Manifesto for a more conscientious and collective tourism

Tourism will never be the same again.

We’re all missing traveling, the feeling of freedom and infinite possibilities that traveling offers us. We’re in the middle of the transformational processes of the planet, humanity, and the concept of traveling.

Right now, we’re being invited to travel within our own selves, reevaluating our dreams and our habits, and preparing ourselves for a new way of moving around the planet. We live in the world and travel by means of our home.

For the new world to manifest, we must be more conscientious with the way that we travel. Tourism will never be the same again, and this could be a piece of good news. There used to be a predatory way of traveling, where the majority of people traveled wanting to consume experiences and things, very often with an outward focus on showing themselves to be different or escaping an unwanted reality.

In this new phase of the world, we need to take into consideration these potential pitfalls and the mentality of consumption that we have about everything, including travel. The quantity of pollution produced by travel will be reduced, and this is a good thing. The fact is that 30% of the world’s trips were made for business purposes, and now everyone is realizing that many things can be done in remote form, saving both money and the environment.

Many touristic destinations had lost their identity and come to serve tourists desperate for “incredible” experiences, to have fun and post it on Instagram. There was a large quantity of trash, with many communities needing to lower their standards for tourists and force a kind of experience that was no longer a part of their identity. Even volunteerism could cause great damage and dependence.

The concept of empowering others is proving itself to be arrogant. We all have our individual power, and travel from now on could mean a revolution in the interaction between locals and travelers. The time has come for a true relationship of exchange, of mutual learning. Travel must return in a more conscientious form, bringing more happiness, freedom, and prosperity for the entire ecosystem.

With the spread of remote work and the consolidation of distance learning, travel will now be more than ever a tool of self-knowledge, regeneration of the planet, and a reduction of the inequality caused by the opportunities of an oppressive capitalism.

The islands of plastic, global warming destroying certain areas and nature, especially the poorest.

An awareness of purpose can put an end to the concept of rampant growth that doesn’t consider the limits of the planet. Calling nature a natural resource, and people resources, is a way to use other beings for our own ends, an attempt to fill a gap that we have with others’ energy.

Instagram tourism must end.

Nothing against posting our photos, but this can’t be the reason we travel. Idyllic destinations turn into islands of trash and manipulation in an attempt to make more tourists spend money there. Elephant rides, exotic communities, photos with poor children - all this is the product of the consumerist ignorance of a mentality that can be changed for the better.

Take advantage of this time without traveling to look back at your old travel photos and take a deep dive inside yourself. What did you learn on those trips? Put the things you learned into practice and use them in quarantine, live them in your day-to-day life, and begin to think about how you want to travel from now on.

What’s your dream trip? Let’s go back to giving value to these dreams, instead of competing to see how many countries everyone’s been to.

The transformations are already happening. Forget about the old world, let’s do better from now on. The path that society was traveling was neither sustainable nor altruistic. Very few people felt satisfied and fulfilled, and opportunities were far from being equal.

This crisis is showing us that, when humanity really needs to, we truly come together. Everyone together = everything is possible. Our community can come together to lead this new world of travel, with much more focus on our objective.

Helping communities, learning to move with the earth, helping social projects, creating opportunities for those who travel and those who host.

As a society of hunter-gatherers, we were nomads, and our focus was on equilibrium and cohesion. In agricultural times, people lived together, cooked together, and learned together. We can pick the best of these periods, connecting more with our essence, and make peace with the planet.

In this quarantine, we learn to converse more with our families, to eat more at home (healthier and cheaper), to clean our house. We’ve gone back to valuing the basics. Let’s take what we’ve learned and apply it to the new world of travel that’s approaching.

Let’s go back to contemplating the sunset, to enjoying our solitude and traveling with a purpose, and end the capitalism of travel. Tourism with a purpose includes learning about oneself, developing habits that are useful for the world, strengthening communities that care about the planet and about humanity.

Let’s enter into a place of uncertainty, of the wisdom of the unknown. Those who have already traveled have much more experience handling themselves, and can really help other people who are desperate in quarantine. Those who have traveled know that life is a great journey, and we can increase the consciousness of the planet by living in accordance with the values we’ve learned while traveling.

The objective of the current system is not to make you think, it’s to make you repeat and copy. Traveling teaches you to think, to reflect, and to gain tools for conscious action.

Faced with the fear of death, we perceive the finite nature of life and the need to leave a better world than the one we received for future generations. It’s become clear that our leaders only think about staying in power and gaining even more power.

Our community is the most precious thing we have, and we need to help each other, and remember the need for a more conscientious tourism, a more genuine volunteerism. Worldpackers isn’t just about traveling cheap, even though it is the cheapest way to travel. Worldpackers is not about taking - it’s about exchanging. Worldpackers is about connecting, collaborating, and building together a better version of ourselves and the world.