Holidays - Are they a Right?

I have just had two mini breaks, 4 nights in Italy on Lake Maggiore travelling by plane & 3 nights in The Netherlands (Amsterdam), travelling by Eurostar. I hadn't been abroad since 2019 when I went to Romania. I have travelled a lot to very far flung places in my life. I have also been lucky enough to work for charities in Nepal & Malawi. I do think travelling & experiencing other cultures & environments is important. I have benefited hugely from the experiences I have had. I hope that the countries I have visited have not been harmed by by my footsteps & maybe might have benefited from my presence.

My attitude to holidays as opposed to travel has changed over the years. I no longer think that we have a right to "go on holiday". I think that we have to weigh up the impact tourism has on the world & it's peoples, which is often detrimental in many ways.

 

Relatively wealthy people the world over have come to think that they have a right to go where they want & do what they want. They deserve it, they can afford it. We think that we need a break & in order to achieve that we need to go somewhere else, where the weather, the landscape, the food, the culture is different. I think we need to re-think that attitude in light of the many issues that surround mass travel. 

I live in Oxford. I rarely go into the centre of this lovely city because of the huge numbers of temporary visitors on the streets. We have students in the university. We have language students. We have tourists. The University alone has 26,000 students. We have 18 English language schools with thousands of students. The visitor population is approximately 8 million per year. That is a lot of people who often walk around in big groups & block the pavements. 

I accept that they also generate a lot of income too. But they use infrastructure & services & cost us money. They use up accommodation & make Oxford on a par with London for housing costs. Not only is it difficult to walk around Oxford because of pedestrians & bikes, it is also a horrendous traffic jam whichever way you enter or leave the city. 

Then there are the elephants in the room. The Climate Emergency - Pollution, Population increase, Species & Habitat destruction, Water pollution & scarcity, Extreme weather events, Supply chain issues, Food security....

I simply don't think we can ignore this any longer. We humans cannot continue to think in terms of our rights to do what we want. We have to start accepting that we each need to change the way we live our lives. It simply isn't sustainable. It is an existential threat.

Silversea Cruise 6 - Selfies.

Istanbul put me off cameras for ever. It was hot, between 30 - 40 degrees. It was also heaving with people. Everyone seemed to have a camera and a selfie stick. Probably because the knock offs were so cheap. Result - you couldn't walk along the street or be inside a building without being in the way of someone taking a photo. It got to be hugely annoying. If you stopped politely for everyone you wouldn't see anything yourself & movement slowed to a crawl.

The problem I had with it is that no one was really looking. Everyone was so intent on having a photo with themselves as the star instead of the stunning building or view, that they were unable to experience the wonder that is this great city.

When did it all get so manic? When did everyone suddenly decide that their image fronting some iconic view was the most important thing? When did we all get so self absorbed? I suspect it is the conjunction of the selfie stick & Social Media. (Selfie sticks are very aptly named & a health hazard in my view!) We live in a self obsessed world where we all want our moment of fame & think that the rest of the population really wants to see what we are doing and where we are at this moment. I'm surprised no one posts photos of themselves on the loo. Or perhaps they do.

It's all so repetetive & totally mindless. Travellers who only see the world as a backdrop to their own existance. They don't really know much about where they are, the history, the culture, the geography. All they see is a photo opportunity and an opportunity to brag - "here I am".

Yes, I know I'm a grumpy old woman. "Frankly my dears I don't give a damn". I'd rather have memories any day & not be constrained by the narrow view of a camera lens. I didn't take a single photo. How often do we all even look at the photos once we have bored friends and family rigid with them? We just put them in a drawer or save them in the Cloud & move on to the next holiday, left with the problem of what to do with all those images & having forgotten what & where they are.

Silversea Cruise 5 - Cultural Difference

The West is "divided by a common language". Not just us and the Americans. English is the "lingua franca" for many nations. Not only pronunciation varies, so does meaning & understanding.

There were various nations cruising on the Silver Spirit & it was interesting to watch the interaction, or lack of it, between different nationalities. We all, it seems, are most comfortable with our own "kind". So by the end of the cruise, although there were interchanges between nations, mostly the friendship groups which developed seemed to be national.

It is interesting too that behaviour has a cultural dimension. What is tolerated or even normal by some nationalities is considered highly rude by others. I realise that this can lead to sweeping generalisations. The Italians are terrible drivers, the Mediterranean countries let their women do all the work, the Spanish are loud, the French are arrogant & aloof, the Americans are brash & like poor wine don't travel.....Brits, I'm pleased to say, are "damned with the faint praise" of being too polite.

There is some truth in all of this. Misunderstanding can arise because something said or done / not said or not done can cause offence. You don't expect to make deep and meaningful relationships on holiday. By definition most conversations are superficial. The danger is that the opposite can easily happen & friendship can be irrevocably be ruined by such close proximity.

I'm not sure how well it is possible to really know someone. We all keep a part of ourselves back. You have to tolerate things you don't want to & you certainly can't tell the truth all the time without hurting people. Human beings are infinitely diverse. You just have to decide what is important to you & what you are prepared to put up with from others.

Now I'm officially an old lady I think I've mellowed. Or maybe I just don't think the confrontation is worth it. I tolerate things I would not have done a decade ago. Anyone who mistakenly thinks I'm a pussy cat & will roll over when it really matters is hugely mistaken though. There are "lines in the sand" both on holiday and at home.

Silversea cruise 4 - Leaving & Sailing.

There is something about leaving a port and sailing out into the ocean. There is a quality of light reflecting off the sea & a vast expanse of water and sky which is unendingly fascinating. The light changes from moment to moment in a different way to on land. You are moving from terra firma and sailing on the surface of  bottomless, unknown, depths. It is really is the most mystical experience. Vast horizons, infinite, subtle, colours of light. Moving, but oddly staying still.

Sailing on a ship is unique. A self contained, man made, island floating above the hidden life below. A triumph of mans skill and technology at the mercy of the elements. The weather & the light changes in moments.

Modern cruise ships are minature, (& not so minature), cities. All human life is there. An infinite number of life stories from the extremely privileged to the much less advantaged. A microcosm of the world contained within a boat. The difference is that the people are always moving onwards. A restless journey to the next port, the next experience for the passengers. A mobile working environment for all the people who cater to their every whim.

It is obviously, by nature, a transient existance. As you float on the surface of the ocean you also float on the surface of life. New aquaintances are made & lives are shared peripherally. Visits to ports are brief. Fleeting glimpses into other lives. Passengers are disgorged onto docksides & have a window of opportunity to experience other cultures. They aren't necessarily good representations of the real lives or cultures because a whole unrepresentative, symbiotic infrastructure has built up around the ports.

They are gateways though and maybe passengers will go back and experience a more realistic & in depth perspective at some time. As for the relationships they really are "ships that pass in the night".

Silversea Cruise 3 - Human Nature - Givers & Takers

People watching is such a delight. An endless source of interest and amusement, frustration and irritation. I have written before about "Drains & Radiators". This cruise gave me the opportunity to observe the species of "Givers & Takers"at close quarters.

I think both descriptions of human behaviour are self explanatory. I must acknowledge at the outset that I know I am making sweeping generalisations.

The thing that shocked me was the arrogance, rudeness & self absorbtion of some of my fellow passengers. The sense of entitlement that wealth seems to endow some people with is quite surpising. "Please", "thank you" & "excuse me" seemed to have been expunged from the vocabulary of some. Quite a few people I had conversations with just wanted to tell me about themselves. I wasn't required to say very much - just listen attentively. Many conversations I overheard were basically bragging about making money, posessions, achieving your own ends, who you knew. etc etc. Brits tend to be polite. They certainly queue & don't tend to be pushy. So maybe that's why I was so surprised. We had a lot of  Australian,  American & Italian passengers. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Or maybe it's just me.

The other thing that made me take a sharp intake of breath was judgemental attitudes & ignorance about other cultures & countries.  Very few seemed to know much about the history, culture or geography of the places we visited. Because of the current political situation in Greece, maybe a little more was known about that, but coloured by a European press perspective. Very little seemed to be known about politics in Turkey. I suppose the thing is it was a holiday. So people didn't feel the need to be informed.

Fortunately all of that was completely offset by the care and consideration of the paid employees & of course not all the passengers were like that. I did meet some really interesting people whose company I enjoyed.

As my dad would say "There's nowt as queer as folk". He was from Derbyshire & would have been completely nonplussed by all of this.

Silversea Cruise - 2 - Consumption & Waste.

I don't go along with the theory that it's OK to have anything you want and can afford when you want it, because consumption fuels economies & makes jobs. Consumption & waste economics simply doesn't make sense to me. Greed & waste isn't a nice look & doesn't seem justified.

The thing about a cruise is that over consumption and waste is almost irrevocably built in. The buffet restaurants, as opposed to the speciality restaurants with menus, have to provide a bigger variety and quantity than is necessary to offer enough choice for very demanding passengers - some of whom seem to have surprisingly big appetites. H&S means that once food is put out but not used it will necessarily be wasted. Unless it goes to the crew, which I don't think happens. They have different menus I think.

Having said that, there are stringent protocols for waste disposal. The cruise ships can't just chuck it all over the side. It has to be macerated & only dumped in certain areas. But it is still a huge waste of very high quality food.

Similarly with drink. If your USP is providing anything the customer wants, free, at any time as part of the cruise price, then they take advantage & drink more & ask for the exotic. I've never had so much champagne or so many cocktails in my whole life as on a 9 day cruise. The wastage was surprising to say the least.

Then there is the question of towels & linen. I've stayed in 5 star hotels & been used to the policy that if you want your towels etc washing you dump them in the bath. If you are prepared to use them for a couple of days you hang them up. (I have to acknowledge that lots of posh hotels have a card saying that, but wash the towels anyway). On this cruise not only did they get washed daily, but were changed more than once a day, which does seem excessive & wasteful given the demand on water consumption - On a boat in the middle of the ocean.

Ditto, sheets were changed daily. I don't know about your personal habits, but I think I'm clean enough to use my sheets for a week.

Given that all of the crew we saw doing the service jobs were from places like India & the Philippenes, which are not wealthy countries, I imagine the imbalance must have been a bit of a culture shock initially. All the more amazing how delightful they all were, seeming to really enjoy their jobs and have no resentment towards us, the lucky, wealthy ones.

Silversea Cruise - High Life on the High Seas

I have cruised up the Nile and done the Hurtigruten boat trip up the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle and back. Both of which I enjoyed immensely. A Silversea Cruise is a completely different "kettle of fish". I'm still processing the experience & am not really sure what my final verdict is.

Our staterooms were beautifully fitted out with a sleeping area, a lounge area with a writing desk, a lovely balcony, a walk in wardrobe & finally a beautiful, large bathroom, with a choice of expensive toiletries.

It is very expensive & very luxurious. Everything is included, no hidden charges, even tips and all drinks are part of the price. You can have any drink you want, including cocktails & champage. You have your own designated Butler as well as a maid and a cleaner. We also had an on board spending allowance for the Spa treatments & the specialised restaurants which charged. We ate in 3 of the charging restaurants - Japanese, French & "Hot Rocks" & also had an hour's massage using our allowance.

There were shore excursions every day. Some you paid for, but we did the free ones, which were very good. In Greece we visited Lemnos, Thessaloniki, Volos, Mykonos, Santorini & Lesbos. In Turkey we started & finished in Istanbul & visited Marmaris & Kusadasi. The only drawback was having to get up early to go!

We were very lucky because two ballet dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet were in board & did 3 brief ballet excerpts. There is also a lot of varied entertainment on board, but we didn't really take part in that. People we met who did were very impressed. We did do a tour of the Galley, which was fascinating & a tour of the Bridge - also very good.

All in all everything was very well done. The organisation was impeccable, The staff were extremely well trained and a delight to be served by. Customer service was second to none. Everything was geared to a good passenger experience, but you would expect that for the price.

So why am I hesitating & not gushing? What's not to like about being pampered & waited on, plied with wonderful food & drink, taken to really interesting places by well informed guides?

I'm not really sure.

I think I find it hard to justify spending that amount of money on a holiday when people all over the world are in dire staits. Yes, I know it provides jobs for a huge number of people. I also know that it broadens the horizons of quite a lot of wealthy people who really don't know much about the world & different cultures & civilisations. I just think my money could be put to better use. I know that makes me sound pompous, but I don't really care. It isn't that I don't think I'm worth it - it's that I think that a lot of other people are worth a decent life with the basic necessities.

Reading the news now I'm back home just accentuates my dilemma. One half of the world is living in desperate circumstances, the others are living as if there is no tomorrow & no problem. I can't reconcile the two.