Don’t Be A Tourist

While on a train ride in Amsterdam, a friend once told me, “Come on! Don’t be a Tourist.” I love that. Wherever you travel, Don’t be a Tourist.

When you arrive in a new place, no one really cares about your matching socks and sandals. What they do notice is whether you speak a few words of the language or if you actually step into a local bakery instead of the chain you have back home. Don’t be the person who complains that the local coffee is weird and that you miss your Grande Caramel Frappuccino with extra cream.

Sometimes, it’s okay to turn off your apps’ guided voice and open your eyes to look around and enjoy the view. Head down a side street instead of the main avenue lined with souvenir shops. That is where you will find the old man who has been making shoes for forty years and has never heard of Instagram. Buy a pair of hand-stitched loafers, even if they make your feet cry a little. It is worth it.

So ditch the fanny pack, learn a greeting or two, and then get lost on purpose. Order something you cannot pronounce. Laugh at yourself when you are wrong. Learn that messing up is part of the fun.

It is not a performance. It’s messy, awkward, spicy, and sometimes gives you bad breath. But it is yours. The best souvenir is the story you cannot fit into an Instagram caption. So pack light, wander far, and Don’t be a Tourist.

Internet Tourist

Most of us drift through the internet the way vacationers drift through a city, they stick to the postcard streets (the default settings), eat at the safest chain restaurants (the biggest platforms), snap a few photos (screenshots), and leave with souvenir clutter (browser extensions they never use).

That light-touch approach is fine for a weekend trip, but it’s a risky, limiting way to live online. Software and web services are not attractions to tick off; they’re neighborhoods you inhabit. If you want to thrive, not just pass through, you have to unpack, meet the locals, and understand the infrastructure.

Have a look at your accounts and identities. Tourists reuse the same weak password everywhere and hope the hotel safe works; residents install a password manager, turn on multi-factor authentication, and memorize the recovery process. That little extra orientation means a lost phone or a breached site is an inconvenience, not a crisis.

Likewise, tourists accept every cookie banner and notification prompt because it’s quicker; residents tune the privacy dashboard, revoke unneeded permissions, and keep data footprints slim enough to move quickly when a service shuts down.

Waving the Web

Tourists rely on the algorithmic main street, the default “For You” feed, letting corporate tour guides decide what they see. Residents build their own bundles, custom patterns, and process workflows, along with smart filters, so the stream bends to their interests, not the other way around. They learn keyboard shortcuts, offline modes, and export options because they plan to stay long enough to redecorate, and maybe someday migrate.

Speaking of migrating, a resident always knows the bus schedule out of town. They keep personal files in open formats, bookmark import/export menus, and run periodic backups to neutral territory. When an app “sunsets,” the resident’s data has already packed its bags. The tourist, meanwhile, scrambles to find a taxi before the lights go out.

Community is the final difference. Tourists leave reviews; residents file bug reports and pull requests. They pay for the indie tool that saves them an hour a week, because they understand that rent keeps the neighborhood alive. They hang out in forums, trade scripts, and share local hacks, thus turning isolated users into a co-op that can negotiate with the landlord (or fork the code) when necessary.

None of these demands requires guru-level skill. It simply requires shifting your mindset from “passing through” to “living here.” Learn the language of settings panels, keep your papers (data) in order, befriend the power users who know the back alleys of automation, and help repaint a wall when it’s peeling.

The internet is not a theme park ride; it’s a sprawling, ever-changing city that rewards people who make themselves at home.

Stop being a Tourist. Become a Global Citizen.