Tag Archives: Norway

Tourist or Traveler: that’s the Question!

Tourist or Traveler

Sharing about myself was never easy, even though I’m a talker. This is a story of change. Too short to call it a story, maybe just a tale of change. How do our travels and our destinations change whom we are? And so I start.

Who doesn’t want to see the world? Wonder around, see all those intriguing, faraway places, and post pictures to make everyone else jealous. But have you ever asked yourself: are you cut to be a tourist or a traveler?

Several years ago, when I met my former partner, I had many dreams about traveling and visiting places shaped  by hundreds of years of history, places I’ve been inspired by from many old books I’ve read: Paris, Athens, Rome, London, or New York! Imagine how thrilled I was when I found out my partner and I have in common this big desire to see the world. How long, would you think, until we realized how different our travel styles were? Well, after a couple of short trips done in the sweet honey-moon style, we went on our first real vacation. This was a four-week road trip, which took us from Munich, Germany, to Check Republic, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, then over the longest combined road and rail bridge (the Öresund, between Malmö and Copenhagen), on to Denmark, then hopped on the ferry and back to Germany. No guessing required, during this adventure we clashed a few times quite badly and it was all because we didn’t even consider to talk beforehand about what our travel styles are and figure out how they differ.

The first long stop was in St. Petersburg, only about 2,500 KM and five countries away. We stayed here, in this gorgeous “Venice of the North”, five days. After which we drove to Helsinki, Finland (only four hours away). To me, the highlights of this trip were supposed to be those big cities loaded with history. I left home with my mind set on certain places I had to see. A checklist. Obviously, my expectations took away some of that innate to a natural traveler flexibility. Yes, at the time I was more of a tourist.

When we entered ”the land of a thousand lakes” in Finland, spread between the cities of Kuopio to the northeast and Savonlinna to the southwest, I almost didn’t know how to open up to that kind of natural, wild, beauty. Breathtaking. And they call it “a thousand lakes” only metaphorically, because in fact there are over 187 thousand of them!

These were places I haven’t visualized on my little travel itinerary.

One evening I went to the Finish sauna. Being accustomed to the culture in Germany, where men and women like to sweat in the sauna naked, I wasn’t expecting to hit any other surprises here. But since I didn’t speak Finish, the Innkeeper treated me like a tourist and said there is just one big sauna room, but it follows a schedule:  from eight to nine it’s women only and from nine it’s men only. This kind of startled me, but I thought… ok. I went to the sauna at eight, only to find myself all alone in a hot room that could fit up to fifteen people. At this time it was pretty clear he served me with the tourist “Menu” and everyone else knew that the time to go to sauna was actually nine. And sure enough, as I was walking back to my room, a jolly group of about ten men and women were heading out to the sauna while making loud jokes and laughing. Oh, well, missed my window!

Moving north, we crossed the border into Norway, drove past the Arctic tree line, and went all the way to Nordkapp, the last piece of land you can set foot on in Europe. Here we spent a couple of windy hours just gazing into the Arctic Ocean and looking at peculiar tiny flowers growing bluntly on rocks, a myriad of colors. So, question: be honest and tell me, wouldn’t you be happy to be there right now? But I wasn’t. Nope, not me. I was this miserable tourist, complaining about how windy and cold it was and wondering how much longer until we get to a decent coffee shop.

And that question pops in again: tourist or traveler?

A tourist’s plans for a trip include places to visit. A traveler’s plans include tips on how to stay alive. Time and again I was taken out of my comfort zone. Overall, this whole trip was one cold traveler’s drop – added to my touristy garden. When I look back at it now, I see a lot more than a charming vacation. I see a discovery journey, where we’ve learned about secluded places, tried local foods, but most importantly, discovered each other.

At the end of this trip I was still a tourist, but perhaps a better one. My partner and I continued to disagree on vacation styles until life shaped us into the travelers we’ve become. At some point I made it to the point where I could understand Henry Miller’s remark: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

What about you, are you cut to be a tourist or a traveler?