Ethical Traveling - Is Our Privilege Blinding Us?

It’s 7am—too early, I’m deeply hungover, and unsure of what I have gotten myself into. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, but all I want to do is crawl back into my warm, safe, comfortable bed. I’m at a retreat center in Los Altos, California, part of my immersion program to East Africa with the Santa Clara University Ignatian Center. Upon arriving, I exchanged a glimpse of utter exhaustion with my close friend, Margaret; I was desperately hoping that whatever we were doing next required little to no physical exertion. We slowly trudged our way into a group circle by a red barn-like structure in this beautiful, rural oasis, and with that, we were on our way to our very first group activity. Little did I know, this group would shift my perspective in a way my life had never been shifted before. 

As a kid, I was never adventurous. I preferred family vacations to Florida over hiking and experiencing ecotourism in Central America. I hated summer camp. I was a homebody. I’m not really sure what changed in me, but somewhere along the way, I developed complete wanderlust. Perhaps all those summers of staying home had provoked a yearning to see more of the world. Somewhere around my freshman year of high school, I began craving adventure. I had a high school boyfriend that was from one of those families where they do a turkey trot at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving Day, the kind of family where they go to India for Spring Break -- and stay at a $1000-per-night luxury resort.

I craved travel, luxury travel, rustic travel, all of it. I filled Pinterest boards with photos of beautiful Machu Picchu, waterfalls, bustling Tokyo streets, and glacier-colored ocean water only found in the depths of French Polynesia. While this beautiful scenery and curiosity entissed me, I had never considered the true depths of what exploratory travel can do for a soul. As I entered college, this eagerness to see the world turned into almost a sense of desperation, wanting to take advantage of any and every opportunity I could get my hands on. Applying to study abroad was a no-brainer for me, so when I got rejected from the Australia program I applied to, my first panic was, “when am I going to get out of the country next?”  This eagerness and panic eventually led me to the Ignatian Center, where I applied to go on an immersion trip to East Africa, Kenya and Tanzania, a part of the world I knew I may not get the opportunity to see otherwise… just what I was looking for.

Immersion trips are by definition, an experience that aims to get students outside of their comfort zone. These trips push students to immerse themselves entirely in a new culture and way of life, whether this be through international travel or domestic. Regardless of the distance of the setting, through immersion, privileged students are able to encounter the often harsh realities faced by impoverished communities they may not typically have the chance to interact with. If you’re looking for a transformative travel experience, an immersion trip is an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself (hence the name) in a new culture, environment, and community. Immersive travel offers a new way of seeing the world, a removal from the ‘bubble of privilege.’

With so many westernized international resort destinations around the world, it is becoming easier and easier to travel within the comfort of your own language, culture, food, all without leaving the grounds of a resort… but does this mean that your travel experience could be lacking? This prompts the question, how should we be immersing ourselves when we travel, if at all? What does it mean to conscientiously, even immersefully, travel? 

“I can feel my heart pounding as I start dreaming and researching my next travel destination.  What foods do they eat? What are some of their local traditions and customs?  Can I learn a few simple phrases in their language?  I try to understand how people live, what their priorities are, what their needs are - if this is available online. Whenever I go to a community, [often times a third-world country,] I try to write down a bucket list of "must sees for me" away from the tourist attractions. This could include a trip to the farmer's or open-air markets, their local food store, a community wellness center where I might find a yoga class, a local farm, or maybe reach out to community leaders and try to understand what the needs are of the locals. Can I contribute in small ways by shopping at local markets, eating at local restaurants, and stay in locally run accommodations? I want to see a place through the eyes of a local.  This deep dive allows for relationships to evolve organically.  I become an active listener. For me, I want to understand their community and how I can be most respectful because if I am respectful, then I may be invited in. It’s an honor to be in someone’s community - it really is. I almost always plan to be somewhere on a Sunday to attend a church service or community ceremony if welcomed.  I listen to the elders whenever I can.  I ask questions.  Ahhhh, their stories.  I sit for hours as they share stories about their families, reflect on life as it was, and is now and their hopes and dreams.  Many are no longer alive and I now have this Ubuntu (Zulu phrase meaning I am because we are) treasure chest that I carry with me everywhere. As I sit here with a world trembling with a global pandemic, I feel fortunate to have a WhatsApp friend list rich with people from all over the world who are reaching out concerned about my family and asking how they can better prepare as the virus heads to their country.  We are here for each other in times of need. Globally, as we sit in quarantine, we are better versed now in understanding that we are more similar than we are different as we connect to the hearts of our friends across the globe like the Italians singing from their balconies.  Trust that we will be in these far off places again soon.  Let's start dreaming about these travels.  We might just be sweetly surprised once we arrive as people will feel strangely familiar as our hearts have now opened and human judgments have mellowed. I have been waiting a lifetime for this very moment", explains Brooke Muggia, an avid traveler who prioritizes practicing conscious traveling and mindfulness everywhere that she goes. While not all travelers dedicate the time to understand the needs, history, and cultural context of a given ‘destination,’ this emphasis on cultural understanding is important. Without a reasonable understanding of what kind of cultural context you will be not only encountering but first handedly experiencing in your travels, it is so easy to unknowingly lean on false stereotypes. This false stereotyping can be detrimental to not only an individual’s own perception but also, how they then convey their perhaps limited and even censored experience to their peers back home when reporting about their travels. Santa Clara University junior, Margaret Smith, who joined me on the same Ignatian Center-led immersion trip, explains, “I’m hugely into social justice and I think that visiting third-world countries and getting that firsthand experience is really important because countries like Kenya and Tanzania and honestly, just the entire continent of Africa in general, is extremely stereotyped, and there are a lot of misconceptions about the people there and who they are, what they need, and how they need everyone’s help.”

So what does the structure of an immersion trip look like? How do immersion trips prepare travelers in a way that perhaps an in-and-out resort trip may not? This is, of course, not to judge or dismiss traveling for the sole purpose of a vacation, but rather, to fully educate travelers on what they might be missing or turning a blind eye to. In assessing how educational institutions’ immersion programs are educating their student travelers, perhaps we can pick up a thing or two regarding how to properly prepare ourselves for culturally immersive travel experiences. Smith relays her own immersion experience, as well as the program’s preparation and bonding process. “I went [on an immersion trip] to Kenya and Tanzania this past summer for 17 days. I had always wanted to go to Kenya. My whole life, my dad has told me that Kenya is the most amazing place he’s ever been, so that was sort of always on the top of my list. As soon as I heard that [the Ignatian Center at my university] was putting on an immersion trip there I really wanted to go. Honestly, I did very little research on East Africa or what to expect until after we started having meetings [with our program] where we started talking about topics like social justice, community, and what exactly we were going to learn and be surrounded by [on immersion]. Our immersion group had four pre-trip meetings that were about two hours long each. Each meeting had a different theme such as social justice or community. We would each have light research homework, for example, I specifically had to do a little writeup on tourism’s impact on Kenya, and basically the good and the bad that it does for the country as a whole. We also did a retreat over the weekend at a campsite in Los Altos [which was really bonding for the group].” Smith goes on to recall her experience once on immersion, “my advice for anyone traveling aiming to be as culturally aware [and receptive] as possible would be to visit and see as much as you can. Talk to the people everywhere you go. Luckily, [on our trip], we didn’t have too much of an issue with language barrier since a lot of people speak English in East Africa. First and foremost, though, it’s just so important to be conscientious. You’re in a new place, the culture is different from your own, but also be conscientious of who you are and the fact that you’re going to these places, seeing all of these things, but you then have the privilege to just leave. When we were visiting the slums, it was really hard because this was a lot of people’s harsh reality, but for us, we would go visit and meet all of these people [living in such poverty], and then have the opportunity at the end of the day to just leave. Understand that you can’t do everything to change it, but what you should get out of [witnessing this poverty] is a better understanding of the world around you and the cultures around you and maybe bring back a little piece of their culture to your home. [East Africa] has such an amazing culture that [emphasizes so many important principles] that we honestly lack in America, for example, community and togetherness, they call it Ubuntu, and I think that people should try to go out of their comfort and experience that because it’s honestly so humbling and gives you perspective of yourself in the world and doesn’t allow you to just sort of take advantage of everything.”

To sum it all up, this doesn’t mean that you are inadvertently wrong by booking a trip to the Caribbean just to lay on the beach. However, I invite you to think about travel a little bit differently -- what exploration can do for you. Seeing as much of this planet as we can during our limited time here is such a beautiful gift for the soul that is not to be taken for granted. Traveling abroad is a privilege that should not be taken lightly, the majority of the world has never stepped foot on an airplane. If you’re lucky enough to be able to ponder ‘where to?’ for your next trip, I ask you to think a little differently. Perhaps instead of contemplating where you want to go, contemplate where you want to see.