Tag: Rants

Please Stop Speaking: Other People’s Travel Insecurities

This blog post is not meant to minimize the seriousness of COVID-19 at all.

There are many people sick and many people have died from this virus and I hope the world gets their shit together and finds a way to stop it and/or cure those who already have it.

Moving on though…….

You know what this blog post IS about? Insecurities. Not even your own insecurities but the insecurities outsiders try to put on your personal travels.

There are two specific ones I want to discuss: relationships and dangers.

‘Your Man Lets You _______?’

Friends at beach
Traveling Europe With The Girls

My man doesn’t LET SHIT. I am an adult and I am not under parole. So don’t bring that ‘let’ business into my life, ever.

How many of you are in relationships and had outsiders try to cast doubt on travels you or your significant other is about to embark on? Many I bet.

I travel a lot, it was something my boyfriend of four years was made aware of from the beginning. In fact, the day after our first date – I flew to St. Maarten. I made it very clear that travel is a priority in my life and that he either can come along for the ride or stay on the ground and far away from me. Luckily, he’s awesome and supports my travel habits and also participates in some of them too.

I’m very aware that he’s probably gotten some snarky comments about ‘letting‘ me travel to New York with the girls or to the three foreign Carnivals I’ve attended since we met. But he doesn’t give into that nonsense.

There was a conversation yesterday on Twitter about ‘how would you feel about your man going on a Spring Break trip with his boys?’ (thanks Tash!) You know what my response was?

I’d be VERY sad if he didn’t let me plan it for them and get them the best deal possible. That would be upsetting. The going to Spring Break part though? No. Why would I take issue with that?

Why is it that as soon as someone attends Spring Break or Carnival or some big music festival that the presumption is they’re going to do some dumb shit? That’s not fair. If I know how to act accordingly while traveling, he should as well. I assure you, if the person is going to cheat they’ll do it in your city, at their job etc. The first nor last time won’t be on THAT one vacation.

So please stop. Stop asking people about would you let this and that, and how did you let bla bla bla. Not your relationship, not your business. Only because your previous person may have done something, or your friends man/woman did – does not make it so for everyone. Keep the comments to yourself.

‘Aren’t You Scared To Go To _______?’

Aqoral Spa Hyatt Regency Cartagena
Hanging Out in ‘dangerous’ Cartagena

Between being told I could get kidnapped traveling alone to Bali, to being warned that my boyfriend and I will be killed by the cartel going to Mexico and that my friend Lorren and I will face grave danger visiting Cartagena – there’s a plethora of examples of people projecting THEIR FEARS onto my travels.

Person ‘a’ is scared of their own shadow and person ‘b’ is traveling somewhere that person ‘a’ wouldn’t dare venture to. So now person ‘a’ tells person ‘b’ about all the ways they could die going to that place.

Story of my damn life.

My mom tells me not to be so hard on people because they are just telling you to be safe and wishing good for you. Okay but, do you think I’m some frivolous and naive jackass that just travels wherever with no previous research? That’s how I take those comments. You think I’m an unprepared child. I read zero travel advisories apparently.

For every trip I do, I assure you months of reading went into it. I do a lot of overnight shifts and in those 13hrs, there’s not much else to do but to read things and my reading consists of planning my next trip(s).

With the current COVID-19 situation, I know there is a lot of fear-mongering going on. Is some of it valid? Probably. Does that mean I’m going to stop enjoying my favourite thing in the world? HELL NO.

I won’t put myself into any imminent danger (no Wuhan for me) – but I also still book trips. I’m going to still travel and enjoy myself because life is too damn short to be scared of stuff. If I die, I may as well do it in South Beach instead of Woodbine Beach.

People project their own fears onto you even when there isn’t civil unrest or pandemics floating around. Have you ever planned a trip solo? Bet some scaredy cat told you that you’re crazy and THEY ‘could never‘ do that. You know those ones.

Or when you travel to places that aren’t just all-inclusive resorts. Tell people you stay in AirBnB’s off a resort and they sometimes look at you like a martian. It is inconceivable to them that people take such ‘RISKS’ when they travel. Big quotation marks around that risks thing because my sarcasm is at a peak.

I planned and researched my trip to Turkey to get my teeth done extensively. Going to a foreign country alone to get a medical procedure done probably doesn’t cross too many people’s minds. It crossed mine, a long time before I acted on it.

About two weeks before the trip (that had been paid for, confirmed etc) I got a DM from a girl telling me that her friend went to some OTHER country and her teeth weren’t done well. So, not even the same clinic as me and not even the same country. Cool.

I wondered at that moment, what do people expect you to do with that information? Should I be like ‘omg, really? you know, let me cancel my entire trip and the procedure because YOUR friend went somewhere else and it went badly.‘ That seems like the only appropriate response. Because you are choosing to message someone two weeks before a trip to tell them a scary story. You must want me to cancel the whole thing. That’s how I’m taking it.

Obviously I didn’t cancel.

Airplane crashes happen, I don’t see people choosing to stop flying. It’s all a circle of projection and I need those who do it to STOP and those who are being projected on to IGNORE.

This post went on for longer than anticipated and I probably sound like a crazy person just ranting. But I am truly sick and tired of everyone else opinion on something they’re not paying for. If you paid for my trip, then you might have some say in it. Your fears aren’t other peoples fears. Whether in relationships or not, still go on the damn trip. If you did your research and chose well for a safe destination for you, then go take the damn trip.

Life is too short to be scared.

  • Mirna

My Problem With ‘Suffering’ Tourism

Whether you call it dark tourism/grief tourism (tourism directed to places that are identified with death and suffering) or thanatourism (personification of death, refers more specifically to peaceful death) – I need to know what the hell draws you to it?

I’m going to call it suffering tourism because you are going out of your way to be a tourist in places where suffering took/takes place. Now, I do understand there is no place in this world where suffering hasn’t taken place. That I fully grasp. But going there to experience these things as an outsider who wants to FEEL immersed in it? Are you sick fam? 

Recently there was an article on Twitter posted about a war hostel in Sarajevo. The title of this article drew me in pretty quickly, ‘Recreating death for a living: Inside Bosnia’s War Hostel‘. 

What? Šta? Co? Qué? Quoi? क्या? Ano?

The only way to explain my ‘what the fuckness??‘ was in like seven different languages. 

So I went along and read the article and yes, it was exactly what I thought. This place offers an immersive experience ‘where visitors get a taste of daily life in a warzone.‘ I’m not even sure where I can begin to tell you how I feel about this. I’ve read the article like four times now and I’m still wondering what the hell is wrong with people. In the article the person who owns the hostel says they offer it so that people can learn what happens when ‘…people get divided into us and them.’ They can’t go read a book? They don’t have Google? You need to tell me, the only way for people to understand divisive politics that lead to genocide is to pay money and pretend they were us during the worst times in our lives? 

*refer back to the seven languages of WHAT?! above*

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I had done an itinerary for carnival in Brazil and went wandering into activities and tours one could do while in Rio. There was a nice option for a visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue and some hang gliding, awesome. Then I saw something called ‘Tour of the Favelas’. I’m there reading this description and it’s saying something along the lines of it is a RESPECTABLE tour of some favela in Rio. 

If you don’t know what a favela is, it is basically the hood area in Brazil. The disproportionately low-income and high-crime area. When my Brazilian friends tell me about going to Brazil, this is exactly the area they tell me to stay away from. Tours? So, you’re going to do what? Walk by and look at the poor people like they’re circus acts? What is it that could possibly make you want to pay money to go observe these people? Nah. I don’t see anything respectable about that.

My friend Kenya was Tweeting along with me the other day about this topic, she was saying how she has no interest in going to old prisons, asylums, Auschwitz or Elmina castle in Ghana. I felt that. Accurate representation of how I also feel about places with such horrific histories.

However, this is one important part I would like to add in right now. Those who are of certain diasporas wanting to go to these places in researching their OWN history? That is not the same as suffering tourism. Those of the Jewish faith visiting Auschwitz makes sense. Black people in USA, Canada, Caribbean etc. wanting to go visit Elmina castle in Ghana makes sense. 

As a Bosnian refugee I have zero interest in visiting a damn war hostel in Sarajevo. Granted, that isn’t necessarily my history as I was fully alive and present for the war in Bosnia. I’m good on all that, I don’t need to feel, see or experience that shit. That is actually my life. 

I had also seen that there is a tour in Sarajevo that takes you into the underground tunnels that were made by the army to get around the city while there was snipers outside. I…. Ok. No thanks, again.

When I told my mom about these things she said it all has to do with money. If people can somehow make money off any aspect of tourism, they will. Some people are ‘history buffs’ (I’m using this term VERY loosely) and want to be immersed. You an anthropologist?

Few weeks ago there was an article I came across from a journalist describing his trip to (I believe) it was Auschwitz as well. He was saying how it was crazy going to a place with such a sordid history but the tourists there just running around eating their snacks and taking selfies by the gas chambers. That does not sit well with me. I want no part.

Why wouldn’t you travel to places in search of times of jubilation? Happiness? If you are going to Carnival somewhere, why aren’t you educating yourself about that aspect of your trip? Why do you need to go to a favela tour if you’re in Rio or a plantation tour if you’re in Barbados? Is that absolutely necessary for you to experience?    

The best way I could explain it to some of you is by using what happened a week ago today in Toronto. The monster who decided to kill a group of innocent people at Yonge and Finch.

Imagine if two months, two years, two decades (whatever) from now – someone decided to make a ‘Van Massacre in Toronto Tour‘ Taking tourists from other countries to see and IMMERSE themselves in one of the worst days this city has ever experienced.

How would you feel if someone was offering ‘Residential School System Experience‘ as a tour? Given we know the horrific things that the native population in Canada went through in those buildings. Would make me sick.

So I ask some of you who clearly don’t accept books, school or Google as being ENOUGH for your learning of history, why? If it wouldn’t be acceptable in showcasing the tragedies in Canada for profit, why is it OK for you to go see it everywhere else?

– Mirna 

  

NO, I Do Not Have A ‘Sponsor’

I’m really sick of this shit. 

I’ve BEEN sick of this shit.

Why is it that every single time a woman travels a lot, the FIRST assumption is that she has a ‘sponsor’?? Is it completely beyond you to think we make enough on our own? That some of us work doubles and overnights to travel as much as we do? 

This falls in the same line as people who say ‘omg you’re so lucky!‘ when you travel to somewhere you fully paid for yourself and didn’t win in a sweepstakes. 

In my many years on social media, I have never seen a man get accused of having a woman sponsoring his travels. Ever. It is presumed that he just happened to make enough or work enough to be able to travel. However, the second any woman (including myself) happens to fly somewhere people consider luxurious or just go away multiple times in a year – we must have a man financing this. 

Do I take issue with women who do have sponsors to pay for their trips? Absolutely not. Free travel? LOL. I hope you get every air mile you can and see as much of the world as you can on someone else’s dollar my dear. But it is highly offensive to assume the rest of us don’t have the means to travel without the help of a man.

Miss me with the power dynamics of the genders as well, how men have the money while women have the sex. I’m not new here, I know how this works. Doesn’t mean it works for everyone. 

I have been to 26 countries as of last week, and by the end of this year I will be at 28. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many extra shifts, overnights, doubles etc. I had to do so I could afford that kind of exploring. When people fix up to say that I have a sponsor or I am ‘lucky’ for all of these countries I have visited – no, it’s not one of those. 

A lot of us don’t come from rich homes where we can just take off whenever we feel like. I wish that was the situation, but it just is not. All the women I know who travel a lot bust their ass at one or two jobs so they can afford to do what they love. You saying that they must be escorting to travel negates all their hard work. 

So please stop.

Stop telling women that they must be financed by a man to travel just because your favorite IG personality happens to be or because you don’t work enough to afford it yourself. Stop telling people they are ‘lucky’ to travel because luck had nothing to do with working 90 hours within two weeks and making sacrifices in your social calendar. 

Thanks.

Note: If you do have a sponsor for travel, ATTA GIRL! Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do for what you want either. They’re just jealous no one offers them a stick of gum, nonetheless a whole trip.

– Mirna