• FEEDBACK
About a year ago George Olden wrote a piece called Crowded Planet which is pure George.
He hates travel, even though he's just spent the last month in New York as part of his job.
Given a choice of a ticket around the world, he'd choose a monks cell. He'd rather we all travelled a little less and got to know ourselves a little better. Mitch read the article and got pretty mad at george this is what Mitch said. We like feedback. Thanks Mitch. Keep travelling the rest of us at Hacktreks want to see everyrthing before it all disappears....
To redress the balance we also run Global Nomad in favour of world travel this month

---

To George Olden - Reply to "Crowded Planet"

Dear Mr Olden,

I have just read your article in the "Hackwriters.com" and I would just like to say a few things about it. First of all I believe that you are one of those people who calls himself "a traveler" and not "a tourist". There are, and I have met plenty, plenty of idiots who like to call themselves that. No offence. But at the end of the day, I'm thinking... you went to all those places presented in the "Lonely Planet" series too. Didn't you? So what dragged you there? Can it be the simple fact that they are just beautiful and impressive and worth seeing?

How could you have done such a "terrible" thing, as to add yourself to the huge number of tourists? If you haven't been there yet, than you are nothing but a hypocrite. Also, mind you, a lot of the popular destinations are located in rather poor countries and by going there you are doing nothing but helping the economy of that region. Therefore you are helping fellow men, people in need,, people with no Western ideas like yourself, but people who just think about feeding their families.

I'm from Romania, a gorgeous country that, unfortunately, I believe you failed to notice and appreciate. I apologize if I'm wrong. Up until 11 years ago, we were not allowed to travel anywhere in the world, talk to any ex-pats and have no access to television programs. A couple of years ago, I saw an episode of the "Lonely Planet", and I have to say that it inspired me to travel. I saved some money, choose a few destinations and decided to go and see places that I wasn't even allowed to think or talk about, during the communist years.

It was the first time I had left the country (at 40 years of age). Therefore I would like to apologize to you if I "polluted" all the "remote" places that only a few people (including you?) are entitled to go to. Maybe you should also write an article about the famous museums around the world and the amount of people who go and look at the beautiful paintings. They should not be allowed in there.... Right? Maybe we should go and visit Mars, Venus, Pluto and other planets in our solar system before you allow us to go and see the wonders of our planet...?

I'll will sign off now and I don't suppose I will hear back from you. I'm not really worth it as I am probably just, as you call, "a tourist". However, if you do have the decency to reply to me, my e-mail address is mitch@agip.ro

Yours faithfully,
Mitch M.

< Back to Index
< About the Author
< Reply to this Article