Cycling UK Forum

My wife and I usually have at least one foreign holiday a year, but have decided to forego them. We can have 3 holidays in the UK, for the price of one abroad. In the past 2 years, we've been to the Inner Hebrides, Norfolk, Cornwall, the Chilterns, Northumberland as well as city breaks in Cardiff, Worcester, Edinburgh and London/Windsor. There are still plenty of places we haven't been yet. I think it's easy to overlook what the UK has to offer.

I suspect all that stuff will do is give people a better idea of where to go. Say you want to go to Rome. Once you read all the guides and studied city tourism maps. As good a job of planning as you manage you'll end up missing some gem. All the modern media and TV shows result in these gems coming to the fore. However the actual visit in the flesh still gives you more.

This will just allow you to get more from your trip I reckon not negate the need for the trip.

mercalia wrote:I am not against foreign travel, just that being children of the media as we are has given us a god like view of places that previous generations never had and would envy? If they wanted to visit eg Rome they had to do it individually by foot with eyes 5 feet off the ground with what ever was between their 2 ears?

Previous generations didn't need to visit Rome in order to see it. Here are some of Panini's views of Rome from the 1740s. Of course someone would need to go on the Grand Tour to purchase these paintings in the same way a television presenter now visits the city, but once they're brought back everyone could see what Rome was like. Or at least the bits Panini wanted you to see and in the way he wished to present them.

http://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-paol ... sseum-1747

One incident from my travels sticks in my mind. Standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with 50 other people as the sun went down. At first the sun was above the clouds and it was all yellow, then the sun came lower than some clouds and the view was orange, then lower than more clouds and for a moment the view was grey. And so on until the whole thing turned to gold as the sun sank below the horizon.

No one said a word…

You cant get that experience from the telly.

Al

Tangled Metal wrote:I suspect all that stuff will do is give people a better idea of where to go. Say you want to go to Rome. Once you read all the guides and studied city tourism maps. As good a job of planning as you manage you'll end up missing some gem. All the modern media and TV shows result in these gems coming to the fore. However the actual visit in the flesh still gives you more.

It's already been happening to a degree - without forums such as this, I would have missed some things that I'm glad I didn't. Even "old" media like television have added bits to my trips: for example, Barcelona's tourist board and guides didn't highlight the wonders of the musical magic fountain displays at the Olympic Park last time I looked, but quite a few BBC viewers remember the 1992 coverage and seek it out...

mercalia wrote:I am not against foreign travel, just that being children of the media as we are has given us a god like view of places that previous generations never had and would envy?

because you're not having a directly lived experience, merely consuming images. touring the ancient sites of Rome is arguably pointless because you can read/view them in any number of ways, but touring around the modern culture of Rome you won't get any other way. I mean the bars, the cafes, the clubs, the sporting events, the countryside, the crime, the pomp, etc, etc.

If you like tourism in London, then how representative is the monarchy, Cameron/Johnson Etonian nonsense, red phone boxes, the Tower, queuing, etc..of the trip you made? You're not indulging in traditional tourism in London, so why compare it to traditional tourism elsewhere? if you had actually toured 'Great Queues of London' (doing things the guide books say, such as Oxford St midday, etc) then I'd bet you not have enjoy the lack of contrast to normal London life.

The Louvre and the V&A are almost indistinguishable. But nip around the corner of both and find a little back street cafe for an hour or so and you'll find they are worlds apart.

This is one of the great things about cycling, abroad or in your own back yard (I don't see any need for a distinction). You have the opportunity to speak to so many different types of people, hear and create so many stories, and you cannot avoid a experiencing contemporary culture which isn't (yet) documented in the guide books.

As one who can't tell you a good place to eat in Hay on Wye, but has cycled extensively in Thailand, maybe I should reply.

The smell, the heat, the humidity and the noise cannot be gained from the TV (yet). When I see any programme on India, I know they are missing so many sensory experiences.

In part I agree though. I don't take photos anymore, partly because I never looked at them and partly because I can always find them on the web. Just look at crazyguonabike , I sometimes think they are following me around.

There is a misplaced perception in the OP that those that travel abroad, ignore back home. I don't agree. Most intrepid, adventurous or just curious travellers also explore their home surroundings. Maybe the 2 weeks in Benidorm people don't, but did they when they had their 2 weeks in Skegness.

For me it's exotic places in the winter and the UK by bike and campervan in the summer. If I stayed home in the winter I would hardly cycle at all.

Some of my best touring experiences over the years have been the little things:
Hearing thousands of frogs croaking after a rainstorm in Australia
A cold beer on a hot day next to the Danube
Chatting to an old Frenchman about my tandem one morning in Caen
Standing in a WW2 cemetery in Normandy
Riding my touring bike in the middle of a Spanish club run peloton
Eating olives off the tree in Andalucia
Sharing a campfire dinner with a bunch of other cyclists next to the Pacific

We're born to move.

Nomads by nature, evolution programmed us to wander, which probably explains why we travel for recreation. What we usually refer to as travelling, however, isn't really. If one thinks about it, how much of a culture do we really experience rushing around in planes, trains and automobiles and staying in resorts and hotels?

Of course, it would be a little naïve of me to think roaming the world on a bicycle could possibly replicate the stresses and strains, or lack thereof, of our nomadic ancestors, but the daily quests into the unknown for food, water and a place to sleep are certainly a lot more in tune with our primary genetic motivators than commuting to cubicles to electronically shuffle virtual paper. The recreation of novelty is built in, so we don't have to tack on artificial pastimes, like skydiving or bungee-jumping, to relieve the stress such sedation accumulates.

And what do we travel for? Surely the personal growth that comes from broadening one's perspective? Experiencing other cultures through the window of a hurtling vehicle or cocooned in a lavish resort is never going to reveal the heart of a place, and therefore never really provides that accompanying personal improvement for which we're striving. I strongly suspect those who travel so softly don't do it to intellectually and emotionally experience diversity, they do it for pleasant surroundings, a change of scenery, and a chance to swagger in front of their friends when they get back home. Enlightenment comes more readily, I'm sure, with empathy, understanding and appreciation than a bowl of pot pourri and a pillow mint. We're faking the path to a broader perspective. Building a straw house on a swamp, if you will.

Personally, I find it's the people I meet while touring, and the conversations I have, that make the difference.

pwa wrote:I suppose it depends what you expect from travelling. If you expect to become a wiser person, I think that is too much to expect. Some of the wisest people I know have been hardly anywhere, and some of the most stupid people have been all over the place. I also know people who can tell you the best places to go in Thailand but don't know where to eat in Hay on Wye. (I can feel the Snob awakening in me, so I'll shut up)

That's a trick question, there is no good place to eat in Hay-on-Wye. Its all over priced and pretentious there!
Unless you mean when Black Sheep sets up in the bus-stop.

Because it is about more than visiting special sites... it is about discovering the stuff not shown on the TV, looking back on a view with a glorious field of wild flowers in front of you, of turning a corner and finding some fantastic rocky outcrops that never feature on TV, about seeing that sunset or sunrise, meeting locals, exploring back streets of a village where you are overnighting, watching the local children playing footie in the street while the adults chill at the local bar / cafe / and join you / invite you to join them for the evening meal.....
But like you i would have no desire to float down a river on a boat... nor would visiting underground tunnels be high on my tourist list.
But i have been to the Great Wall of China and no words, no TV views can prepare for the enormity of standing there taking in the breath taking scenery.

Just 2 tours for me.
End to end of Scotland and 2 months across the Pamir Highway.
Lots of fond memories but 2 things important to me.
The feeling of being on the ' edge' miles from home and the kind generosity of local folk. I was truly humbled many times.
I hope I returned with a different outlook on life.

Oh, and a third.
Most folk back home weren't interested to any great degree with my daredoing.

Sri Lanka next month.

I have a similar problem. I just don't get excited by seeing "sights" and it's made much more difficult by the crowds. It's not that I'm not interested, I just get more from reading a good book about something than seeing the the thing itself in the flesh.

However, there's more to 'abroad' than sights, as pointed out above.

Picked up on this thread while I was at work and didn't have time to tap out a response, but has been bugging me all afternoon

I've travelled extensively, albeit mostly between the ages of four and ten, and can second all the comments on here that have picked up on the atmosphere that you'd miss by just watching TV, no matter how 3D/4K/curved screen it is

The sharp smell of limes in an otherwise dusty arabic market

The aural and nasal assault of a busy indian city, the constant noise, the smell of uncatalyzed leaded petrol engines over thick oily diesel exhaust

Or the complete silence of the Scottish Highlands on a cold, wet rainy day

And people watching... can waste hours doing that!

So while technology may be bringing the sights and sounds into our living rooms it lacks the visceral element of being out there

meic wrote:

pwa wrote:I suppose it depends what you expect from travelling. If you expect to become a wiser person, I think that is too much to expect. Some of the wisest people I know have been hardly anywhere, and some of the most stupid people have been all over the place. I also know people who can tell you the best places to go in Thailand but don't know where to eat in Hay on Wye. (I can feel the Snob awakening in me, so I'll shut up)

That's a trick question, there is no good place to eat in Hay-on-Wye. Its all over priced and pretentious there!
Unless you mean when Black Sheep sets up in the bus-stop.

I always find nice food in Hay at prices that are okay compared to Cardiff, though not cheap and cheerful like the West End Cafe in Llandovery. But I don't mind paying a little more if I'm on a day out and I'm eating something a bit different. My point is that a lot of people (very much not you) know the wider world better than the lovely corners of their own island. My wife teaches children at a school in South Wales, and many of them have never been to other parts of Wales. They go to Thailand but don't even know what North Yorkshire has to offer. To me that feels wrong.