Traveling “off” the beaten path

I read an article that brought out my cynical side this week. Though normally a happy, positive person, sometimes certain situations take me down the road to negative town. The article spoke of things that are near and dear to my heart, traveling and body art, and I wasn't quite enthralled with what the blogger had to say. Tattoos in Thailand are not off the beaten path.

Let’s be real, as a freelancer who likes to write about travel, I get a bit competitive reading other travel blogs. It’s so easy to try and knock a fellow writer when you dislike what they are saying and they are getting hits. In fact, it’s probably easy to dislike what they are writing just because they are, in fact, competition.

Though this is silly (and we could probably be friends), the notion of getting a tattoo in Thailand, even from a monk, being off the beaten path is ludicrous. Regardless of my stance on tattoos from different cultures, which you don’t know anything about (and can’t read the script, don’t know the history, etc.) every other traveler in Thailand has gotten a bamboo tattoo, and 75 percent of that population has had it done with a monk. Even in the article, the blogger alludes to how popular the monk has become with travelers wanting tattoos. Popularity, availability, hordes of people doing the same thing; these are not ideas associated with traveling to secluded destinations.

As a travel writer in the age of the Internet, the values behind "off the beaten path" aren't exactly abundant anymore. The phrase itself has been whored out and abused by mass produced travel guides. If you want to hear stories of "off the beaten path" travel, there are very few writers these days whom can offer it. Instead of trying to one up one another, we should all realize we have seen some cool stuff and have some great advice and stories to offer up. For true off the beaten path travel stories, we need to look to our predecessors. 

Photo courtesy of the Global Post.