Traveler vs. Tourist

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I don't plan trips, I plot them. Basically I find a route I want to take and research the hell out of it, but I don't make any firm commitments other than  flight and a one night hotel booking. Some people don't like to travel this way. They prefer to have the entire route planned out, and each day scheduled.  And thats fine if it works for you, but it leaves me feeling constrained, as if the journey is nothing more than a series of commitments that must be met.

Speaking of feeling constrained, I am lucky enough to be going on a cruise. It is a family event and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity, but the contrast between this traveling experience and my other trips is glaring.

It used to be that being a tourist was easier than being a traveler, but this cruise has shown me that the opposite may now be true. In order to travel on this cruise, Carnival/Homeland Security demanded the following information from me in detail.

• The flight details from Toronto to Miami
• Where I'm staying in Miami
• Where I am staying after  I have left the ship
• My flight details home

For much of the world, travel is still a fairly simple business. You buy a ticket, you prove who you are, you go to the airport/trainstation/dock you prove who you are and you get on the appropriate conveyance. Not so on a cruise from the U.S.

• It took at least half an hour to print the ticket for the cruise, including setting up an account and providing a level of information that amounted to a digital strip search
• I had to print vouchers for both flights
• hotel vouchers for both nights
• baggage tags for the cruise

I know that this whine has a very first world whiff to it, but there is no other place where we have fewer rights or power than when we get on a plane, and especially an international flight to the U.S. I hope that Americas love affair with fear and paranoia will end soon, but I understand why it probably won't.

What I don't understand is why the level of customer service is so appallingly low in the tourism industry. Why is the onus on me to print my own baggage tags? Aren't we paying you?

I love America and I love the American people. Without exception they have never been anything but kind and generous in my experience. I'm just a little sad that their government is making it so arduous to enjoy the experience that is the United States.

http://www.goyestoeverything.com