Essay 2

The anti-tourist travels very similarly to the drift strategy.  A strategy Daniel Kalder used was picking the most unknown places on a map of Russia to visit.  An anti-tourist is someone who goes on the roads less taken.  Kalder describes an anti-tourist as someone who’s “humble and seeks invsibility” (Kalder).  The anti-tourist doesn’t travel to achieve notoriety or to brag about where they have been, instead they travel for deeper meaning. When talking about commonly visited sites, he says “you just wind up following an almost automatic path.” (Kalder). He says some sites have just been dissected so much that they lose appeal.

            When defining anti-tourism he does state what it isn’t. The idea of the word is not against traveling, it’s against traveling to the same places as everyone else.  He was visiting Russian places that “even in, like, enormous guidebooks they don’t mention these Republics” (Kalder).   By going to these almost invisible places, Kalder learned a great deal about Russian culture and history that he wouldn’t have learned by visiting St. Petersburg or by reading a text book. That’s the beauty of anti-tourism, finding a treasure trove of information and culture in places most people would not even consider looking. I have found times when visiting more remote places can be a better experience, because the story of those places are more unknown, they haven’t been repeated over and over.  Sometimes the road less taken offers more than what meets the eye.

Source:

Kalder, Daniel. Interview. To the Best of Our Knowledge. WPR, Madison. 17 Aug. 2011.