Advanced Travel Destinations
Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, are all classic travel destinations. They’re built off tourism, they’ve got lots to them, and they require more than two nights. Then there are the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and Hawaii, typical vacation stays. They’re warm, they’re comfortable, and they have whole industries built around vacationers. Big cities in Southeast Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, during the summers are backpacker haunts. Antarctica, Australia, and Africa for the real adventurers looking to bushwack. They still have nature, and an entire hospitality industry built up around it. These are all bucket list items for travelers, places to go once and then rave about for the rest time.
What someone’s travel destination says a lot about them too. If they like London, then they like museums, shopping, nightlife, and tasteless food. If they like Tenerife, then they have stressful day jobs, and appreciate time spent sitting on a beach doing absolutely nothing. If they like Machu Pichu and the Inca trail, then they want bragging rights, that Instagram post, and to talk about it for the rest of time…much like they’re still doing. But when someone says they’re going somewhere uncommon, then there is a story somewhere. Unless they are a snob, refusing to like the same things as others simply for the sake of it, or have a strange fixation to the city, they are generally incredibly well-traveled. Within every genre of travel: city/cultural, vacation, and adventure, there are destinations that are not popular in travel fairs.
There is a reason the aforementioned cities are tourist hotspots: because there is truly a lot to do and see. They are cities that one requires more than two nights to get through, and offer a different cultural experience still palatable to tourists. In East Asia for example, Tokyo and Hong Kong come to mind. They have distinct flavour and experiences, as well as shopping and dining. Cities in China don’t feel safe for foreigners right now, and are sanitized to the point where they lack personality, and similar things can be said about Seoul. Nothing else is big enough to offer more than a few days of meaningful experience to visitors, and have developed enough tourism industries. So, if someone says that their next stop in Asia is Harbin in China, they have nearly certainly been to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and likely Chongqing, Chengdu, Xian, and Yunan. Unless they are from East or Central Asia, they have also likely been to all the other classic travel destinations.
Of course, Lonely Planet travel guides exist for virtually every country in the world and make every place out to be worth visiting. It’s not so much the lack of attractions at the destination as it is the implication of these destinations. If someone is traveling to a more esoteric destination within a travel category, an advanced destination, if you will, they are either well-traveled or have a good reason. Geography and geopolitics are common reasons. That is to say, proximity to home, connecting flights, or visa allowances. Another one is romanticizing the destination based on some book, movie or television show: Quebec city has always been a popular destination among those living in North America, but for Asians, it is strange to fly all the way around the world to take a connecting flight to Quebec, unless it’s to visit a little red door from a Korean drama.
These destinations have little to offer the traveler the same way classic destinations do. If someone wants to visit a city, why would they go to Dubai or Copenhagen? They have little to offer in terms of museums or food. If there’s a story, it’s because they were susceptible to marketing or love Lego respectively.
Western first-time international city travellers always go to one of New York, Paris, Rome, London, or Tokyo. And it makes sense, because there is objectively more to see and do in those cities. Then they delve into the secondary cities in the surrounding area, and then the third and forth tier destinations until there is nothing of note left. By the time one is traveling to Charlotte or Brussels for the city itself, and not as a stopover, they’ve officially run out of things to do. The visitor to the United States will no longer awe at a shooting range or parkade in Austin, the same way the visitor to Toulouse is no longer interested in every little boulangerie or church.
Likewise, visiting the Canary Islands or Tanzania for the beach as a North American is ludicrous when there are perfectly good beaches in the Caribbean. For the backpackers and adventurers, it’s a bit more challenging. Their intent is go venture off the beaten path and do something entirely unique. Still, there are the accepted climbs, hikes, dives, and safaris. It’s much rarer to find someone who wants to climb Huascaran in Peru instead of Everest or Machu Picchu. If you’re in Peru, why not do the lauded Inca Trail? Certainly, this point is a little harder to make for those seeking adventure, but the point remains. Unless they’ve summited the mountains that people know and seen the sights that are commonly accepted to be the best on this earth, why would they deign to try something likely much harder and less rewarding? Surely they must have fallen in love with the destination from a Netflix show, or already been everywhere else there is to go.
Though classic travel destinations are better, most advanced travel destinations have a unique metric in which they exceed them popular ones. The top fifty cities in China by population all have over two million inhabitants, and have distinctive cuisines. Seoul is rife with streetwear, streetfood, and a commitment to aesthetics. Harbin has a brewery, the remnants of German colonialization, and an ice festival. Quebec has a city fortress that is older than much of the buildings in Europe, vibrant nightlife, and a funny-sounding French. Dubai is Potemkin oasis in the desert not unlike Vegas, but with more money and more of a need to be accepted. Copenhagen is expensive, cold, and has terrible food, but interesting design. I could go on to vindicate the rest of the examples I’ve thus far listed, but the point is that ever city does have its charm: it’s just a matter of how much collective charm there is.
And for most people, despite how much they talk about preferring less hustle and bustle, how important unique experiences are to them, travel is ultimately a luxury, and the destinations that provide the most bang for their buck are the classic, well-worn options. So when someone says that they’re going to Stockholm next summer, ask them if they’re ABBA superfans, or corporate IKEA employees, because if not, then you have an advanced traveller on your hands.
