (for example, Ebola in West Africa) causes people to shun the entire continent.

Second, seeing the world as a checklist short-circuits the process of personal discovery. Travel should be an interaction between you and the world: of experiencing it through your background and interests, while keeping an eye open for new things. A musician should look for the musical heritage of a certain place; a hiker should seek out the mountains.

On the other hand, in the dominant paradigm of traveling, destinations come as part of a “package” that are designed to give tourists all the highlights written in the guidebooks. The result is having so much to see, but nothing left to explore or discover. Moreover, because validation by others is integral to the experience, there is a tendency to go for places and experiences that others can appreciate: More people will “like” your photo in the famous Angkor Wat than in a little-known (but equally fascinating) temple elsewhere. In the process of tailoring our itineraries to cater to our peers, or to a social media “audience,” we participate in making travel a homogenous experience.

Finally, the numerical nature of a checklist can predispose people to look at traveling as a numbers game. In the desire to have as many passport stamps and countries visited, people rush through Europe, devoting only one or two days for each country. In a rush to visit as many of the 81 provinces in the Philippines, people breeze through one or two towns per province, missing out on a lot of what each province has to offer.

* * *

Having a bucket list is not a bad idea. The reality is that our life is finite and we cannot expect to see the entire world. But it is also precisely because of this finitude that we must not allow other people’s lists to overdetermine our plans. Don’t force yourself to watch ballet just because some people say “You haven’t been to Moscow if you haven’t watched a Bolshoi theater performance.” Don’t force yourself to visit so many countries in a week’s time. And don’t say no to traveling to places that’s not on your list: These places may yet surprise you.

The world is not a checklist. You can spend your whole life in one country and not miss out on anything because there is so much richness wherever you are. You can also spend your whole life traveling around the world and still miss out on something because there are way too many places to discover.

A sunrise so beautiful we let go of our camera and just watch it happen; a village so enchanting we chose to stay longer than we had planned; a performance so magical that we fell in love with the city that inspired it, knowing that there will be another show the next time around: Somewhere in our journeys, my hope is that something will make us realize that although the world has so many beautiful places, the only must-visit in the world is the world itself.

Gideon Lasco is a physician and medical anthropologist. Visit his website on health, culture and society at www.gideonlasco.com.