Essay 2

The tourist is someone who goes and sees the countries and landmarks that are already well traveled.  In other words they see the things people say other people need to see.  Kalter says anti-tourism is to “reject this common path.” The anti-tourist seeks to find the neglected spaces, to find things that may or may not be worth seeing on their own. The idea is based on exploration and adventure as opposed to pre planned trips and tours.  For instance Kalter went to Mari El, home of “the last true pagans” in Europe.  He was given a grim warning by a Russian not to harm any trees while he was there lest he incur a pagan curse.  But the oposite actually happened whie he was there and a pagan ritual was performed especially for him to give him a blessing.  Both the warning and the ritual are two life experiences that he would not have gotten if he had gone to well known tourist attractions.  He chose to go somewhere that the common man would not and got something valuable out of it.  He experienced a culture that is hardly known and rarely talked about.