As you listen to the colorful local stories over the lunch they prepare you or the tea you share with them after their shift, one begins to realize the intrepid lifestyle we enjoy this decade is not sustainable, and in fact it may be a veil for an aspect of life systemically absent in the developed world. While tourism has been viewed as a boon for remote villages lacking many modern conveniences, they seem all the more at peace for living a seemingly simple life by outside standards than any excursion into their regional mountain range or underground cavern system could convey. As we more accurately account for air pollution and the true effect tourism wreaks on residents’ rent not to mention trending cuisine away from local favorites and towards international favorites that sell, we see not only is it unsustainable in a global energy sense, but also from the observer effect stance, that a decade of touring will radically change the very beauty the landscape once held. That true personal growth comes about through immersion and adaptation, not scant passings by holding ones values to your chest, but by observing other ways of being, realizing there is no one correct way to drink tea let alone defecate.
What I hope to accomplish through my travel is the ‘anti-influencer’ campaign, to convey the beauty of the mundane, or at least in what is mundane to locals. In reminding the intrepid that there are more environmentally responsible ways to appreciate the vast grandeur of this life, and thereby show others that there is much to be explored in the overlooked regions of their home. Rather than moving oneself, one simply need view their own local environment from a different perspective and exploration can be had. Google Maps can be a great tool for this, in allowing locals to more closely and completely know their town or city.