How The Snooty Traveler Ruins Everything
This is your permission slip to travel your way in 2026
In 2010, I spent a month traveling around South Africa with some fellow backpackers. We rented a car together, bought a national parks pass, and picked up some cheap camping gear. From there, we went from park to park, camping out and doing self-drive safaris, seeing the Big Five many times over.
We cooked our own food over campfires and ate dinner under unfamiliar stars. We woke up to the sounds of animals we’d only seen in documentaries. We got lost on dirt roads around the Wild Coast and found our way again. We shared stories with other adventurers from around the world, swapped tips about which campsites had the best views, and learned to set up tents in record time during the rain.
It was a fascinating and transformative way to see the country. I felt alive in a way I hadn’t before. Every day brought something new — a herd of elephants crossing our path, amorous puff adders mating on the trail, a morning when we discovered zebra tracks near the car. This was an immersive travel experience, and it was exactly what I’d hoped for.
During that time, I kept friends and family updated through Facebook posts. After sharing one story, an acquaintance commented: Well, you haven’t TRULY traveled until a warthog has stolen your shoes, which is what happened to me on safari.
Her friend then jumped in, eager to inform me of the many ways I hadn’t actually lived. The two volleyed back and forth about their much more “authentic” travels, listing increasingly obscure locations and ever-more-performative hardships.
“Oh, I’ll never forget hitching a ride across the Atacama Desert with a chicken in my lap!”
The Birth of The Snooty Traveler
I read their comments in the voice of Thurston Howell III, the millionaire on Gilligan’s Island. But this was the traveler version. Instead of ascots and monocles, they had the elitist certainty that their way of traveling was the only legitimate one.
They inspired me to create a character that I call The Snooty Traveler — someone who measures travel by arbitrary standards of suffering or expense or obscurity.
The Snooty Traveler always has a story that tops yours. The Snooty Traveler knows the “real” way to see a place. The Snooty Traveler is quick to say what you’ve done is too touristy, that it doesn’t quite measure up.
Here’s What I Want You to Know
I’m telling you all of this because I know a lot of people who made a New Year’s goal to travel in 2026. Maybe you’re one of them.
And I want you to know, with absolute certainty: There’s no wrong way to travel.
I knew I shouldn’t let Facebook comments bother me, but that exchange crawled under my skin. For a while afterward, I caught myself wondering if I had somehow failed at travel. I was still in South Africa, surrounded by wonder — yet suddenly I was measuring my experience against the yardstick of people who weren’t even there. Was I doing my trip wrong? Was it somehow inauthentic?
But you don’t need a warthog to steal your shoes. You don’t need to have visited every hidden village or eaten every delicacy or stayed in the most remote accommodations. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Not to the people in your feed, not to the travel influencers with their perfectly curated content, not even to yourself.
Your version of travel is valid.
Whether you’re backpacking through hostels or staying at all-inclusive resorts. Whether you’re road-tripping through your own state or flying halfway around the world. Whether you’re taking a cruise, joining a tour group, or figuring it out as you go. Whether you’re gone for two weeks or a long weekend. Whether you eat at local street stalls or stick to familiar chains because that’s what feels comfortable.
If you’re curious, if you’re present, if you’re opening yourself up to new experiences —even small ones — you’re traveling meaningfully.
What Meaningful Travel Actually Looks Like
The Snooty Traveler wants you to believe there’s a hierarchy, that some trips count more than others. That you don’t really “get” a place until you’ve jumped through certain hoops. That ease is the enemy of authenticity. That if you haven’t followed their way, you haven’t earned the experience.
But meaningful travel isn’t about checking boxes or collecting bragging rights. It’s not about who can tell the most harrowing story or who’s been to the most countries or who spent the least (or most) amount of money doing it.
Meaningful travel is about the moments that stay with you: the conversations with strangers that shift your perspective, the landscapes that make you catch your breath, the food that tastes like nothing you’ve ever experienced, the surprises around corners, the realizations about yourself and the world. It’s about coming home different in some way.
That can happen on a cruise down the Danube. It can happen on a beach vacation where you finally have time to read and think. It can happen in a city three hours from your house that you’ve never properly explored. It can happen anywhere you let it.
Your Permission Slip
So if travel is on your list this year, I’m here to tell you: Go.
Go however you can afford to go. Go however feels right for you. Go with a detailed itinerary or none at all. Go somewhere everyone’s been or somewhere no one you know has heard of. Go alone or with others. Go scared. Go excited. Go curious.
Travel in the way that makes sense for your life, your budget, your energy, your interests, and your comfort level. The only requirement is that you show up with an open heart.
Don’t let The Snooty Traveler — whether it’s someone else’s voice or the one in your own head — stop you from taking the trip you want to take. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong.
Because the best trip isn’t the hardest one or the most expensive one or the most Instagram-worthy one. The best trip is the one you actually take.
Cheers to ALL words here, thank you. Just go people, where there's a will there's a way.
So true!