I Miss Traveling, But I Don’t Miss This
By: Kelly Chastain
Tags: Instagram, Humanity, Travel, Photography, Kindness Matters

Photo by @canmandawe on Unsplash

A few summers ago, I spent fourteen weeks traveling through six countries and I came across a wannabe influencer in every location. I’m not talking about travelers snapping a few shots for their own sake, but people staging an amateur photo shoot in the middle of a Unesco Heritage site.

One that I remember vividly happened in Turkey, and involved a screaming tantrum as a child was dragged away from playing at the creek’s edge. Kicking, hitting, and teetering on implosion, he soon morphed into a ball of lead in his father’s grip. Meanwhile, his mother’s amateur photo shoot was underway and she barked at everyone hiking the trail to hurry up, that she was having her picture taken, and no one else was to be in it. Not even her kid.

The hikers shuffled past, and this woman stretched herself into an artificial pose, her smile plasticizing on her face before my eyes. Her mother finally snapped the image as her son shrieked in the background.

Anything for your 117 followers.

That was in Cappadocia, the hot air balloon capital of Turkey. With its stunning valleys and rock formations, the wedding pic portfolios, proposal shoots, and influencer imagery it’s hard to resist dragging your camera out. Who wouldn’t want this as the backdrop of their photos? Especially that iconic shot from behind, looking off into the distance. Or weirdly draping your body over the rocks. How about turning away just slightly as if in deep contemplation? Of what I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it’s not caring a whit about anyone else’s experience.

I’ve witnessed this phenomenon from Paris to Pittsburgh, and in the Istanbul airport while waiting to board the flight. Two women were attempting a photo of themselves jumping in the air at the precise moment when the monitor changed from displaying the town name, Nevşehir, to Cappadocia. They had to have jumped twenty times, and by the time we boarded they were both sweaty and livid that they were told to stop before they got the shot.

But the thing that gets me, and keeps getting me, is how we decided that it was OK to behave this way in order to get a photo. That these 15 seconds of Instagram fame are worth being an asshole, and in some cases, to our kids and partners and loved ones.

In my weeks abroad that summer, I spent a good deal of time in some touristy hot spots, and I can’t tell you how often these poor companions behind the camera were barked at for their inability to capture the right angles, or for screwing up the lighting, or for not being a photographic wizard.

Imagine how it must feel to spend thousands of dollars to travel around the world with someone in order to fail at taking pictures of them, and then be publicly reprimanded for lacking a skill set you’ve never wanted to master in the first place.

I’m gobsmacked by the willingness to exchange an opportunity to bond with friends, family, and partners for aggravation over a picture not being just so. Or so caught up in getting that right shot that they lose sight of what makes the place so unique and special. Instead, a dream trip devolves into Instagram posts of the same pictures, the same hash tags, the same poses, and the same captions that everyone who has been there before has uploaded.

This is why I don’t miss this part of travel. Or the vapid nature of these photos. If online engagement is weighed against our desire to not only regurgitate what’s already been done to death, but to embitter everyone in the process… we’re in bad shape.

As someone who has managed social media for various companies for several years, I also see the disconnect between what we consume on Instagram vs. what we believe is possible for our own account. 117 followers aside, we all start somewhere, but what I think what gets lost in translation is that leveraging a platform into an income, or filling your feed with stunning photos, is a full time job.

Most of the incredible images we see on social media, that so many are keen to replicate, were taken by pros at the crack of dawn for thousands of dollars. There’s a reason why you never see a pro Instagrammer hustling hikers off of a designated hiking trail while their kid is melting down in the background. They shot at 5am, captured that blue hour light, and wrapped up their shoot before the rest of the world has gotten out of bed.

Because it’s their job.

When I look back on road trips and vacations I’ve taken as a child, I don’t have photos of my mom at Disneyland in a Cinderella gown, posing in a glittering pumpkin carriage. I’m not sad about this and I don’t think she is either. The photos I do have are of us in the boats in The Small World ride. If you’ve ever endured the torture of that awful little song playing in an endless loop with someone, you’ll know that a picture commemorating it is worth more than all the likes in the world. Our eyes wide with fear that we might get trapped in there for good. Both of us alive and awake to the experience at hand.

When we begin traveling again, I hope that is the new trend: burning with presence in the moment at hand. Deeply appreciating what is in front of us, instead of lamenting the miniature mediated version we’ve captured on a 2x3 screen.