What Instagram Doesn’t Tell You about Travelling
Hashtag travelling is a misrepresentation of international life. Here is why.
Nearly 50 million photos are tagged with #travelling on Instagram.
I scroll a few times to look at shiny photos of perfectly tanned bodies, colourful cocktails, meals in distorted colours and mostly staged smiles.
It looks appealing. I wonder why people have chosen these places as their holiday destinations. Although I admire the camera work and creativity that has gone behind posting each one of these photos, I realise they don’t tell you the truth about travelling.
These photos are a misrepresentation of international life. Here is why.
You Always Choose Going Home
For the last ten years, I have had a love-hate relationship with my passport and suitcase. Occasionally I wonder if I should spend the few hundred pounds I use to travel across Europe for a more exotic destination I haven’t been to. But I don’t. I always choose to go home. It’s like Harry Potter returning to Privet Drive for the necessary dose of family protection, but much more enjoyable. My annual summer trip to the motherland restarts the year. No filter can picture this.
Things have become easier with the years, but still today, I see that photos on Instagram don’t show you the homesickness; the feeling that you have changed since the last time you visited; and that maybe this is the last time you see a loved one. Instagram doesn’t tell you about the sorrow your grandmother feels when she waves you goodbye from her porch, or the emptiness that crushes you when she is not at her porch next time you visit.
Sometimes I envy Instagram travellers. Not for the exotic destinations they visit, but because they only feel the joys of travelling. They don’t associate it with packing and deciding which part of their life to take and which one to leave. They only photograph places and don’t wave people goodbye. They simply turn their heads away from one of the many tourist attractions they have just seen, rather than watch the figure of a loved one get smaller and smaller until it disappears.
“So, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here
Never enough for both”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Questions for Ada
There is No Glamour in Travelling
My journeys usually start in the early hours of the morning. As I join a snake-like queue at the airport any time between 2am and 6am, I often notice a lady that should have an Instagram filter named after her. Perfectly contoured, make-up and pout intact, she stands there glamorous as if she had eight hours of beauty sleep. I look like I have been asleep for a few hours and someone has just shone a light right in my face.
As much as I try to buy tickets in advance, there is no good time to make reservations for a sunny tourist destination in southeastern Europe for the peak of summer. That’s why I exchange inconvenience for a perceived low price. I take buses to airports at silly early hours more often than not. My journeys have 3+ legs. I have walked in the dark when the city sleeps and I should know better than to do that alone at night. You don’t feel like taking a selfie and tagging it, trust me. You just want to reach your destination.
Places and Sights Don’t Matter
More photos as I scroll. I see a cosy room in a boutique hotel, perfectly arranged drinks by height and colour, sweet kisses at sunset. Not all the beaches, authentic restaurants, or exciting nightlife can compare to the feeling of belonging that intoxicates when you take a shower and lie down on a bed in a house full of familial love. Knowing you are safe and back to where you started is a gift I often forget to say thanks for. I should.
Airports and stations are some of the happiest and saddest places at the same time. Whichever you are feeling, you really don’t want to take a photo. Your arms are either in an embrace or wiping tears. The fact is, you always leave. Someone will always leave you. Travelling from home to home reminds me I am always between things and people I love but can never have them all. It’s what you get for leaving your heart at too many places.
Caption this.
