Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Most people who hate part time tourists are full time tourists -- backpackers -- and that's why backpacker forums like the Lonely Planet message board contain an undercurrent of self-loathing and guilt. Here's an analogy: imagine you're drawn to banking but you fundamentally feel that usury is morally wrong; that's the psychology of many people who strap on a backpack and head across Asia for a year. It's the sophomoric belief that the main problems of the global south are international business and package tourism -- like thinking up is down and down is up!

Backpackers idealize the "unspoiled" regions of the world, hoping they'll discover something about themselves that's missing in their own culture. It's a patronizing view of the world -- that the poor should remain poor and not be spoiled by money because young people from rich countries are enlightened by communing with noble savages wallowing in their own misery. Stay penniless and backwards. It's charming.

In reality, every poor farmer I've met in the third world is looking to make a profit as much as a Wall Street banker, and could give a damn whether some smelly dred-locked douche wants to sleep in a filthy hovel, spend very little money, and drink the local beer.

I've often been a part time tourist but I've never gone on a package tour or stayed in an all-inclusive resort. But I don't look down my nose at those who do. All tourists spend money and that's something the poverty-stricken world needs more of. What they need less of are holier-than-thou scrotebags thinking they're better than everyone else just because they have the money and time to spend a year chalking up countries like notches on a frat boy's headboard.