Pondering on the Negative Impacts of Tourism and Travel
In so many years of travel-blogging, I have rarely used this space to glorify the joy of travel or urged people to get on the road more often. Here are some reasons why.
It is nearly 8 years since I have been travel-blogging. I took to pursuit of travel much earlier, perhaps sometime in 2002. That was a time when I found myself with a disposable income that allowed me to be on the road frequently. But a burning desire to explore existed from a time in the past that I can’t remember.
In those years when I began my geographical discoveries, I was an upstart traveller who always wanted to be on the move, see new places and then simply forget about them. There was no greater goal to travel but to travel. There was no intent towards deeper exploration of a place nor a purpose of inner exploration of the self. There wasn’t any aspiration to learn from my journeys, but to simply live the pleasure of being in a new place. I did not think much about the way I travelled, things I learnt or the footprints I left behind at the places I visited.
Perhaps everyone has to go through stages of evolution. Mine began when I started India Travel & Photography Blog as a means of documenting places I visited, which I might have otherwise simply forgotten. But as time progressed, writing became a significant part of my journeys. I worked to improve my writing, and in the process, read a lot of popular and eminent travel writing. This in turn gave a new dimension to my journeys and allowed me to see the process of travelling with a new outlook.