Traveller or Tourist?

What is the difference?

Traveler or Tourist?

After reading the article from Travelbloggers, I can't help feeling identified with many of the testimonies given by the people interviewed there. This is because traveling is my hobby, as you can see in my blog, but despite of that, today I couldn't say if I am a tourist or a traveller.

The main idea I can get from the text is basically that tourists are those people who love going to a place and enjoying all the comfortabilities offered by the area they are visiting, even if it involves hiring a guide or joining a tour, while travelers are those adventurers who love going out of the beaten track to find locations that haven't been invaded by the so called tourists, and as far as it is possible, without the help of any organized tour or big group.

For me, although in an ironic tone, the best answer to the question is given by Greg Wesson, who puts himself in the place of an "avid traveler" who complains about the "stupid tourist" that is doing to him the same that he normally does to the locals. I have this opinion because I often find this type of people when I sit to rest for a while in the common room of some of the hostels I sleep in when I am on the road. I like listening to them, telling how they have spent the day mixing with the locals, or feeling good because they have been able to come back home using the public transport instead of taking a taxi. That's cool, I mean, I know the feeling you get when you do something like that, but it doesn't mean that you are better than the person that has taken a taxi or spent the day visiting museums and the main hotspots of the city.

It all depends on the way you are feeling, or on how many days you have been away from home. When you are traveling for more than one week, you have to take things differently. Some days you may feel like experiencing something new, maybe trying to have lunch in a local restaurant, eating the typical dish of the country. Perhaps the next day you are really hungry and you don't want to mess around in lunch time, so you play it safe and try to find a McDonalds, whose food tastes the same in the whole world. You are the same person, but in a different situation.

In my opinion, the idea that a traveller goes deeper than a tourist is mistaken. How can you know that your personal experience has been richer than the one from the other person? Do you really believe that for being dressed up as locals do or for eating in a restaurant that is located some blocks away from the main street nobody is going to realise you are not a foreigner that is staying there for a while? Well you may have that feeling, and if it makes you feel fine, go on, do it! You may end up meeting interesting people you won't forget, or visiting a no-go area of the city experiencing a "you-don't-want-to-be-there" situation you won't forget either. 

I am not saying that being a tourist is good and being a traveler is bad, it is that I don't really see the difference between both concepts. I would classify it in two different types of tourism, one that has more to do with leisure, and the other is more related to adventure. However, my idea or adventure traveling is related to those trips that include practicing some extreme sports, but that's a totally different story.