Classifying Tourists

Over the course of our first half-semester exploration of travel, our class has spent a lot of time reading and evaluating the travel stories of numerous people, both fiction and non-fiction. We have witnessed events ranging from desert caravans and hitchhiking to bullfights and judgmental 19th century Europeans. During this time we have spent a lot of time exploring the role of the tourist, and what motivates him to leave his home and go out into the world.

But what is a tourist? In his essay entitled A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences, author Erik Cohen defines tourists as merely “travelers for pleasures” (179). While he acknowledges that this description is extremely rudimentary, he uses this as a baseline to describe the various different experiences that can be had when traveling for pleasure, as opposed to traveling out of necessity. In doing so, Cohen offers a very intriguing look into the travel, but one that is generalized to cover nearly everyone that travels.

Author Donald L. Redfoot, on the other hand, is much more specific in his categorization of the different breeds of travelers. Rather than confine people to designation as merely those who leave home out of necessarily and those who don’t, he goes a step further with. In his essay entitled Touristic Authenticity, Touristic Angst, and Modern Reality, Redfoot argues that tourists can be grouped in stages, from a “First-Order” all the way to a “Fourth-Order Tourist”. Each of these categories provide insight into the various motivations that drive people to travel, and can be applied to characters in the books that we have read in order to help us interpret their reasons for exploring the world.

As the initial type of tourist detailed by Redfoot, a “First-Order Tourist” is regarded as the lowest form of tourist, and is far removed from the culture of the place which they are visiting. We can see this form exemplified by Jake, the narrator from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. In journeying with his closest friends to Pamplona, Spain, he demonstrates many of the descriptions put forth by Redfoot. According to Redfoot, such a tourist “comes with a past and leaves with a future” (293). He means this to say they view their as a temporary escape from their life back at home, which is definitely the case with Jake, and is indicated by his planned and definite timetable for the trip to Pamplona. In addition, Redfoot articulates that a significant categorical feature of such a traveler is that a first-order Tourist is that they seek predictable destinations that have previously been defined as “authentic”. This is truly the case in The Sun Also Rises, as the characters main objective is to see the “Running of the Bulls” and experience the “fiesta”, both of which are typical tourist locations, and are far from genuine Spanish life and culture. So, based on our categorization of Jake as a first-order Tourist, we would be able to judge that for Jake, using Redfoot’s description, “the trip is simply a temporary escape” (295).

A “Second-Order Tourist”, on the other hand, is aware enough of the negative connotations of observing a foreign culture from afar. Redfoot describes this breed of tourist as being “keenly aware of the inauthenticities of the tourist role and experiences a considerable amount of anxiety and ‘shame’ in being labeled a ‘tourist’” (295-295). This is readily apparent as a trait in Port, one of the main characters from Paul Bowles novel The Sheltering Sky. Whenever confronted about the authenticity of his travels, Port is quick to point out that he is a traveler – and not a tourist, and tries to distinguish himself to anyone with doubt that he intends to embrace the African culture and lifestyle as much as possible (despite living in the fanciest hotels available). In addition, Port avoids any contact with other tourists, which is also seen as a prerequisite of being a second-order Tourist. So, what does this say about Port? Redfoot says of second-order tourists “In their search for the ecstasy of novelty and their anxiety about whether their experience is certifiably real, the second-order tourists have forgone the possibility of a real ‘encounter with being’” (299). In other words, Port’s anxiety regarding the way he is perceived by others is enough to notably detract from the significance of his travel experience.

Continuing on, Redfoot goes on to describe a “Third-Order Tourist”. He sees them as essential anthropologists, and as people who become assimilate into a foreign culture as a means to learn more about the world and discover more about themselves. Specifically, he says of these types of travelers, “they take great pains to avoid the inauthenticities of the second-order tourist’s anxious ecstasy by remaining long enough to fully understand the everyday reality of the people they study” (299). While he doesn’t study people as a profession in the way that most typical anthropologists due, Winterbourne, the main character from Daisy Miller by Henry James could be categorized effectively as a third-order tourist. Although he still identifies himself as an American, Winterbourne has been living in Europe for years. In doing so, he has experience first-hand the upper echelon of the socio-economic standings in places such as Rome and Geneva. This has allowed him to become well acquainted with the social norms and cultural ideals of the places in which he has settled for extended periods of time. He is then able to use this knowledge to craft himself into the perfect “gentleman”, which is his way of example of what Redfoot describes as a person’s “encounter with being”.

Finally, Redfoot bestows upon his readers his description of the ultimate title – that of a “Fourth-Order Tourist”. He explains that these travelers are “literally ‘eneaged in saving their own souls’ through an explicit rejection of modern culture. This type (of tourist) … seek ultimate spiritual reality not in their own cultural traditions but in the experience of other traditions” (301). Of the characters in all of the stories that we have read in class so far, Sal Paradise, from Jack Kerouac’s novel entitled On The Road, best exemplifies the rare fourth-order tourist. Rather than travel merely as an escape from his life in New York, Sal travels as a means to try to find out more about himself, and to discover his purpose and role in life. He is driven not by specific sites which he hopes to see, but rather by an internal emptiness which he hopes to fill as he learns more about himself on his various journeys of self-discovery. Further validating his role as a fourth-order tourist, Sal travels not in the wealthy, sheltered manner his aunt’s prosperity would allow him, but as he would were he a true western vagabond all of his life. He hitchhikes rides, scraps together dimes, and does a myriad of other things that bring him closer to the local culture out west. In doing so, Sal is truly traveling, and in doing so he is exemplifying what Redfoot describes as being a tourist that represents “a metaphorical rehabilitation as the symbol of the impressive as the symbol of the impressive, if unheroic, triumph of personal meaning in an increasingly impersonal world” (306).

In the end, Redfoot uses these labels as a means of categorizing and defining various people and their reasons for traveling, while at the same time we can use the same labels as a way to gain insight into various literary characters and their travel experiences. In taking the time to evaluate and apply these labels to examples with which we are familiar, we can all makes strides towards making the most out of our own personal journeys, both big and small. Travel can be an extremely powerful tool, and it serves as one that is available to anyone with a desire to explore that which is unfamiliar to them. In doing so, someone who travels is offered the enormously valuable opportunity to view the world, or parts of it, from an entirely new perspective, which in turn allows them to view themselves and their lives in an entirely new perspective as well.