essays | places | Montenegro
Kotor / Cruise out of Control
consumerism on vacation, ethics Left at home
The early mornings and late nights were quiet. Not a single drone would leave the mega-hive before all of them did. They came out during the day. Unified in collective intent, the diurnal tourist swarm would buzz through the sweet alleyways to conquer, all of them hungry for the same nectar, sucking on sights, souvenirs, and set menus. One day, two days, then they were full. Maybe the next cruise ship would dock in Kotor the same day, or the day after.
"Of course, like with all needless and senseless consumption, the cheap cruise tickets came at a price."
Granted, the communal awkwardness of the sandal scandal had a comical element, but it wasn’t a laughing matter. I don’t know what felt more appalling – the thing itself or the unawareness of the thingers (estranged cousins of the thinkers, culture connoisseurs who had come to Kotor to pretend, and the stinkers, who were me, myself, and I). I guess both. Both were most appalling. It was the epitome of touristic overconsumption. Luxury vacation on low-budget steroids. Of course, like with all needless and senseless consumption, the cheap cruise tickets came at a price. I had met those who pay it. In Indonesia I‘d spoken to crew members, shocked but not surprised to hear their accounts of modern-day slave labor conditions faced by Southeast Asian chambermaids and others working in the underbellies of those behemoths.
And the ethical implications of consumerism in vacation mode don’t stop there. Those ocean beasts run on the world’s dirtiest fuels, and plenty of it. They dump waste into the seas. The list goes on. Regulations are lax. And international waters are fishy. It is all well known. Just not to those 30 million yearly passengers who fertilize the industry’s growth. Or maybe they know. It wouldn’t be the first industry we employ in a relentless pursuit of pleasure that wreaks havoc in such a fun way that we give it a pass.
"Someone had figured out how to sell the journey as destination. And sell it did."
Long gone are the days when maritime travel was a strenuous and dangerous endeavor only pursued by the fierce, brave, and desperate. Early seafarers were explorers, merchants, and immigrants. The wooden planks that carried them across the seas were hard, the wombs of their ships gloomy – light-hearted vacationers would have been but deadweight-cargo. Given the lack of comfort, the journey was probably really just the journey and the destination the destination.
With the advent of affordable air travel, ship trips became an obsolete form of long-distance transportation. The air had beaten the sea to a large-scale commercialization of overseas travel. But clever marketing turned that capsized tourism segment around. Someone had figured out how to sell the journey as destination. And sell it did.
"They touch the place, but it doesn’t touch them back."
Today, the same seas that tormented those first adventurous sailors are beyond accessible and entire herds of vacationers are shipped off for a week of cheap luxury. Short-term citizens of these traveling cities on the seas, passengers lug entire comfort zones aboard their swimming hedonist temples.
The journey has become the destination and when the ships dock, no one comes to stay. They touch the place, but it doesn’t touch them back. Just another pit stop along the aquatic sightseeing highway. Waddle out of the cabin, graze on the sights, snap that must-have picture, get back in the cage. It is the very opposite of immersive travel. Easy and greedy.
One might argue that this whole set-up defies the very idea of travel. I argue that. And so I ventured off towards the outskirts of Kotor to see what hid on the other side of the generic old town facade, and to keep up the little bit of exploring one can do in a charted world.
