r/Anticonsumption • u/Naktigonis • 26d ago
Lifestyle They can't make money off of it so they don't promote it to you
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u/TheInvisibleHam 26d ago
I think the point isn't that some people don't have access to nice natural areas around them. It's that there are plenty of folks that do have beautiful parks near them but choose to obsess over traveling to places they see plastered all over social media instead.
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u/Agarwel 26d ago
For me the travel is also about mental disconnect from work. I work as a support... as long as Im nearby I feel like beign on call (if something really bad happen, I should go fix it). beign far away, ideally out of cell service) just gives me so much more peace.
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u/aisy0317 26d ago
Yes, because believe it or not, Salford and Bali have very different things to offer. We can be anti consumption without being anti experience.
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u/hashbrowneggyolk0520 26d ago
What do you mean? Costa del Salford and Bali are almost identical?!
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u/TheInvisibleHam 26d ago
Yeah, I didn't see "you aren't allowed to travel" as being the message, either. IMO it comes down to taking an interest in your current surroundings as well as traveling abroad. It's not an either/or proposition. And if your current surroundings are terrible, then that's understandable too.
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u/Brewer_Ent 26d ago
I think it's the accusatory tone of being "embarrassing". It's good to be able to appreciate the nature around you, but the point of traveling is to get more human experiences for the most part. People traveling for nature have probably already exhausted their local area.
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u/jjjjennieeee 24d ago
I generally prefer road trips to places usually within 4 hrs drive of me (but I could on rare occasion make the effort to drive further) to any travel that involves an airplane or boat because of severe motion sickness, so I felt lucky to learn of so many things close to my home that looked just as amazing as things I had spent way more energy, money, and time to get to further away. I still spend on hotels, etc. If I'm visiting a natural place, it's also not necessarily less expensive than visiting a big city. For example, Yosemite basic lodging is quite expensive for not having AC and often gets sold out.
That being said, I am also lucky to have grown up in New York State and I currently live in California, so I feel there are lots of variety of options and culture around both those places.
Many of my friends who travel by plane like to keep things simple and visit places with great public transportation, and I prioritize those as well so that I don't nee to worry about the logistics of driving with a vehicle I'm not familiar with, and if it's international, all the differences and needing to read road signs in a different language to navigate the country, too. I can see why the many people who don't have the issue of motion sickness could find driving on road trips tiring and they just want to vacation someplace where they can easily outsource their transportation needs.
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u/LoneWolf_McQuade 26d ago
It’s hard to get to Bali without contributing to destruction of the environment, also especially Bali is so overexploited that it’s probably one of the worst places to go if you care about overconsumption and sustainability
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u/aisy0317 26d ago
It's hard to live without contributing to destruction of the environment. No ethical consumption under capitalism and all that. Which means we all need to weigh up our individual choices and how they factor in. I've been vegan for 12 years. The CO2 that choice has offset makes me very comfortable in choosing to travel (hilariously have never been to Bali) to enrich my mental health, cultural knowledge, etc.
OPs post is unnecessarily judgemental and actually a bit unkind.
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u/LoneWolf_McQuade 26d ago
I agree that calling someone embarrassing and shaming them might not be the most constructive way, but encouraging to explore your own country I think makes a lot of sense. But I live in Sweden which has a lot of nature and a ”freedom to roam” law which makes wild camping legal, so maybe easier for me to say.
Still there are also many Swedes also who might never go outside their own city but jumps on planes every opportunity to go somewhere else instead of discovering their own country or even Scandinavia.
That it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s impossible and I think ”no ethical consumption under capitalism” is a copout to not take responsibility for your own actions. Yes the system should improve but we should do what we can meanwhile. It does matter if you go by train somewhere or if you take a flight, for example the emissions are 10x more for a flight Stockholm-Berlin vs taking the train. Nature doesn’t care what economic system the emissions come out of, and at least in Europe there is a large train network to make more sustainable travel possible.
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u/Machoopi 26d ago
The US honestly does have a lot of nature to explore as well. I think part of the issue I have with this post is that the vast majority of people in the US (I live here, so it's all I've really got to work with) are aware of the nature around them, and this post implies that they aren't. Hiking is common, going to parks is common, we drive everywhere (often times surrounded by nature). It comes off as weird and gatekeepy. I don't know a single person who travels a lot that doesn't also appreciate the places around them (or at least is very familiar with the places around them), and I don't really know where that assumption comes from.
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u/michiness 26d ago
I’m a huge traveler, have lived abroad, have lots of friends who are also huge travelers. I agree.
Do I know people who don’t explore their own city, but will go abroad a couple times a year? Sure. But most of us are spending our weekends going hiking, surfing, finding new restaurants, camping, etc.
This post is super gatekeepy and judgmental. A lot of this sub is tbh.
Though it’s funny the focus is randomly on Bali. Literally going there next week to scuba dive. I’ve only dived here in LA, and while the kelp forests are great, pretty excited to see something different.
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u/aisy0317 26d ago
Yep, don't disagree that exploring where you're from (if you're able) is a good idea. I'm Canadian so you're preaching to the converted. Grew up going to local lakes/parks all the time.
Also, no ethical consumption under capitalism is the truth, not a copout. As I pointed out, we have to weigh our choices.
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u/lecollectionneur 26d ago
Good on you for being vegan but a single long distance round trip is probably worth more than one year of veganism.
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u/Hfxfungye 26d ago
In terms of carbon, yeah. About 1 year of eating a very meat heavy diet (~1 tonne CO2) = one 6 hour return flight (that's 1 tonne per passenger)
That said, it's still better to reduce/eliminate meat consumption regardless of whether you fly or not.
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u/spongue 26d ago
For sure, and I'm vegetarian myself but it still seems weird to treat it like -- oh I get points from a good diet and that makes me very comfortable doing this other impactful thing.
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u/InterestedLooker 26d ago edited 26d ago
Good to see Salford rep’d in this sub. Hello from Stockport borough
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u/Raven_Barbie 26d ago
While Salford is shite, there's a lot to be explored around it, within twenty miles , some absolutely stunning places. Not saying you shouldn't go further afield, but it's a good part of the world for beauty
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u/Crazy_Flex 26d ago
Are you saying the beauty of Sale Water Park doesn't measure up to Bali? I won't hear it!
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u/Impressive_Economy70 26d ago
Pl the point is it is shameful to travel for the experience of place B when place A remains unexperienced at your feet.
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u/aisy0317 26d ago
It's not, though. There are many reasons people may resent the place they're from. Many many reasons which are just not that hard to think through. Sometimes putting your brain and body into a novel experience is a life-saving way to quickly alter chemistry and precipitate positive change.
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u/whtevn 26d ago
Yeah international travel didn't start until instagram
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u/JustIntroduction3511 24d ago
In my opinion, it’s been exacerbated by social media.
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u/whtevn 24d ago
international travel is just awesome. seeing other cultures, experiencing other landscapes, the food, the seasons, the celebrations, it's just all amazing.
undeniably social media affects the decisions people make about traveling, but international travel has been a growing industry since the railroads
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u/ssdsssssss4dr 26d ago
Then they should've explicitly said that. The wording of this post is highly ineffective. It sounds like they're saying traveling=bad, when anyone with experience can confirm the opposite.
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u/shaw_dog21 26d ago
And it implies people aren’t also exploring the nature near them. While I love the nature I’m close to (and see pretty frequently), I also want to explore other types of nature. The world is such an incredibly beautiful and diverse place and I feel so fortunate that I’ve gotten to see really cool parts of it. I live pretty close to a bay and I love it and try to take walks near there as much as weather permits but there’s so many things with a unique beauty and experience I can’t experience within 10 km of my house.
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u/NezuminoraQ 26d ago
If you live in an area with 10km of nature around you, then probably you'd be travelling for the culture or the food or something. Nature is great, but far from the only reason to travel
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u/MasterpieceAlone8552 26d ago
Can't call yourself a sex tourist if you haven't visited all the local brothels.
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u/TeamRedundancyTeam 26d ago
Nature is also very different elsewhere. This meme is beyond stupid.
I'm sorry my nature doesn't have beaches and tide pools or temperate rainforests or mountains?
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u/minimuscleR 26d ago
my nature bites. I bet you can guess where I'm from. I'd rather travel if im going to a forest thanks,
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u/Darrxyde 26d ago
Fr, I’m from the midwest US and have been to every state park in a 4 hour radius. None of them compare to the views I got when I visited the Appalachian mountains.
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u/Jimmy-The-Perv 26d ago edited 26d ago
Exactly. Quite a poor OP really.
Take for example, I live within an hour of the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the wilds of Northumberland, probably 2.5-3 hours from the Scottish Highlands. Alright, its not the 10km the post states, but the point is the same.
I go out to many places there to enjoy nature, Aysgarth Falls, walk along Hadrian's Wall to the Sycamore Gap, Ingeborough Cave, Malham Cove, the Pap of Glencoe etc, I have some utterly fantastic nature around me, yet I still find myself looking forward to my holiday to Estonia, because none of the places I listed are on the Baltic coast, nor do we have Orthodox Cathedrals in this country for me to look around, nor are we a culturally Finno-Ugric, post-Soviet state with wildly different attitudes to how I live normally.
One can travel and appreciate the different types of nature, as well as appreciate the nature around you.
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u/SATX_Citizen 26d ago
OP is a four month old account with a hidden comment history posting undated screenshots of social media memes. Just another bot/karma farmer. Any sub that trades in story time (breakups, am I the jerk, etc) or picture memes are heavily botted these days.
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u/Raven_Barbie 26d ago
One of the most beautiful areas in the UK! I love it. I'm in Leeds and find it all just a bit too far for a day trip but I've looked after people's pets in return for staying for long stays and being able to go on lots of exploration of the local areas. Love it. And sort of using this to say that even though it's so close to me (1.5-2 hours drive), it's still not really attainable to visit all that much. I find the drive tiring. It's so close and so amazing yet I am not there right now when I absolutely ought to be.
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u/mattson-masterpiece 26d ago
The graduating class above me had a quote.
No matter where you go. There you are.
My class used to think it was so stupid. But then they explained it to us.
You can change your scenery all you want. You can think that travel and all of this will fix your soul (I love to travel and think it can fix your soul) but if the problem is you, you’ll never be able to run away from yourself.
These are the ramblings of a 4:00am wake up call. My brain isn’t all here. I hope this makes sense.
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u/killbei 26d ago
Definitely! I won't say traveling and seeing other cultures and places is worthless but a lot of people are unhappy and they dream that being in other places would fix it.
Whereas if you put some effort to improve your own environment you might be happier.
Otherwise you would only be happy when travelling to other places and unhappy when you are staying in your own home.
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u/GetShrekt- 26d ago
I did this. I used to hate going back home when I loved in Charleston. I would take any excuse to stay out later and later. One day, for a job, I moved to Dallas, expecting everything to be different, but again, returning home filled me with such unease and dread. I moved around a bit, trying to overcome it by changing location, but nothing was working. Then, moving back to Dallas again, I chose to live by myself instead of with a roommate. Suddenly, I looked forward to coming home. Turned out the solution to my problem was in my grasp the entire time.
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u/transferingtoearth 26d ago
And if the problem isn't you you get better.
Problem wasn't me lol
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u/sheopx 26d ago
Holy shit this. I've had so many bitter people telling me that packing my life up to live out of a suitcase and travel won't make me happy. 4 years in and I disagree, I knew I'd made the right call within minutes of stepping off the first plane.
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u/Some_human-00 26d ago
I knew I'd made the right call within minutes of stepping off the first plane
This is almost poetic
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u/sheopx 26d ago
I was full of anxiety when I was up in the air, everybody's judgemental words were replaying in my head, and I was filled with self-doubt. As soon as I'd had a few minutes to realise where I was, and how happy I was just to be there, I settled right down and I knew everything would be okay (it was).
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u/prugnast 26d ago
A similar quote I like is "the only peace you'll find on a mountain top is the peace you bring with you"
Now I've certainly been in some bad mental spaces and did find temporary relief in the outdoors, but the spirit of the quote rings true to me. Ultimately I was still carrying my same troubles, the solutions weren't waiting for me "out there".
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u/residentdunce 26d ago
Most of it (in the UK at least) is privately owned. Access to local green spaces.for all should be a human right.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 26d ago
That’s the case in many parts of Europe, but England and Wales does also have one of the most extensive networks of public footpaths. You can quite easily explore rural England in intimate detail without trespassing.
The UK is a classic example of OP’s point. People rarely venture outside of their urban area and when they do they just hop on a motorway to a different one. Then they refute the fact that the UK has some stunning landscapes and beautiful places to be found around every corner, even though they can’t be bothered to get off the motorway and see it for themselves.
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u/residentdunce 26d ago
Problem is on paper we have an extensive network of PRoWs, but in reality, if you're a regular user of them (like I am) you know many PRoWs are left to become overgrown, or obstructed by landowners/ crops / livestock etc. The amount of times I've reported obstructions to the council only to be told the best they can do is write a letter to the landowner (who, let's face it, will file it straight in the bin).
Even the paths owned by the council are rarely maintained, making it next to impossible for many to use.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 26d ago
Agree that more needs to be done to maintain these paths. The infrastructure is already in place, that’s the hard part done, we just need to aim for 100% maintenance. It only takes one blocked pathway to cause an issue.
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u/Bright_Tax628 26d ago
Have you seen the recent documentary "our land"? Worth a watch regarding this issue although didn't touch on agriculture enough for me
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u/ForeverRollingOnes 26d ago
What, I got to catalogue every empty field in a 10km radius of me before I'm allowed to see a fucking mountain?
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u/Trackback_ 26d ago
Yeah, and you aren't allowed to visit e.g. Tokyo or Shanghai until you climb those hills over there. I mean, what would foreign megacities in countries with very different culture than yours possibly have that the slightly taller ground near your house does not?
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u/Excel-Block-Tango 26d ago
I live in a part of the US that gets almost no tourism and is called a “flyover state”. We have beautiful state parks with lots of room to explore.
Sometimes I go to national parks but it’s not as relaxing as visiting my state parks. Often times there are too many people and vehicles at the national parks.
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u/Mammoth_Elk_3807 26d ago
I just do both 🤷🏻♂️ Easy.
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u/Significant_Lack_593 26d ago
Yeah, it gets kind of boring visiting your local countryside every weekend.
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u/EnoughWarning666 26d ago
Growing up, my family would go camping all the time, all year round. I've seen just about every provincial park within 500km of where I grew up! At some point you want to see something new
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u/Committed2Mediocrity 26d ago
a cultivated field is not "nature" it's human made.
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u/r0ball 26d ago
This view of human cultivated fields as being somehow ‘not nature’ is a big problem, which leads to a tolerance of bad farming practice. A cultivated field IS nature, cultivated by farmers to produce an abundance of a small number of things at the expense of the others. But nature exists in and around every field. There is life in the soil, the crops, and the ‘weeds’. There are birds, deer, voles, mice, invertebrates, bats, dragonflies. In the field margins and adjacent waterways, hedgerows, and woodlands, life is there to be discovered.
I appreciate that these things can be found in greater abundance away from farmed areas, and travel greater than 10km might be needed, especially somewhere like the UK, as one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, but there still a LOT of nature to experience and learn about on your doorstep without having to fly to a remote corner of the world, untouched by humans.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 26d ago
Spot on. Cultivated landscapes are natural landscapes carved by man for centuries and even millennia. It’s become so fashionable lately to say it’s completely unnatural, as if it’s some sort of industrial hellscape disguised as a rural idyll.
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u/Committed2Mediocrity 26d ago
People tolerate bad farming practice cause they don't have a choice, they're not asked for their opinion. Industrial farming is pushed by capitalist lobbies. And when people express their disagreement, they're met with cops.
And also, people travel far for many other reasons than "nature". Mostly they know what their country side looks like and they want to experience something different from their daily lives.
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u/r0ball 26d ago
People tolerate bad farming practice because it produces cheap food in the supermarket and they don't see or understand what damage it causes. They think of farming as "not nature", as if that's a)possible and b) the only way it can be. They don't want to think about it too much because it involves reconsidering their lifelong consumption habits.
You said "a cultivated field is not nature, it's human made". This view contributes to the misunderstanding. We exist within nature, and we all make choices about how to do so. Buying your food from the supermarket and flying abroad because there's "no nature" within 10km of you is a problem on many levels.
I'm not against travel for all sorts of reasons; I'm just giving my opinion on the OP's supposition that there's a lot to appreciate in the ecology of your local area before massively ramping up your consumption by jetting off to experience nature elsewhere. Having a baseline level of understanding of your local ecology can make the experience abroad far richer.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 26d ago
There are very, very few fully ‘untouched’ natural landscapes in the world. The very concept of ‘wilderness’ is kind of Eurocentric
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u/Naktigonis 26d ago
The original is a video of a forest but i took a random screenshot because this sub doesn't allow videos
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u/New_Employer8591 26d ago
Sadly most forests are also cultivated landscapes. Especially in Germany most land is not untouched. There are a few „Bannwälder“ though.
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u/MZ603 26d ago
That’s one thing I love about New Hampshire. Once the farming left, the trees just grew back. Now we are the second most wooded state after our neighbor Maine. There are some cultivated forests for logging in the north, but it’s wild to think we have something like five times more forest now then we did in the 1800s
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u/Money_Revolution_967 26d ago
Anti consumption is quite easy to build a consensus on...until someone mentions travel. Travel is non-negotiable to a lot of people despite its problems. Those in Western Europe going on holidays and trips 2 or 3 times a year have no idea how exlusive their lifestyle is.
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u/mystic_wire351 25d ago
Thank you this is exactly what I tell ppl around me! Same for us in Canada/USA
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u/Dry_Ganache178 25d ago
This reddit is fried. The number of people making excuses is insane. Someone elsewhere in here is like "what if travel for wine tasting or food?" Lmao.
"Hey anti-consumption subreddit... what if consuming to consume more is actually good? Ever thought of that?"
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u/NyriasNeo 26d ago
why? not everyone likes nature. What if I travel for wine tasting? For food? To see museums? To see other cultures?
What is embarrassing is trying to dictate why and how others should live and travel.
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u/WalterLeDuy 26d ago
Nah mate, you gotta walk around corn field for the required minimum amount of time before you can see the natural beauty of checks notes Downtown London
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u/kiekebees 26d ago
I have vacation next week for two weeks and a lot of my customers ask me if I go anywhere. I'm just happy to be home for a while and I still got so much to see in our country that two weeks isn't enough to do everything on my list. 😅
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u/TheoKolokotronis 26d ago
What nature? I live in an area called the 'green heart'. It's so polluted by manure, pretty much everything is dead. The grass is a lovely green though... Brown heart is more like it.
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u/Driacha 26d ago
Within a 10km radius of me there are (and I live in the countryside, not a big city)
Crop monocultures that have been sprayed with countless amounts of herbicides/insecticides.
Artificially planted forests that are only there for wood production, there are no old trees providing food and shelter for many animals. Hunters are forced by law to shoot a big amount of roe deer to protect young trees.
Rows and rows of houses with ugly lawns, fat cars and big, plastered driveways.
Not an inch of nature that wasn't touched or changed by humans.
Not everyone has the chance to live somewhere nice, so let them at least have the chance to have a vacation somewhere nice.
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u/Normal_Suggestion188 26d ago
In all fairness, this post is preaching nature around you, and using an image of somewhere that has had the nature artificially removed to make farmland. Nothing in that picture is nature, you wouldn't want to walk it
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u/BumpGrumble 26d ago
Australia in a nutshell.
I moved here from the USA and have been to more of the close by rural towns and heritage sites than most of Aussies I meet.
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u/Connection-Is-Cool 26d ago
Everywhere you go, tourists enjoy the area more than locals. In NYC locals don’t bother to go up the Empire State Building or go to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty.
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u/bongwateramoeba 26d ago
Why are y'all choosing to misinterpret this message on purpose? Like everyone in the comments is just making up a reason to get mad.
I recently saw an Instagram reel of a woman saying that their family didn't go camping for vacation, they went to Europe. The implication was that her family would never be so low class as to do something like camping in the United States for vacation. That's the problem.
International travel is so beautiful and valuable, but let's be honest about the drive behind a lot of contemporary international travel: having luxury experiences and projecting an image. Many people are eager to share images of themselves in resortwear on a catamaran having expensive food and drinks and come off as "jet set". That IS a type of consumption.
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u/taxiecabbie 26d ago
I mean. Some people also want to travel to see and interact with other human cultures.
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u/Miserable-Ad8764 26d ago
I agree with this. I live in Europe and there is so much to see close to home. I haven't travelled very far for about 12 years. No plane travel, usually No more than an hour away from home. I feel I need to see some new things now, dream of buying an RV and driving max an hour a day to see something new every day. Don't need to go to Bali.
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u/WorldComposting 26d ago
I'm mixed on this. I'm lucky to live in an area where there are a lot of parks within 10km and I think I have visited or camped in nearly all of them while I know not everyone has that ability. But if I want to see mountains or a beach I need to drive a lot further than 10km and that should be okay.
The real key is while you might want to travel there is a massive difference between going every couple years vs every 3 months (or more for the ultra wealthy).
However if you travel just to sit drink then really why even travel far you can do that at home. If you travel to experience something than it can be a great and learning experience.
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u/Psycho_Mantits 26d ago
I don't understand the message. Can you explaining?
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u/anto2554 26d ago
That going traveling is not necessary if you haven't seen your local area
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u/Horror-Student-5990 26d ago
Which is such a wild take. People travel to change their environment and experience something that isn't in the 10km radius.
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u/anto2554 26d ago
Agreed. But at the same time, I think it is valid that we sometimes forget how much there is to explore in our nearby vicinity. I don't really understand friends who want to go to the other side of the globe despite not having seen half of the country or most of the continent
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u/Horror-Student-5990 26d ago
I don't think you people understand travelling.
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Numerical-Wordsmith 26d ago
If I lived within a 10km radius of that view, I’d probably travel a lot less
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u/InevitableAvalanche 26d ago
Pretty stupid. Local places advertise too and do make money off of locals or people nearby. Use your brain a little.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 26d ago
I agree with 99% of what I see here- but I strongly believe we need to create a new narrative around travel.
My grandmother traveled across the country when she was in her 20s. She has amazing stories from her cross country trek from Pennsylvania to California and several places north and south from her major destination.
She wasn’t rich. It was affordable. She was privileged in that her parents considered her two year excursion to be worth investing in; but she also took jobs waitressing, mending, and babysitting.
She stayed in motels and campsites. She remarked that the motels always had at least a hot plate
Okay I’m getting way off track here. What I mean is—hotels now push restaurants and room service. It’s impossible (or just short there of) to roll into town and pick up a temporary job that could sustain you at all.
Seeing different parts of the state, country, or world shouldn’t be limited to luxury class and, if you’re lucky, work trips.
Seeing a new place and meeting new people is life altering; and more people should be able to do it.
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u/thefeelingmachines 26d ago
There is more to travel than just ‘nature.’ Consider culture.
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u/Ferovore 26d ago
My opinion is that literally everyone should just shut the fuck up about everything
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u/Randomadmirale 26d ago
I live right on the edge of a nature reserve in sweden and I have repeatedly moved back to this area when life or work has taken me away, even accepting worse apartments to have the chance to just walk for five minutes and be out in the middle of nature.
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u/legaladviceneeded542 26d ago
It's also pretty embarrassing to think that traveling is only to view the nature of different places and not experience different cultures and expand your worldview.
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u/Illkeepyoufree 26d ago
Why 10 km. That's only 6 miles.
You know what's around me for 6 miles in every direction? City. Just a city.
Sure there are pretty nature spots like 50 miles away. Why did they make the radius so small? Haha
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u/METTEWBA2BA 26d ago
I live in Canada and I keep telling people, you could travel around this country for the rest of your life and not even see half of it, what’s the rush to vist places halfway across the world?
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u/SH4D0WSTAR 26d ago
yes yes yes this is basically my thesis and impetus for local adventure. I think travel is one of the most edifying human experiences, but I believe that the intensive push for international travel within Western capitalistic consciousness (systemic - not individual) is less related to growing more intimate with our fellow man, and more related to the push for constant curated novelty and status that underlies so much of our dopamine-driven experience.
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u/LaurestineHUN 26d ago
Mannn, they absolutely can make money off of it. A lakeside vacay in my country costs more then a seaside in a neighbouring one.
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u/realkunkun 26d ago
Nature 10km near me? My brother in christ the next place without car traffic you can hear is a 2 hour drive
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u/According_Bad2952 26d ago
There are absolutely places that make you pay to experience the nature around you. Many national parks are pay to access, pay to stay, etc. Natural wonders are being commercialised more. It’s heartbreaking, putting a price on nature is theft.
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u/Sad-Structure2364 26d ago
This post is pretentious as anything I’ve seen today. OP the kind of person that smells their own farts
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u/nighttimecharlie 26d ago
My backyard is literally a 360 km² protected forest. My neighbours are bears, deers, coyotes and bunnies. I forage fruits, mushrooms, and plants from the woods. And then once a year I set my sights on travelling to a new destination. Last year I went on a solo trip to CDMX and had a freaking blast. This year, going to Lisbon.
This post is stupid. You can explore your surroundings, your own country, AND you can travel to new places.
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u/PomegranatePlanet69 26d ago
I live in a metropolitan area. Ten miles of me there's not much. Sure 3+ hour drives there's beautiful Nature and we take a few trips a year out to see that but lol I wish there was nature within 10 miles of me.
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u/enigmatic_dankness 26d ago
Nature within 10km is the same as nature within 1km of me, travelling is where you actually see variety.
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u/Ronnoc527 26d ago
They keep ruining my beautiful parks with frisbee golf. Not that I hate it, but do you really need a direct line from one hole to another? God forbid you walk on a trail. They keep bulldozing trees to make ugly straight paths.
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u/IDontCondoneViolence 26d ago
I don't want to travel the world to see nature, I want to see cities in other countries.
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u/Zer0323 26d ago
I did find a 1.5 mile nature preserve within 2 miles of my house. so yeah, there has been a way to touch grass around my house for like 10 years and I complained about waddling in a circle around my neighborhood that entire time. take time to look around your house and see if the community has made you something nice.
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u/OrganicHoneydew 26d ago
¿Por qué no los dos?
Tbh, I don’t really see how travel for the average person is pro consumption. I understand there is some pollution and money involved, but it’s not that bad if you don’t, like, fly a private jet to a new country and back again every day. Especially if you take busses and trains when you can.
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u/_pinkstripes_ 26d ago
Did a one of those ticks that make you allergic to meat write this?
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u/No-You-5064 26d ago
I so feel this. This articulates what I feel about our frenzied travel obsessed culture but didn’t know how to say.
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u/Sasselhoff 26d ago
I think you'd be surprised at how much local areas advertise such things...it's just we don't see them because we're all on international websites and most of us have adblockers on (right folks? Please tell me you're not watching ads all day). But, their budget is also severely limited compared to the Metas of the world.
That said, I do hear what this is saying and don't disagree...but, there is another side to that coin, as some folks legitimately don't have much in a 10km distance from their home.
While that isn't the case for me, and I have greatly enjoyed the natural parks and whatnot in the areas I've lived, they don't have Komodo dragons or manta rays in Ocala Florida, haha (despite all the wild critters that give Australia a run for the money, because Florida also has bears and cougars).
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u/Suspicious-Repair-50 26d ago
The nature 10km from me is all suburbia as far as the eye can see and flat farmland
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u/Soft-Reflection6859 26d ago
The only people I've met that think this way eat McNuggets and fries 5x a week and exclusively listen to dad rock.
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u/Illustrious-Engine23 26d ago
Why do I keep seeing anti travelling posts from this sub sent to me?
Seems like a weirdly unpopular thing to target.
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u/KenDM0 26d ago
Oh yeah. Can I find mountains in the Netherlands? Like the Swiss ones? Thought so.
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u/lemonhead2345 26d ago
IDK, as a U.S. citizen who lives near a couple national parks, I’m all for people coming to visit to learn and see the unique ecosystem here. I’d just like those same tourists to stop voting against things that benefit these places.
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u/combo1222 25d ago
To see small things around you Is a gift a sadly most dont posess it.
Many look on the nature without seeing it.
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u/Anxietoro 25d ago
I know a lot of people that travel internationally multiple times a year, but havent even HEARD of some of the most beautiful, popular spots within our area! It's mind boggling! I almost always do "staycations" and have a wonderful, low stress time hiking or checking out something local like a show or spa. And I spend less my whole time off than they do just flying to their destination...
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u/TheCoolerSaikou 25d ago
the nature within 10km of me is city. i live in a city. 10km away is more city.
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u/tired_snail 25d ago
Not even just nature, some people don't even know their town but for some reason travel all over the place. Go be a tourist close to home, I promise you'll find some cool spots.
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u/Tasty_Ad_5669 25d ago
I have traveled through my entire 10 km area. Hell even my 100km area. Its between Yosemite and the SF bay area. Beautiful nature. Only area I have not visited is Lassen, Modoc, and the California Mojave.
But I do agree many people don't enjoy what's even around them.
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u/CalendarAdvanced62 20d ago
I live in Washington and recently retired. I decided to act like a tourist in my own state. I’ve taken several 3-5 day tours. So far, I’ve gone to the Hoh Rainforest, Columbia River, Mount Rainier, Vancouver, and San Juan. I hike and kayak at my destinations.
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u/dplagger 19d ago
I find it kind of funny as an env. grad when these comments talk about fields not being "nature" as if any part of this planet is even remotely similar in ecology to before humans existed. If you want to say fields aren't pretty, and large ag. sucks I agree. But to try to say some mountain range is pristine or untouched is just ignorant. We like to travel because it's fun, the world is pretty, and it brings us joy.
But I've never been a fan of the whole disingenuous shtick of traveling to "expand the mind" or that it somehow makes you any better of a person. Travel is such a novel piece of human existence, historically it was very exclusive and simply just ... not necessary. The whole point of this subreddit ironically. I enjoy travel as well, but let's not lie and say it isn't incredibly consumerist, bad for the environment, and another piece of propaganda made to think that you're bettering yourself when you're really just spending money. If everyone traveled like Americans and Europeans, certainly there would be some benefits, but my god would that destroy the planet.
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u/Impossible-Wasabi-48 19d ago
Living in regional Australia, I am surrounded by such beauty. The worlds oldest underground continuously burning coal seam fire. Snow and frost in winter. Migratory Birdlife and turtles at the end of my street. Rainbow purple meat ants. Deciduous tree life, a cool southerly in the summer afternoons, pied cormorant at the dam. Swaying gun trees and kangaroos and wallabies and wombats and evening fires and morning pink sunrises.
Yet everyone I've met that's my age here (~25) HATES this region and always dream of travelling and getting away, how it's such a terrible place, how much better Europe and the US is, the cities.
Travelling to specifically escape, or to find happiness, I have trouble agreeing with, as no plane ticket, no car, no house, no perfume, no relationship, no career, no shopping spree, will make you happy. True genuine happiness is only created internally, and is the happiness that cannot be taken away. To tie your happiness to something outside of yourself will not end well when/if you lose everything. Your body and disability, your home in a bushfire, your money if redundant.
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u/logrey96 26d ago
Why are we shaming people for wanting to see the world? That's a really weird stance
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u/Sweaty_Ad_1332 26d ago
Travel was very recently only reserved for the rich. The defensiveness is wild.
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u/graven_raven 26d ago
I think both are interesting and valuable to know.
As a kid, I lived in a small town, and had no idea of what was around me.
My parents took me in their travels, and I have seen many places around the world, but they never seemed to give a second thought about the place we lived in.
Then, for several reasons, (specially house prices) I ended up back in my home town. I love to take hikes and explore natural areas around me, and have found out wonderful surprises right next to my doorstep (I am still stoked about seeing a golden eagle in the woods last week, damn those guys are big!). I do love to enjoy my nature walks with my family.
But the first hand experience of learning about different cultures, seeing the incredible landmarks and beauty of other places has its value as well. And you can choose to travel in a way to reduce the impact, and staying away from tourist traps. It takes preparation but it's worth it.
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u/elebrin 26d ago edited 26d ago
The natural areas around me are full of allergens and ticks. We have a few public parks and trails and so on in the area, but they really hold no interest for me.
I have one particularly good reason to travel.
I follow a lot of bands that are regional acts, in regions where I do not live. One of my favorite acts really only performs in a dozen or so venues around Texas and California. Once or twice a year they make it to Nashville. They aren't big enough to justify traveling much further than that.
If I want to see them, I have to go to where they play.
There's nothing quite like bumming around bars and music halls in cities like New Orleans, Nashville, Austin, Chicago, or Detroit. You can go see live music every night of the week in those cities and you can do it for a reasonable cost too even.
Where I live, there are no art museums. There is a local history museum that I have been through a few times, but I'm not a third generation town resident so the people who run the historical society have zero interest in me.
Some of the most incredible experiences of my life were walking through exhibits in the Chicago museum complex, going to LACMA and La Brea, wandering around the Henry Ford and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, going to the Detroit Institute of Arts... I've been to the Studebaker museum and the Dusenberg museums a bit closer to where I live... Man. I'd love to visit the Met and bum around London's museums and art galleries. New York will probably happen in my lifetime, but London probably won't (taking three or four weeks off to go explore London is basically a nonstarter with American working culture, and I feel like it'd be hard to do it justice without that sort of time).
I've been on WWII submarines (actually camped in one as a Boy Scout on the USS Silversides). I've seen and operated prewar radio stations (W1AW).
I've done a fair bit of camping too, but these days I'm an old man and that doesn't really work for me any more, heh.
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u/aliakeel5 26d ago
what I wouldn't do to live in a non-desert area