Is Travel a Right or Privilege? 12 Travel Privileges to Know

Traveling can be very tiring sometimes: queuing, listening to crying babies in planes, and changing travel plans due to broken railway wires.

Delayed flights, lost or broken luggage and sleepless nights to catch the flight.

It requires saving money beforehand and actively hunting for flight offers.

More and more people are dreaming and fantasizing about traveling based on different kinds of destination adverts, travel bloggers, vloggers and travel instagrammers.

Is traveling a right or a privilege?

It's privileged hobby and something to be very grateful for, and at the same time it's not what everyone wants.

And the truth is: even if everyone wanted or was able to travel around the world, it just simply wouldn't be possible.

Unless we want to destroy the planet.

You could question traveling because flying is definitely not sustainable and tourism might ruin many beautiful destinations, exploiting local communities.

It's notorious business transferring the money from communities to big corporations.

It may cause a lot of friction between cultures and people.

If traveling and tourism flows increase dramatically without much urban planning in advance, the consequences at the destination may be outrageous.

There are many kinds of travelers, and traveling responsibly has become a more known topic than before.

However, what can these individuals and backpackers do if the destination itself isn’t ready for more people?

Carrying capacity may not be enough, especially if combined with ignorant people leaving trash etc. behind.

For example, we all remember what happened to Iceland once it was found by bigger tourist flows. You can read more of that: Tourism: The Destruction Of Iceland

The truth is, we can’t either keep on flying like nowadays.

At some point, fossil fuel kerosene will simply run out.

Not all of us can be flying around the world and capturing destination after destination.

Hopefully some kinds of renewable energy planes are soon in progress.

That’d anyhow be a long-term process... Anyhow, I think it’s always good to be at least aware of this, if not actively doing all the decisions based on responsibility. 

And truth be told, there's only so much you can do as an individual.

I was talking with my friend how traveling is such a privileged hobby.

He didn’t understand what I meant, and I mainly mentioned traveling not being financially possible for most of the world.

I don’t mean now poor students or families of four: I mean countries in global South i.e. developing countries where traveling really isn’t something you can just prioritize for yourself and do it.

But the privileges actually go much further than first-world privileges.

I was talking with my friend how traveling is such a privileged hobby.

He didn’t understand what I meant, and I mainly mentioned traveling not being financially possible for most of the world.

I don’t mean now poor students or families of four: I mean countries in global South i.e. developing countries where traveling really isn’t something you can just prioritize for yourself and do it.

But the privileges actually go much further than first-world privileges.

This may sound weird, but have you ever thought about how easy it is to travel with a physically working body?

You don’t need to figure out where you can go with wheel wheelchair, no need to organize assistants, or you don’t need help with hearing and seeing.

Of course, people with disabilities can travel as well, but let’s admit it: it doesn’t make it so easy.

I can’t say how it feels, but it probably isn't possible to just spontaneously hike into a cave or book flights to another country.

Well this shouldn’t be surprise for anyone anymore:

Men can still travel more freely than women.

Without facing so much fear, without constantly thinking is it safe destination to go to, may I get sexually harassed or is it even smart to go alone to the country.

I’m in a couple of groups of solo female travelers, and often conversations and questions still are around basic needs: safety and self-determination of your own body.

Finally, after many years of determined actions, I can call myself full-time traveler, or at least a digital nomad.

I used to wonder how do people afford to constantly travel?

(To be honest, I still doubt that on some more actively and more luxuriously traveling people whose jobs I don't know).

This is surely one of the main questions digital nomad lifestylers get: how could I one day afford traveling constantly?

Many travelers offer guides how to become a digital nomad, and how to make money as a digital nomad e.g. through affiliation, working remotely, growing social media and becoming influencer, cooperation with travel businesses, or basically living minimally, minimizing costs.

People will answer they worked their ass off to enable full-time traveling.

They probably tried different things that didn’t work before finding something suitable for them.

They didn’t find it easy, but they always prioritized traveling.

However, I still think all of us have (un)conscious privileges.

Many digital nomads move first to countries where the costs of living are lower than in their home country.

Well, doesn’t that already make them privileged?

The Wandering Blonde made a good point in her blogpost about American privilege: 

English-speaking privilege (meaning it’s easier to travel the world if you mother tongue is English).

Let's admit it English is universal language: no matter where you go, you will always find someone who speaks at least a little bit of English.

This doesn't prevent you from traveling, but it does make it a lot easier if you're able to communicate clearly to get through customs, navigate your über driver or getting through any difficult situations you can end up in abroad.

The language skill needed may not always be English, might in some places be for instance Spanish or French, but you catch my point.

Of course one very practical privilege in travel is the passport you happen to have based on where you're born.

That doesn't have much to do with your personal efforts to earn your rights; it just happens to be that passports of certain countries enable access to more countries.

You can check the strongest passports update list from Passport Index.

All of this preaching about privileges and responsibilities towards traveling may cause travelers to feel guilty.

However, being sorry and feeling guilty doesn't change anything.

Just be aware of your privilege and a bit sensitive that not all of it may be possible for someone else.

When it comes to responsibility, consciously choose your travels and travel companies you want to support.

However, I can't resist making one nihilist note: we are constantly consuming when we're alive, so don't go extremist on this.

Just acknowledge your choices and try your best to live sustainably, but it's not in the hands of one individual traveler after all.

It's more important to do something than to try to do it all perfectly.

The image is very negative, and turns into individualism, if I would leave the article at this point.

Let me explain why I still find traveling important, societally.

Traveling can be an irresponsible and notorious privilege of people who can provide it, but at the same time, it can open our eyes so much more than any studies, for instance.

First, you learn to know your own culture and how some stereotypes of your own culture are painfully accurate.

This is surely what happened to me when I lived first time abroad in Ireland: I became very aware of Finnish culture when realizing own behavior and mirroring it to others.

After this step of becoming aware of your own culture and home country, stereotypes start breaking.

Ideas of other countries and nations based on your own beliefs, stories you've heard, and articles you have read start to reform.

When you actually get to know the people and try to adapt to the surroundings, you start to learn what the country is about.

Why is it the way it is, what do people value and how is it compared to your traditions and beliefs?

You may also start to see how everything is so strongly a social construct and dependent on the cultural and even geographical contexts. It may sound random, but even the weather actually matters quite a lot: In different climates people have different traditions.

Some traditions just wouldn’t be possible in other country.

Whereas Finnish people have over 100 words for snow, and the legendary word Kalsarikännit , Italians have a word for cleaning the plate with a bread to eat it: Fare la scarpetta.

Similarly, what is normal in another country is impossible for a foreigner: I heard yesterday a story of an American going for a business trip in India, willing to experience the authentic Indian food experience.

Well, he got the real curry and was hospitalized for four days after that.

These stories could go on and on mirroring other cultures against each other.

And I think this is the beauty and reason to travel.

You learn, you get confused and you start questioning even your own values in bigger scale.

You feel like an idiot when you can’t survive the most basic, daily stuff.

For example, when I moved to Spain I just couldn’t figure out how the blinds of my window open.

And that's the beauty of it: traveling keeps you humble, open-minded and grateful for all the experiences you gain.

It's definitely worth listening to loud families in Ryanair flight and losing your moose decoration from your suitcase while it was loaded and unloaded from plane.

(That's a short conclusion of our flight back to Malta from Eindhoven last Tuesday)

Are you a traveler? Appreciate every trip you make and count to ten when a baby is crying in a plane!