It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’. A travel tip for good tourists and responsible travellers

How can one be a good tour­ist and a respons­ible traveller? 

An easy-to-remem­ber rhyme might help; one that acknow­ledges that there is always more to know and there­fore nev­er gets old. 

What do you think about this as a catch-all travel tip or philo­sophy for trav­el­lers?

Update, June 2021: If you clicked over from The “GT” Travel Blog, WELCOME.

This web­site, The “Good Tour­ism” Blog, is where it all star­ted back in 2017. 

The acronym “GT” is from here.

The “GT” Blog is where industry insiders share ideas with each oth­er — “Good Tour­ism” Insights — to make the travel & tour­ism busi­ness bet­ter for everyone. 

You are wel­come to explore this web­site too, because tour­ism is every­one’s busi­ness just as travel is every­one’s pleas­ure.

It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’.

Gotta go? Then go!
If you’ve time, go slow
If you don’t, try low
Do what you know is good
And know there is more to know

“Good Tour­ism” fans prob­ably won’t need it, but here is a line-by-line explanation:

Gotta go? Then go! 

If there is some­where you have to be, then go! There are some occa­sions you just can­not miss, be they fam­ily events or crit­ic­al work meetings. 

If your feet are itchy, fol­low your travel dreams. Do some research. Make those plans to do what you already know is good. And know there is always more to know to make the whole exper­i­ence even bet­ter than you ever ima­gined — for you, your hosts, and the places you visit. 

Those who want every­one to stop trav­el­ling or to travel less, but then jet around the world to short-lived talk-fests about the rest of us; those who go to pop­u­lar places at peak sea­son and then com­plain about the crowds of which they are part; about how “touristy” it all is; and those who vir­tue-sig­nal but fail to act on their sup­posed vir­tues … frankly, they are all hypocrites. 

(They’re not bad people, though, most of them. Your cor­res­pond­ent is a hypo­crite too!)

If you’ve time, go slow

Time is precious. 

If you have a lot of time to spend trav­el­ling to where you want to be, lucky you! 

Travel slowly. Junk the jet lag. Where pos­sible, go by train, bus, ferry, ship (con­tain­er ship, even), or any oth­er sur­face trans­port­a­tion; not because it’s shame­ful to fly — it isn’t — but because there’s more to see down below. 

Those who say it is bad to fly but do it any­way are … you guessed it: hypo­crites. Hypo­crisy is shame­ful, not flying. 

Don’t rush home. Stay longer at that place. Savour every moment. 

But, to ensure you don’t over­stay your wel­come, be mind­ful of people and place, respect­ful of cul­ture and environment. 

Do what you know is good and know there is more to know.

If you don’t, try low

If you don’t have a lot of time to travel but you need to scratch that itch, that’s okay too. 

Try the low sea­son. A destination’s off-peak or low sea­son can offer bet­ter value for money in terms of air­fares and accom­mod­a­tion. And you waste less time in queues and crowds. Best of all, low-sea­son travel offers a more “authen­t­ic” exper­i­ence with bet­ter oppor­tun­it­ies to engage with locals. 

Try a low-traffic des­tin­a­tion. Some activ­it­ies, like snow ski­ing, are impossible if the con­di­tions aren’t suit­able. (Snow is required.) 

Oth­er activ­it­ies, like lying on a beach, are pos­sible in all con­di­tions but are so much more enjoy­able in optim­al con­di­tions. (No snow is preferable.) 

Whatever the con­di­tions you seek, try a low-traffic emer­ging des­tin­a­tion for that activ­ity. And for the same reas­ons — save money, save time, and have a bet­ter experience.

While your pre­cious time does indeed come at a premi­um, be patient. Be mind­ful of people and place; cul­ture and environment. 

Do what you know is good and know there is more to know. 

Do what you know is good
And know there is more to know 

There is too much packed into this two-line refrain to write about here … The breadth and depth of con­tent in this humble web­site offers a clue as to what might be included; an A‑Z, from con­cerns about access­ib­il­ity to wor­ries about zoos. 

And there is so much more than that. 

A travel philo­sophy accord­ing to “GT” should­n’t be all hard rules and commandments. 

Rather it should be very much like our every­day philo­sophy at home where, hope­fully, we are striv­ing to be as good as we can be as the flawed humans we are, liv­ing among oth­er flawed humans on a finite Earth. 

And we should always, at home and abroad, face-to-face and behind a key­board, have the humil­ity to real­ise we know very little. 

A desire to know more is partly why travel is so attract­ive to so many in the first place. Travel is a way to dis­cov­er one­self and the world, and to bring us all closer together. 

That’s why …

It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’.

Gotta go? Then go!
If you’ve time, go slow
If you don’t, try low
Do what you know is good
And know there is more to know

If you like it, share it with #KnowNotNo. If you don’t like it, share it. Just share it. 

As always on this free-speech plat­form, bou­quets and brick­bats (with­in reas­on) are accep­ted in the comments.