Travel

How To Be A Tourist In Your Own Town

Boat fountain by the sea, Valencia

Dagobert Runes once said that "people travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home". He might not have been entirely wrong. Sometimes we need a breath of fresh air but we simply don't have the time nor the money to go visit other countries and discover other cultures. When this is the case, but not only, we can tour our own town. We have to admit this is the cheapest way one can "travel".

I don't think there is a place on Earth so sunk in boredom for it not to have at least something interesting to offer to the human being. If there's really nothing going on in your town at a particular moment, than expanding a bit the area can't hurt either. You can go visit a nearby town or a corner of nature not far away.

I live in Valencia and there's always something going on, from a new gallery opening to a free concert or a medieval fair. Valencia is a medium size city, but alive enough to keep one busy with refreshing and relaxing activities. What surprises me most is when people that have lived here their entire lives tell me they never went to see the Flower Battle during the July Fair. How is it possible to live in a city and never to attend one of its most important and emblematic events? Just because something is in our reach and we can afford it financially, it doesn't mean it's not good enough, though people sometimes tend to think like that. The truth is that just because you don't have to spend your night in a hotel it doesn't mean that your town hasn't anything to offer.

Meeting new people, even from the same background as yours can nevertheless be rewarding and refreshing at the same time. If your town gets its share of tourists, try to meet some of them. They will definitely be interested in knowing you. This is the cheapest way of meeting new people and getting to know about other cultures and customs.

In order to be a tourist in your own town, you need to change the way you look at things and to evaluate them in a new light. Forget that your mother doesn't like this or your neighbour complained about that. Try to see everything through your own eyes, like you've never seen them before. This action is highly rewarding. You might be surprised to realize that the buildings you pass by everyday are actually beautiful. When taking the same beaten path towards work and other places that are part of our daily routine, we tend to look down, keep company to somebody or to our own thoughts, but almost never acknowledge the architecture.

Sometimes when I visited places off the beaten tourist path, as I took photos of the buildings, the locals gave me strange looks. It was contradiction I could read in their eyes and an impossibility to grasp my interest in their town. One gaze at me and another at the object of my photo and they would continue their way like nothing happened. We, people, can look at things for hours and still not see them for what they really are. One "Little Prince" out there on his asteroid is looking down on us and smiles. Maybe someday we will understand...

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