The Problem with Travel Blogs…
What is the Banana Pancake Trail?
I have spent most of the last 18 years on the road travelling and this is the thing I have noticed about tourists and travellers. The majority of modern day “explorers”, with or without time and money constraints or a combination of both, end up going to the same places along the Banana Pancake Trail and doing the same thing.
The Banana Pancake Trail is to Southeast Asia, as the Gringo Trail is to Central and South America. It is the route most travelled by the majority of tourists, generally following the destinations connected by the cheapest bus routes.
In Southeast Asia, here are the destinations on common routes in each respective country:
Thailand | Bangkok - Chiang Mai/Chiang Rai -Southern Islands (Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Lanta on the West Coast or Koh Samui, Koh Phangan on the East Coast
Vietnam | HCMC - Da Lat - Nha Trang - Hoi An - Phong Nha - Hanoi - Sapa - Ha Long Bay
Laos | Vientiane - Vang Vieng - Luang Prabang - Luang Namtha
Cambodia | Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, and Sihanoukville
Indonesia | Jakarta - Yogyakarta - Bali (Kuta area and Ubud) - Gili Islands - Komodo
Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur - Penang - Langkawi
These destinations became significant because of their geographical convenience, their natural beauty, and/or their cultural significance, then popularised by true adventurers and travellers of times past.
As stories are brought home and word-of-mouth does its magic, backpackers start exploring. Backpackers keep coming and going, and the locals learn how to mix and flip banana pancakes. The smell of banana pancakes brings in more backpackers, and as popularity grows, so does the flow of money and opportunity for business, and that is when infrastructure improves. Infrastructure loosely translates to Western-world comforts and convenience. And somewhere between that first banana pancake being flipped and that first Western toilet and air conditioning unit being installed, a traveller started publishing their travel diaries online and the first travel blog was born.
BBC even wrote about Origin of Travel blogs, which led me to Green Global Travel and Ethical Traveler). And when 2013/14 rolls around with accessibility to smartphones, combined with the growth of internet accessibility, websites being simpler to throw together without programming, and the increase of expendable income and the decrease of flight prices, people are travelling more and more travellers are becoming travel bloggers. And travel bloggers and have transformed the way people explore the world…now we have social media influencers.
TRAVEL BLOGS
The act of travelling has become more of an act of holidaying. The spirit of adventure has been diluted and in some sense, lost. Convenience has made us lose sight on why we explore and how travel can and should be transformative. So this is the problem about modern day travel blogs, peer-review websites (Trip Advisor, Yelp), Instagram, and most other online resources...
There are too many.
Most are written by backpackers for backpackers
Most provide same same but different information
They popularise “selfie-seekers” traveling to“Instagram-worthy” hotspots only
They promote“travel hacks”at the expense of disrupting local income streams and local culture
Too many people are motivated to start their own travel blogs in an attempt to travel for free by way of re-writing old information with a new font and colour scheme and paid advertising space. The cost and barrier of skill entry to start a blog is negligible these days.
So, as you slowly scour through the pages for some real information, you realise that most of these travel blogs are written by backpackers for backpackers, which usually means a tight budget, which means limited splurging for real authentic experiences or having to choose one experience over another which leads to actually being able to discern what is actually “best”. From years of reading blogs and looking for relevant, good, new information, I can see that most travel bloggers are also writing about an experience they built based on the last person’s travel blog they read. So it is same same but different.
If you’ve read one, you’ve read all of them. And with the rise of social media, a lot of blogs and social media accounts cater to “selfie seekers”, travellers who Instagram drives and only to re-create those photos, feeding in to the the growth of Instagram-worthy spots, creating cultural misappropriation, trash problems, and long wait times for the “iconic” photo. These “selfie-spots” are traps for tourists. The selfie never shows the > 2-hour line for the photo, or the mirror trick used to create the illusion of a puddle, or a blatant disrespect of local customs and culture and disruption of their everyday lives.
And if not for the selfie seekers, travel blogs are written promoting “travel hacks”, pushing the cheapest way of travelling without giving a thought to tourism being locals’ only income stream. I have also seen on numerous occasions in so many places, tourists without guides, walking right past the better and best features of a waterfall, temple, or jungle experience because they did not want to hire the local guide.
Travel blogs had their time and place. They were a great way to share information and learn more while speaking with backpackers and fellow travellers along the way. But at their essence, travel blogs were created to help others travel for as cheap as possible without thinking about the growth and sustainability of the places and the people.
Saying all this, without travel bloggers and peer-review websites we would not be where we are today when it comes to travel. With growing economies and expendable income, July 2019 saw the record level of international travellers worldwide.
These online resources have:
Made information readily and easily available, making travel much easier and affordable
Transformed off-the-beaten-track places into popular and mainstream hotspots
Created jobs for expats and locals
Inspired the next generation of travellers and explorers
Brought awareness and change to the dark side of some travel. (i.e. harnesses on elephants, sex trafficking, and plastic pollution)
From my experience and observation, and speaking with the local guides who we have been partnered up with over the years, they are seeing the magic of their neighbourhoods and islands slowly being destroyed.
As for peer-review sites like Yelp or Trip Advisor, when was the last time you or someone you respect actually took the time to write on them? And when was the last time you trusted a stranger’s opinion? Why is it acceptable to trust strangers en-masse when a lot of these reviews are also bought and paid for? Unless an operator has over 5000 reviews with 4.75+ star rating, mostly written in the local language, I am going to question the validity of it.
The future of travel
In the post-pandemic era, we must tread lightly. We must choose to be better. We must be more mindful of our impact on the world. We must recognize the power of individual decisions and the collective effect. We must explore more, travel deeper, travel better, and live better.
There is a rise in green tourism and responsible travel bloggers and I will lean on them but now, all of our city guides are built for an authentic experience of the busier cities and towns, usually by way of food and supporting really good local initiatives and causes. For the real travellers out there, the best people to gather information from are those who have lived in those cities, where the hole-in-the-wall places that are hard to find and a little bit intimidating to order from are not really accessible without learning a few basic words in the local language.
