The BGGD take on the most self-congratulatory distinction in the travel community: the “I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveller” position is the specific performance of superiority that the backpacker at the Hostel World check-in performs for the family at the adjacent counter and that contains within it the specific class anxiety, the specific colonial heritage, and the specific self-delusion that the travel community has been performing for 40 years without examining. The distinction that is worth making is not “tourist versus traveller” — it is respectful versus extractive. This guide makes that argument.
Reading time: 6 minutes | Last updated: 2026
The Claim and What It Actually Means
The “I’m a traveller not a tourist” position claims a specific distinction based on the travel format: the backpacker versus the resort guest, the guesthouse versus the hotel, the street food versus the tourist restaurant, the independent route versus the package tour.
The specific claim is that the traveller engages with the destination more authentically than the tourist. This is sometimes true. The traveller who stays in the local neighbourhood and eats at the restaurant with no English menu is in a different relationship with the destination than the resort guest. This difference is real.
The specific problem is the claim that the relationship difference makes the traveller superior to the tourist — that the quality of engagement is a moral category rather than a format preference.
The Arguments Against the Distinction
The money argument: The backpacker who spends £30/day in Thailand and the resort tourist who spends £200/day in Thailand give the Thai economy different amounts of money. Neither format is inherently more beneficial to the destination. The backpacker who spends £30/day at the locally owned guesthouse and the street food stall gives the money to the Thai family. The resort tourist who spends £200/day at the international chain gives a larger amount to a more concentrated and less locally distributed economy. The format difference does not map cleanly to the impact difference.
The class argument: The backpacker who can afford to travel for 3 months on £5,000 is the person who can afford £5,000 for 3 months of travel. The resort tourist who spends 2 weeks at £150/night is the person who can afford £2,100 for 2 weeks and has 2 weeks of holiday. The “traveller” format requires the time wealth that the resort tourist may not have. The performance of superiority about the format ignores the class structure within which both formats operate.
The colonial heritage argument: The “off the beaten track” explorer, the person who goes to the destination before the tourists arrive, the person who tells you about the place before it was discovered — this specific travel identity has a specific colonial heritage (the Western explorer who discovers the place that the local population has been living in for 3,000 years is not discovering; they are arriving). The “traveller” identity contains within it a specific relationship to the “authentic” (the local, the pre-tourist, the unspoiled) that is worth examining for what it assumes about the destination and the people who live there.
The Distinction That Is Worth Making
Respectful versus extractive. The tourist who puts the cultural site in the Instagram story without reading about its significance and the traveller who does the same thing are performing the same extraction at different budget levels.
The tourist who reads about the customs before arriving, takes off their shoes at the temple entrance, and tips the local guide appropriately is more respectful than the traveller who haggles the local vendor below cost, takes photographs of the private ceremony, and tells the hostel about the “authentic” experience they had.
The format does not determine the respect. The person determines the respect. The family at the resort can be respectful. The backpacker at the guesthouse can be extractive. The distinction is in the disposition, not the accommodation category.
