This is America, Too

RESPONSIBLE ≠ BORING

Pack a surplus-size carton of prophylactics, that’s what most people think when they hear the phrase “responsible travel.” Or, only snap shots of Mayans milling about the central plazas of any of Guatemala’s antiquated, indigenous-dominated highland communities with a telescopic lens, lest the masses discover your soul-stealing intrusion and subject you to the passionate whims of mob justice. Contrary to the constrained perceptions of the heretofore border-bound, “responsible travel” means more than family planning and memorizing how not to incite violence.

Chatting up the overjoed coffee shop fixture who rattles off, to ears eager and uneager alike, checklists of personally-visited world wonders – lists that, recorded in the magnifying-lens-necessitating font of classic literature, would rival his abdomen-tickling beard in length – you’ve probably been made privy to some backpackers-only bag-packing advice. Voila! Responsible (pre)travel. Heed his bug-eyed emphasis on the combination of foresight and discretionary pack-stuffing: consider your route, potential adventures, and research traditional weather patterns; assemble the bare essentials; return at least half to your wardrobe. And note the lessons of his gesticulating demonstration – that which propels, cross-table, odoriferous blasts that approximate the infamous backpacker’s stench: test the pack, that someone can hoist it atop a chicken-bus without the weight pulling him over the side, at once not overestimating your own back-bearing limits; protect yourself, the liable-to-overpack peregrinator, from teeter-tottering over any of the majestic overlooks toward which you’ll gravitate. And, less related but a backpacking lesson nonetheless: bathe.

Once firmly footed in foreign soils, traversing – without wobble, thanks to mindful packing – unknown locales with your walking-target backpack, responsible travel means abandoning naivety. If the nearest comfort zone is the embassy a taxi ride away, your friends and family hope you’ll splurge for a registered cab: consider the extra dollar or two insurance against ransom payments later. And, if you’re utilizing public transit, separated from your main pack or not, passports and credit cards and life-maintaining medications stay on your person at all times: a surprising percentage of people are embarrassingly unable to distinguish between the fanny-packs they brought onto the bus and the super-pack with which you so clumsily navigated the crowded aisle.

Above all else, responsible travel is respect, learning and honoring the customs and mores of a culture: that might mean suppressing your sun-tanning tendencies and suffering a tee even when suffocating humidity has you leaking fluids, thus precious travel funds, faster than chugging (the lukewarm potable for sale from a different señor on every corner) can replenish.

Responsible travel means understanding why market haggling has its fair limits: murmuring-tummied dependents at home, not your world-class haggling expertise, necessitate that skilled artisans hawk their handspun garments – every intricately designed piece looking like it was woven with thread peeled directly from a rainy-season rainbow – for less than the Cheetos-crusted coin-haul the typical American might find wedged between their sofa cushions.

The responsible appreciate. Contemplate the confrontational slogans whose neon extravagance screams from muted, crumbling facades. Count every fat thwack of raindrops against corrugated tin. Tick. Tock.