5 BRUTALLY Honest Travel Truths

These are HIS truths. None but the last would be mine. However I know several people who would even disagree, from personal experience, with it.

selfies in front of those pieces of history is a private, victorious
celebration of my own survival.

Well said. The author of the video seems to enjoy his perceived self importance of criticizing others. I too take selfies, of my wife and I together. It started years ago when we travelled and my Mom was living vicariously through us. I'd email her several photos everyday and then one day she emailed back with a comment wondering if we were really at these places because there were no photos of us. From then on we'd take a daily selfie to send her with the rest of the photos as "proof" we were there. Mom is no longer with us but we continue the tradition of a selfie a day. At the end of the day I delete the majority of photos I've taken but it's rare I delete the selfie. It's me and my wife together and those photos with whatever is in the background mean a lot to me. There could be a time in the future that they'll mean even more.

selfies in front of those pieces of history is a private, victorious celebration of my own survival

As someone who is entirely fed up with tourists who demand that the world stand still around them for their photos and selfies, I am perplexed by this (and I don't suggest the OP is one of these people). We all struggle our way through life; what is it about a selfie in front of the Arc de Triomphe that offers any sort of personal validation?

Bottom line: I don't really understand the attraction of selfies.

Bottom line: I don't really understand the attraction of selfies.

I agree. I don't need a photo of me. I know what I look like.

I take most "influencers" with a grain of salt. What they tell you is their opinion and not the rules for everyone. And that's in between promoting services or goods that pay them a hefty commission.

I hope most people travel for their own reasons and have their own truths. They must do what they want do, see what they want to see, and experience what they want to experience.

Bottom line: I don't really understand the attraction of selfies.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me a selfie isn't a photo of the Mona Lisa or the Colosseum. It's a photo of us (my wife and I) living our lives and making a memory. I know what I look like and I know what she looks like, but now I have a memory of what we looked like in that moment.

Rather than a selfie, take something a bit more artistic. A photo of the profile of your wife's face admiring a photo or from behind. Same with architecture.

I might take a selfie if I am doing something fun, like riding a ferris wheel, or a carousel at the Xmas market, but not for something serious.

VAP,

I only have a couple of comments in response:

1) Regarding building up a tolerance touring. I have lived overseas in to countries for a total of 9 years, also visited 84 foreign countries. I am still excited about every travel that I have experienced.
Still, after visiting Venice about 7 time yes, there is not a need to go back, especially if there are more places that I haven't visited.
When I was younger, visiting Europe in particular, I focused on Historical places, museums and cultural places. After much travel, I leaded toward scenic places, like a cruse up the coast of Norway; cruise around the Horn of South America; seeing places like Machu Picchu, the Lake District of England; the west coast of Ireland; a cruise of Alaska including Glacier Bay and the Hubbard Glacier and more stuff like that.

2) On your fourth point, traveling to dangerous places, I have very strong feelings about that. Living in the USA, where you have to learn the places where the vast majority of violent crime takes place, the same applies to other countries. The crime stats in the USA are that if you core out the very high crime places, the rest of the USA has a relatively low crime rate.
Europe, Japan, China, etc. are relatively safe. However, even in some cities like for example Paris, I discovered that cab drivers have areas they don't want to go.
More significantly, if going to third world countries, care must be taken regarding touring there. Sure, I am never going to Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea or such as those, but for example South America is wonderful and I have visited it several times, visiting most of the countries there. Still, even a city like Buenos Aires, it is important to know the areas to avoid. Same in Peru, one of my favorite countries to visit. Also, now we almost always take group tours when doing these places. The tour company in some countries employed security people to protect its people.

So Nik is accomplishing what he needs, YT clickbait to feed his wallet.

I'm solo, I'm not inclined to hand my device to strangers, and the people I send pictures to want to see me, not just a postcard shot they could google, so a selfie is just practical.

I remember a time when chaperones would clunkily handle a dozen individual cameras so students could get a photo with me in the shop. Today, students just ask for a quick selfie and wait patiently. It is not narcissism, it is just a way to capture a memory.
The heavy criticism seems so hyper-focused on the act of taking a selfie, but for many of us, it is just a random, in the moment self-portrait. We already know what we look like? Do we really? There is what we would like to think, but my 2025 self is quite different from 2019 and 2016 me. It is a record of our own time.

It is intriguing how the critique of selfies immediately defaults to complaints about influencers, which seems a bit a performative man yells at clouds moment. The beef with selfies seems to ignore that a quick five-second shot is hardly disruptive. Meanwhile, there is absolute silence regarding the aspiring “real” photographers who will climb over barriers, intrude on spaces, camp out in front of objects, and shoo people out of their shots. But then the criticism shouldn't be about how the photo is arrived at, the technique, the purpose, the photographer, or the influencer. One is not inherently worse than the other. The issue is simply an individual's behavior, which has nothing to do with selfies, being an influencer, or taking a picture at all.

Just more of my ramblings, I didn't mean to start a discussion on seflies

It's my observation that "quick selfie" is often an oxymoron. Multiple shots, angles, etc. add to the time that persons are occupying the photo spot. My husband and I have been guilty of this. It's usually easier to ask someone else to take the picture. And I wonder how often people actually look at the pictures they take while traveling. We travel so frequently that we barely have time to download pictures onto the hard drive before we are off on the next trip.

I have to say that there have been times that I have agreed with everything that Nik listed, usually in peak travel season when crowds, heat, and increased costs are in effect. Since we have started to travel in slow seasons these feelings have abated.

So Nik is accomplishing what he needs, YT clickbait to feed his wallet.

which is generally why I don't bother to click on these links.

Isn't Rick Steves the ultimate influencer?

So Nik is accomplishing what he needs, YT clickbait to feed his wallet.

and so is VAP. When I saw the title of the thread I immediately expected

I'm still waiting for the "brutally"

As a solo traveller, I'll do selfies to send to my husband so he knows I'm actually alive... smh

Rather than a selfie, take something a bit more artistic. A photo of
the profile of your wife's face admiring a photo or from behind. Same
with architecture

You make it sound like selfie takers are idiots. Do you think it's the only type of photo I take?

Click bait. ( and I fall for it to) I know why I travel and know what pleases me or otherwise. Why the need for validation or repudiation?

Allan, it wasn't meant to make you or anyone else sound like an idiot, just that many people don't even think about taking other angles. I spend my days in the middle of tourists and have been doing this for almost 20 years. I know what the average selfie looks like as well as the average tourist photo. I see them taken 100s of time every day and from every nationality. They are almost all the same, except sometimes people are jumping up in the air or holding their hand up to look like they are holding or pushing something. People watching can be fun.

I am a regular watcher of the Away Together YouTube channel. I’ve enjoyed and learned from a lot of Nik’s shows. He has done comparisons of travel bags and gear that has helped me with decisions on what I may or may not want to try. There is information about transportation options that was also helpful.

The episode about travel truths really made me stop and think. Does everything he said apply to me? No. Did it make me think about my own travel approach? Certainly. And isn’t that the idea, that we are constantly evolving and rethinking how we approach travel? I agree, “Brutally Honest” is click bait. It’s intended to get our attention just like a headline or a book title does. It’s up to us whether we take the bait or not, and who knows we might learn something if we do. I think this particular travel show which is done by a real person with a family, is one of the better ones out there.

I'm going to wade into the selfies/photo discussion just to say that several people have named good reasons for taking selfies and if they go about it quickly, then I say more power to them.

What I can't handle is when a person gets their travelling companion to take multiple shots of them posing in fake and pretentious ways. I'm not talking about shots like Jean took of her daughter - I, too, enjoy taking good photos of my loved ones while travelling and who doesn't like a nice photo of themselves on a wonderful trip - but rather those situations where a person plants themselves in front on an altar in a cathedral, staring dramatically at the floor, while their partner crouches down and takes shot and after shot of them, entirely oblivious and inconsiderate of the people around them who would actually like to see the altar, rather than just pose in front of it. A couple of years ago in Uzes, my sister and I were exploring the tower in the medieval gardens when a middle-aged French gentleman who was on his own asked me if I would take his picture and handed me his phone. I expected that he would face me so I could take a picture of him with the tower wall behind him. Instead, he turned his back to me, and set himself up in a pose where he pretended to be deeply engrossed in reading a plaque on the wall. He wanted several shots. Afterward, my sister and I just shook our heads.

What I can't handle is when a person gets their travelling companion to take multiple shots of them posing in fake and pretentious ways

Agreed! They aren’t taking quick vacation snapshots anymore. It’s people obviously dressed up for their photo shoot, posing in very palled ways. One example is that recently I saw a woman who had set up a tripod to photograph herself this way in a cathedral. She was in many people’s ways several times.
A different woman asked my husband to take her photo, and then criticized the results! He had to retake it for her!
I used to worry about walking into peoples shots, but I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t really matter. They are likely taking thousands of photos, and it’s not fair for them to block walkways and nice views with their “photo shoots”.
My husband and I occasionally take a selfie or two, but it’s a quick and (hopefully) doesn’t get in the way of others.
I find it’s a relief when a place doesn’t allow photography, because so much nonsense is eliminated:)

Things that go wrong stories are more entertaining than the unicorns and rainbows trip reports.

He talks about how lines of selfie sticks at places like the Louvre
feel like narcissistic validation-seeking.

Odd, that, as selfie sticks have been banned in pretty much every conventional museum we've visited, including the Louvre. Doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of folks taking selfies but not with the sticks.

Kate, no its not odd at all. Nik was actually quoting his old trip journal from 2015, which was around the exact time museums started cracking down on selfie sticks. His point wasn't about the sticks or the current rules of the Louvre, but rather a reflection on the behavior and the shift toward using someone else's art just to prove you were there.

Things that go wrong stories are more entertaining than the unicorns and rainbows trip reports.

I've now been to emergency rooms in Florence, Oaxaca (twice), and most recently, in Lyon.

You learn a lot about a country by experiencing their medical systems!

-- Mike Beebe

Isn't Rick Steves the ultimate influencer?

Not only the ultimate, but could be an original. RS was an influencer way before the term influencer became popular. He did it the old fashioned way, PBS and guidebooks and RS followers who spread the word for him. Online influencers are doing today to "backdoor sights" that RS did to Cinque Terre, Hallstatt and plenty of other locations.

Actually, everyone is an influencer in some way or another when we share recommendations of where to stay, where to visit, where to eat, etc.

“A social media influencer is a digital creator who has built a loyal audience and established credibility in a specific niche (such as fashion, gaming, or fitness). They shape their followers' opinions and purchasing decisions, and frequently partner with brands to endorse products or services in exchange for compensation”

Whether Rick Steves is considered an influencer depends entirely on how you define the term.

If you mean "does his opinion influence millions of consumers?" the answer is yes.

However, if you mean "is he a modern social media influencer?" the answer is no, because his business model, media foundation, and credibility are rooted in traditional, authoritative journalism rather than digital content creation.

Are the DEs on Trip Advisor influencers? Are the Mega Posters on this forum influencers? Am I?

Am I just a bad one? (To brutally honest, I guess I am just a bad social media influencer! )

Anyway, we read or follow or listen to folks is because they resonate with us — or do the opposite. Make our teeth grind. The key to their success is not to be accurate but to be provocative. To brutally honest again, their biggest failing is when they are boring.

Happy travels!

We romanticize the past by applying terms like "authoritative journalism" to pretend there is a difference between old and new travel media. Rick Steves was a self-published travel writer utilizing the only delivery system available at the time for his content. Traditional icons and modern content creators are one and the same. Those like Steves benefited from a time when the only option was terrestrial television and network gatekeepers, but those shows were most certainly selling a product and a lifestyle too. The shift from broadcast to digital isn't a meaningful difference, and today, Rick Steves has to be a modern social media influencer just to survive business wise. The real difference is that today's influencers aren't kept out by gatekeepers because the barriers to entry are gone. For creators the algorithm will get them eyeballs, but their unique appeal and quality are what keep an audience. Personally, I despise gatekeepers. Bypassing them means having far more choice than we ever had in the broadcast days, and I am perfectly fine separating the wheat from the chaff on my own. This isn’t a criticism of his business; it is just the reality of how the travel media exists, even if this conversation is a far cry from where I started.

I suppose you caught me VAP! Authoritatively too! You brutally took down my bias! Well done. Tip of the hat! The day is yours. Seriously, fair point!

Happy travels.

Nik was actually quoting his old trip journal from 2015, which was
around the exact time museums started cracking down on selfie sticks.
His point wasn't about the sticks or the current rules of the Louvre,
but rather a reflection on the behavior

But that's not quite what he said. To quote:
"...and here's what I wrote when I visited the Louvre in 2015, when even then the line of selfie sticks at the Mona Lisa was like 10 rows deep." He could have just said, "the line of selfie takers".

But whatever the case, as long as you're not interfering with the enjoyment of others by hogging the view and taking a ridiculous amount of shots, have at it. As Allan put it:

"It's me and my wife (in my case, my DH) together and those photos with whatever is in the background mean a lot to me."

I've taken a number of those with a wee tripod balanced on a rock along a trail and a view of something terrific in the background. No one but the two of us around. Great memories, although it can be humbling to note how much we've aged over a few decades. Glad we did some of those places before our knees & some other body parts hit their "best used by" dates! :O)

Kate, quoting him doesn't contradict a thing I said. The stick was just the physical symbol of that period; his entire journal entry from 2015 was an observation on the overwhelming scale of the behavior. 2015 was the point where selfie sticks were so deep that museums banned them as a direct result of that very behavior, showing that both things can be true at once. Getting completely hung up on the artifact itself instead of the actual human mindset he was critiquing is just misguided. He wasn't writing an 11-year-old museum equipment inventory list; he was calling out the narcissism of turning your back on world-class art to use it as a prop for self-validation.

VAP, that's OK; you do you.
Very kindly but I'm not "completely hung up" here nor misguided.

What an interesting thread!

I confess to being a fan of the Away Together channel, but have not seen this particular video. For an avid and frequent traveler, I can see how he might develop his points of view over time. As an infrequent traveler, I still have much farther to go before I reach that level of jadedness.

Regarding the selfies, I can see both sides of the argument. To me, it's not the act of taking the selfie that creates the problem, it's that the act of taking the selfie is becoming more important than the act of appreciating the object, scenery, or context being photographed. I'm sure no one would begrudge the impromptu mimes pretending to hold up the Tower of Pisa. That's just fun. But fewer people are appreciating the efforts taken to keep it upright, or wonder how it is still standing!

I have my own example of this type of folly. I had the privilege of standing in front of the Code of Hammurabi. I was lost in reflecting how such an important a piece of history was encased in front of me - this rock was a significant basis for the way many countries treated their citizens and dispensed justice! While standing, observing, and reflecting (and being mindful not to block others), a college-aged girl whipped past me. She held her phone out to arm's length, and with the other pointed back to the rock as if she were one of the product models from "The Price Is Right" pointing towards a new car. Snap. Flash. The caption would have read, "Here I am rockin' with THE CODE !! Woo !!" And as quickly as she dashed up, she was gone. No awe, no appreciation - just an "I came-I saw-I moved on to the next thing" mentality. It was...disheartening.

I can't help but feel that this tendency has become more and more prevalent. However, before I get too far down the "these darn kids today" type of diatribe that my grandfather was known for, I think I'll end by saying that the readers of this forum are the least likely to be guilty of under-appreciating the context and significance of their photo opportunities. My personal conclusion: recording ourselves immersed in our surroundings is okay, as long as we take a moment to turn around and appreciate what we just captured.

Safe travels to you all.

Mark

Late to the game, but...

What I can't handle is when a person gets their travelling companion
to take multiple shots of them posing in fake and pretentious ways.

I was walking a path at a packed shrine in Kyoto. I walked around a corner to find 2 young ladies with a rare moment of no one in their background. Out of respect, I stopped so they could get a quick photo. A photo was snapped, and then the young lady being photographed went into full influencer posing mode. I started walking again; as I passed the young lady with the camera, I made eye contact, held up two fingers, and said, "You get two." Then my back entered their field of photography.

Isn't Rick Steves the ultimate influencer?

I think the kids would say he's the OG.

I don't know or care who Nik is, but his five points resonated with me. As for selfies, I hardly ever try to take them and I always end up looking awful -- squinting, scowling, trying to make the damn camera point where I want it to. And I've pretty much quit getting out of people's shots in crowded spaces because it never ends. But I completely respect Allan's choice and the reason why he started the selfie habit. Allan, you're such a source of wisdom and good cheer here, I'll get out of your frame any time!

In one of Donna Leon's novels, Commissario Brunetti realizes that he no longer tries to stay out of tourists' photos as he walks around Venice, because he'd be unable to get anywhere if he deferred to them. He imagines people showing their pictures at home in America, Germany, China, and elsewhere, with his elbow or coattail on the edge. Kind of an unconscous "back door" experience I guess.

I think the kids would say he's the OG.

The GOAT.

Not usually one to get in the fray of these things but I wonder...why do we even care? Everyone has their own style of travel. Everyone has their own "truths." Critiqueing people for how they travel (as the the YouTuber does with his first point) is...imo...counterproductive.
To the point of selfies/selfie sticks: there are so many reasons WHY people take selfies. And unless they are being rude about it, why would one care? Personally I, like you VAP, take selfies. Even in the greater Bordeaux area where we live. I have my reasons, which are not as vain as some may chose to believe. Not all selfie takers are social media influencers.

KimberlySEA, I agree with your live and let live approach - hike your own hike. I didn't necessarily view the video as a criticism of any one travel style, but rather as a broader observation on mindset. For me, it wasn't about judging how others move through the world, but simply a moment to reflect on where I fit.

Mark, I get what you're saying, but it brings up two thoughts for me. I try not to presume what another is contemplating right before or after they take a picture. A 10 second act doesn't tell us the whole of their internal thoughts. Second, after a long time in museum education, I've learned that not everyone is going to share the same passion or appreciation for the things I find important. My younger self certainly wouldn't have shared my current passions. There are many things I treasure now that my younger self would have walked right past without a second thought. Younger folks naturally approach things differently, and a deeper connection and appreciation is often a slow burn that simply needs time to mature.