The Difference Between a Tourist and a Traveler

I’ve always said that I’m a tourist. I find joy in staying at expensive hotels, going to known destinations and providing tips and tricks on how to see them efficiently, what pictures to take, and how to get the most out of your money and points. I’m here to help you avoid all the ‘tourist traps’ and help you only see what’s worth seeing. Efficient traveling so-to-speak.

As I’m planning my trip for Argentina, people at work are shocked to find out that I’m not staying in Hostels or AirBNBs. And to be honest, I have nothing against either of those but I love staying in nice hotels, preferably ones with a spa. That’s when I started to realize the true difference between a traveler and a tourist, and where I fall into the mix.

For me a traveler is someone who wants to explore all parts of a country/city, gets to know the locals, and find the back alley hidden spots. As an introvert and someone who is risk adverse, this sounds terrifying. I’m not about going off-the-beaten-path, that sounds like a great way to get taken or robbed. In my mind, I also didn’t spend thousand of dollars, or points, to not see all the locations that a country is known for. So, I’m a tourist, and there are both good and bad parts to that. I like to go to all the places that you’re suppose to hit and this includes what the city is known for and doing the ‘tour guide route’. I might not get a true feel for a country or ‘live like a local’, but it’s just not for me.

Montego Bay is a great example of this because the hotel told us when we got there, not to venture out unless you’re with an official tour guide company because the city itself isn’t very safe. So we did the tour guide stuff and it was great and I actually learned a lot. I typically steer away of tour guides because they go slow and it’s crowded, but sometimes necessary. And half of that comes from, knowing your destination.

My style of travel is trying to see everything and every tourist spot that I can. Coming from a Disney family, that means seeing everything that I can as efficiently as I can. In order do this, and avoid crowds, everything needs to be carefully researched and planned out. Sometimes, things don’t go as planned, (cough, cough, Sedona) and you end up being too tired to do anything, and that’s okay. In Sedona, we had like 5 hikes planned and got up bright and early to do them all. But it ended up being so hot and exhausting, we ended up doing one hike and spending the rest of the day at the spa 🙂 So I’m definitely not against spontaneity, but half the point of this blog is for me to help you learn from my mistakes and share my knowledge on what I’ve learned and how to do things better.