A travel guilt concept has been thrown around for some time now. It might not even be an entirely new thing. Since the beginning of tourist travels, there were some ethical issues, although they were not addressed at large. Especially because it was a thing of wealthy people.

But now lots more people are traveling. But even more, people cannot travel. So the question arouses should I feel guilty about that?

Economical Reasons

Budget travel is far from anything luxurious and can sometimes resemble hobo life; it is still more often than not much better economically supported than the lives of many locals. Finding cheaper deals in the areas where one of the main — crucial for survival — stream of income comes from tourism seems ethically borderline. It gets even worse when tourists start to bargain for their purchases (also its a common thing in the area they are traveling) at ridiculously harsh speed.

Free border crossing Issues

Then there is the little thing of being open to go wherever you want because you feel like it just because you own some sort of passport that belongs to you by sheer coincidence. While there is a lot of people whose lives are at stake and cannot move, because by another sheer coincidence they own (if at all) the “wrong kind” of passport.

Pollution caused by tourism

Besides the obviously increased amount of trash brought to a certain area by tourist, there can be also damages done to the environment because of increased pressure to sewer, overconsumption of drinkable water and building of new infrastructure at areas were previously nature was untouched. Examples of massive touristic complexes can be found all around the world, Spain coastal area was one of the first destroyed ones by chains of hotels.

What Good Can Come From Guilt?

Will I never travel again because of that? Of course, I will? Will I feel bad about it? Sure. But does it make sense to feel bad about it? Absolutely not. Guilt should be used as a motivator to do something about it. Take responsibility and not litter around, expecting someone else will take care of it. But that won’t solve things on a bigger scale.

Like most things, I guess travel guilt opens more questions than can be answered, but as long as it makes more people think about their actions, it might be a positive thing.