Was recently in Borneo, picked up a magazine in an accommodation, read an article about how traveling nowadays needs to be documented and is about experience as much as your feeds... I... felt old.

I think that in some cultures it's even more than others, for example I often saw hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus.

I also visited food-markets and saw food stalls with large lines of people, where as some had hardly any people waiting, I ask: Why this stall? "It's popular on Chinese social media"... One by one they snapped a pic as the cook made their meal, and waited for >30 mins to do so.

People ask me when I travel (with family usually): Where is your Polarsteps? My what now? (Yeah yeah I know what it is I just pretend I don't.)

Amazing.

Edit: Also amazes me that many people told me: "Wow 5 weeks in Malaysia, you could have done Thailand, Vietnam, etc, etc as well!" Well yeah but I like to take some days to explore and not rush and get to know a nice restaurant and eat there again and rent a scooter or bike and drive around a bit. And sleep 2 nights in some small village that doesn't have a large temple or something and eat a great meal there for 2 euros, made by people that are very proud that you as a tourist sat down at their place and don't accept any tip. Moreover, there is a boatload of cool stuff in every country, to me this country hopping just adds travel time, not much more. Next time we'll visit another country, and if not, I still rather experience one country more deeply.

Another edit: Also an amazing thing, the amount of couples where the guy is holding a phone, making of a video of the girl while she dreamily walks through the sea waving her arms slowly, just looking around. Like a perfume commercial (what's up with those anyway?!), or like Hillary Clinton when the balloons fell. A-ma-zing, what a species we are.

René Girard's theories on mimetic desire come to mind, even though I sometimes thing his thought was not as universal as some assume.

Maybe he was just describing a sickness of self-domesticated humans, or even Neoteny (babies need attention more...) finding a way to evolutionary adaptation but with large side-effects and massive selective wastage.

Or maybe resource constraints and competitive pressure within some societies make it a rational strategy to accumulate pictures of a 3 weeks' restful holiday in a one-week selfie-stick scramble.

I remember the '80s and people showing you projector slides of their vacations, or picture albums. In the 00s, I recall a friend who made videos of his vacations to make this faster and more bearable :)

Social media is problematic but documenting your vacations and showing it to other people has always been part of traveling.

I really didn't know about Polarsteps. It's been a while since my last long journey. I used to select some pictures when I got back home and upload them to both my website and Facebook (the only time in the year I still used FB.) I also sent a few pictures to some friends of mine on WhatsApp when I was still travelling.

Polarsteps? Your what now?

Notably, Chinese tourists have been notorious in Asia for decades (long before social media) for travel being very focused on, ahem, performative status seeking. It’s a big part of why counterfeit goods are such a big deal.

The ‘sweet smile in front of the camera, obsessive competitive behavior when no one is looking’ is a huge thing culturally.

"Polarsteps is a popular travel planning, tracking, and sharing app that automatically plots your route on an interactive world map using your phone's GPS. It functions as a digital travel diary where you can add photos, videos, and stories, letting family and friends follow your journeys in real time."

for people like me who dunno about this secret, seems basically like Travelblog.org with few extra features

> article about how traveling nowadays needs to be documented and is about experience as much as your feeds... I... felt old.

this has nothing to do with nowadays really, people were documenting their travelling and sharing it with family/friends since invention of camera, personally I take photos to serve as my memory, not really to share them, I may share them through whatsapp private chats with my parents and maybe 1-2 friends who could find them interesting, in past I've had travel blog/diary as well, but certainly didn't visit any place or take any photo for my readers

> I often saw hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus.

Japanese were doing this decades ago before Chinese, it's just that Chinese now have money (unlike Japanese who can less and less aford to travel abroad) and there is lot of them, so they just replaced Japanese doing this superfast photo tours (at least in Europe)

> I also visited food-markets and saw food stalls with large lines of people, where as some had hardly any people waiting, I ask: Why this stall? "It's popular on Chinese social media"... One by one they snapped a pic as the cook made their meal, and waited for >30 mins to do so.

again, nothing new, Lonely Planet guidebooks had same effect in past and for me they were pretty good list of places to avoid for accommodation/food

> Wow 5 weeks in Malaysia, you could have done Thailand, Vietnam, etc, etc as well!" Well yeah but I like to take some days to explore and not rush and get to know a nice restaurant and eat there again and rent a scooter or bike and drive around a bit.

5 weeks for mainland Malaysia is really a bit much, KL needs few days to city sightseeing and enjoy food, cameron highlands few days to do hiking, penang again few days to enjoy food, history and hiking, perhentian islands few days to snorkell and enjoy beach and you cover pretty much everything without repeating same stuff, <2 weeks in very very laidback pace for these 4 locations considering Malaysia is compact and there are cheap/fast air tickets/buses, I also don't like to rush, but not everyone has months long vacation or gap year to travel so people wanna see as many places as possible, so I can understand them, I spent travelling around SEA around year, but still can't imagine spending 5 weeks in row in Malaysia or basically any other country besides China (not in SEA, but neighbor), I would get bored

> hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus

In the early 90s in my region in southern europe we'd joke that the only Chinese tourists you'd see would be referred to as "5min for photo". They always only needed 5mins to get out with camera, snap pics, get back in. This is not a new phenomenon.