Criticized for Looking Like a Tourist

Getting rid of the negative connotation with the word “tourist”, and claiming the title!

A very interesting thing happens when you start living life exactly the way you want. People either celebrate and support you, or feel the need to comment with their “well meaning” thoughts on how they think you should live your life.

Someone recently commented about me looking like a tourist, like that’s a bad thing. News flash: I am literally being a tourist. The definition of a tourist is visiting a country or place for pleasure, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m traveling all over Southeast Asia doing tourist things and going to tourist places, and it brings me pleasure. I also run a full-time business as a Trauma Recovery Coach that allows me to travel and do tourist things as long as I want, all while helping people.

Tourism is one of the biggest economical boosts for Southeast Asia. Cambodia is suffering right from coronavirus because there are less tourists traveling and people are losing jobs.

You can call yourself a seasoned traveler or whatever, but changing a name to make you feel more comfortable doesn’t make you not a tourist. If you have a negative connotation with that word, it’s not my problem & I really don’t care what you call me.

I’m not traveling for a couple weeks, I’m traveling long-term. I’m going to wear clothes that are comfortable and I’m going to take a lot of pictures because I love looking at other people’s pictures from travels as well.

And…this may come as a shock to you, but I’m not from Cambodia. I’m 5’10, I have blonde hair and blue eyes. Changing what I wear is not going to make me blend in with the locals. What is going to help though, is my level of respect that I have for all cultures and any country I am visiting. I’m going to dress appropriately with the clothes available to me at the time. Here, that means short sleeved shirts, and long pants. I didn’t bring many of those, so I bought them here. I’d much rather be respectful and enjoy the country I’m in, than go about my life worrying what some random person on the Internet is saying about my clothes.

I’ve made a point over the last couple years to stop making snide remarks about other people’s lives and understand that there’s always way more to their story than what I’m seeing. I now choose to support everyone in whatever makes them happy, and it’s not my place to tell them how to do it if they’re not asking.

If something bothers you about a picture or a video of someone else, Take a step back and think about why. Your reaction to the way someone else is living their life says a lot more about you than it does about them. Getting over jealousy and the need to criticize everyone by giving them my unsolicited advice on life was one of the greatest lessons I learned and will keep learning.

Until then, I’ll just be here in my tourist hotel with my tourist travels doing my tourist yoga wearing my tourist pants. Tourist, out.