The BGGD take on the most persistent and least examined distinction in travel culture: the “I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveller” position is the specific performance of superiority that the backpacker at the hostel check-in deploys for the family at the hotel reception across the road, and it contains within it the specific class anxiety, the specific colonial heritage, and the specific self-delusion that the travel community has been maintaining for forty years without examining. This guide examines it. The distinction that is worth making — respectful versus extractive, engaged versus consuming — is not the distinction between the backpacker and the resort guest. It is the distinction between the person who arrives anywhere wanting something from the place and the person who arrives anywhere willing to give something back to it. This has nothing to do with the accommodation category.
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What the Claim Actually Says
When someone says “I’m a traveller, not a tourist” they are claiming one or more of the following:
That they engage more authentically with destinations than the tourist does. That their form of travel is more beneficial to the places they visit. That the experience they have is qualitatively superior to the tourist’s. That they are, in some way that matters, a better kind of visitor.
The first claim is sometimes true. The backpacker who stays in the local neighbourhood and eats where the local population eats is in a different relationship with the destination than the resort guest who moves between air-conditioned spaces. This difference is real.
The second, third, and fourth claims are considerably less well-supported than the person making them typically recognises.
The Three Problems With the Distinction
The money problem: The backpacker who spends £30 per day in Thailand gives less money to the Thai economy than the resort tourist who spends £200 per day. Which spending pattern is more beneficial to Thailand? The answer is not obvious and depends on where the money goes (the locally owned guesthouse versus the international chain) rather than the total amount spent. The “authentic” backpacker who stays at the locally owned guesthouse and spends £30 per day gives more locally than the resort guest whose £200 per day goes to the international chain. The “authentic” backpacker who stays at the hostel chain and the resort guest whose hotel is family-owned reverse this. The accommodation category does not determine the economic impact.
The class problem: The “traveller” identity requires the time to travel slowly, the flexibility to change plans, the confidence to navigate the unfamiliar, and (almost always) the financial cushion to do so without the rigid pre-booking that the budget constraint requires. These are all forms of privilege. The resort tourist who has two weeks of annual leave and three children is not choosing the resort because they’re insufficiently sophisticated. They’re choosing it because it is the format that works within the specific constraints of their specific life. The traveller who has three months, no dependents, and a sabbatical from the professional job is not making the superior choice. They’re making the choice that their specific circumstances allow.
The colonial heritage problem: The “off the beaten track” framing — going before the tourists arrive, finding the authentic before it’s discovered, being the first Western visitor to the remote village — has a specific colonial heritage that the modern use of the phrase has not examined. The Western explorer who “discovers” the place that the local population has been living in for three thousand years is not discovering it. They are arriving. The language of the “untouched” destination, the “authentic” experience, the place “before tourism ruins it” is the language that positions the Western traveller as the correct first relationship with the destination and the local population as the context for the traveller’s experience rather than the people whose home it is.
What Actually Matters
The distinction that is worth making is not tourist versus traveller. It is respectful versus extractive.
The respectful visitor — tourist or traveller, resort guest or backpacker — arrives at the destination with the understanding that they are a guest in someone else’s place. They read about the customs before arriving. They observe the dress codes without needing to be told. They photograph the landscape, not the local person at prayer without permission. They tip the guide at the rate the local economy warrants, not the rate that feels generous relative to the exchange rate. They take what the destination offers and leave something — the economic contribution, the respect, the absence of damage — in return.
The extractive visitor — tourist or traveller, resort guest or backpacker — arrives treating the destination as the set for their experience. The photograph at the sacred site that the sign asks visitors not to photograph. The bargaining that takes the vendor below the local price because the exchange rate makes this possible. The “authentic” village visit that doesn’t account for the fact that the village is someone’s home. The Instagram story from the temple that frames the spiritual practice as the aesthetic backdrop.
The resort tourist who does the first of these is more valuable to the destination than the backpacker who does the second. The backpacker who does the first is more valuable to the destination than the resort tourist who does the second. The category of accommodation has nothing to do with it.
