Looking for something more than a holiday
The Difference Between Tourism and Curiosity
For a long time, I thought I simply disliked certain kinds of holidays.
I found myself restless on resort vacations. Bored after a few days by the pool. Slightly disconnected from the version of myself that seemed to emerge there.
It took me years to realise that it wasn’t the destinations I disliked.
It was the way I was travelling.
There is nothing wrong with wanting rest. Nothing wrong with sunshine, good food or spending a week doing absolutely nothing. Millions of people love exactly that, and I completely understand why.
But somewhere along the way, I realised I wasn’t looking for escape.
I was looking for understanding.
The holidays I remember most vividly are not the ones with the best weather. They are the places that made me curious.
Rome is one of them.
When I think about Rome, I rarely think about restaurants or hotels. I think about walking through streets where people have lived for thousands of years. I think about churches, paintings, ruins and conversations. I think about the strange feeling of standing somewhere and realising that countless generations stood in the same place before you.
Florence is another.
Partly because I spent time there growing up visiting family, but also because it never felt like a backdrop. It felt like a place where people actually lived.
And I think that is what I am always searching for when I travel.
Not attractions. Not experiences. Not content.
But traces of real life.
I want to know what people eat on an ordinary Tuesday. What their homes look like. What traditions they keep and which ones they abandon. I want to understand how a place became itself.
Perhaps that is why I struggle with certain forms of tourism. Not because they are shallow, but because I often feel strangely absent from myself while participating in them.
When a destination is designed entirely around visitors, I sometimes feel as though I am moving through a stage set. Everything exists to be consumed. Every street becomes a transaction. Every interaction becomes a service. Every experience arrives pre-packaged.
And yet the moments I treasure most while travelling are almost always the least spectacular.
A local market.
An old woman watering flowers from her balcony.
A conversation.
A train journey.
A family recipe.
The kind of details that rarely make it into guidebooks.
I used to think travel was about collecting places.
Now I think it is about collecting understanding. Not understanding everything. That would be impossible. But understanding a little more than you did before.
A little more about history.
A little more about culture.
A little more about how other people move through the world.
And sometimes, a little more about yourself.
Because every place leaves something behind.
Not just photographs or souvenirs.
But new questions.
New perspectives.
New ways of seeing.
The older I get, the less interested I become in travelling to escape my life. Instead, I find myself travelling for the opposite reason.
To become more connected to the world around me.
To satisfy curiosity.
To follow stories.
To understand how people live.
And perhaps that is the difference between tourism and curiosity.
One asks, “What can this place give me?”
The other asks, “What can this place teach me?”