We wait every summer for the wonderful vacations. For the travels, discoveries and relaxation period. Sometimes we are looking day by day in the calendar waiting and planning… In Europe, in the recent decades we have been traveling more and more. Our Earth has become a global village. We move quickly from one geographic point to another. An afternoon in Venice. The next day in Verona. After that Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples. We move quickly to Sardinia. Then in Corsica. We take a tour through Barcelona, then to Paris. After that going rapidly to Brussels and Amsterdam. And quickly to Copenhagen and Oslo. We climb up to Trondheim. Then flighting to Helsinki... And so on until the exhaustion of the proposed itinerary. Our vacations are getting plenty of travelling. Thousands and thousands of photos are proofs of our visits. We checked the most touristic places museums, monuments, historical buildings, famous terraces, parks and gardens. Photos and photos... Frequently uploaded instantly on social media.
Sometimes we realize such behavior is slightly absurd. We want to see as many as possible, but at the same time we see so little. Our time for reflection seems to be drastically reduced. Our moments of contemplation and observation are almost missing. We rely more on the opinions of others. On guide books or tour guided, on the internet published impressions of the crowds.
Moreover, this behavior is present on a global scale. It seems all of tourists are running in a competition. Who is touching the checkpoints faster? Surely climate change will influence our future choices. It is possible that summer vacations will be more and more oriented towards northern Europe than towards the Mediterranean, who knows?
But beyond the potential changes, what would we do in the present? Is it sustainable to spend a vacation on a long journey covering several thousand kilometers? Or maybe it's wiser to go to one place for a deeper exploration? Why have mountain hikers become less and less favorite instead of city-breaks? Can we change anything? Someone said that what we see depends crucially on our capacity for observation, to discover something new for our eyes. Even a desert area can be extremely rich in observable elements, if our mind is open to discovery...
We do not know what will come next, what the next summer vacations will look like. Maybe they will be so hot that we will have to move the holidays and vacations period to a more favorable area, to autumn or spring. What we can do today is to reflect and try as students, teachers, citizens, company or authorities to stimulate a sustainable tourism. People can actually travel less and see more and more. A new lifestyle and journey style is needed to be grown. Let’s do it together!
