This was published 5 years ago
Don't listen to guidebook advice: Why travellers shouldn't visit museums and galleries
If you're not enthused about something you're told you should do, then don't do it.Credit: Alamy
How often do you visit a new country and then go home and look back on the highlights and decide that the best bit of your trip wasn't the food, it wasn't the people, it wasn't the scenery – it was the museums? For that matter, how often do you come home raving about the art galleries, or the churches, or even the monuments? Does that ever actually happen?
I'm not convinced it does. I'm not convinced there are that many people who even enjoy going to these sorts of places. And yet, we do. All of us. We go to them.
And we go to them because we believe we're supposed to. We go to museums because that is officially how you learn about history and culture in a foreign place. That's the done thing. We visit art galleries because that's what the guidebook says to do. We go through church after church, past monument after monument, to official sight after official sight, because these are the famous things, and this is what travellers do.
But is that what you then come home raving about? Is that what you boast to your friends that you got the chance to do? Rarely. If ever.
So how did this become a thing? How is it that travel is traditionally done this way? Go through any guidebook, or even an online guide, and most of what you'll find in the "things to do" or "things to see" sections will be these traditional establishments.
You'll be steered in the direction of museums that capture the history of a city or a nation. These places will be filled with exhibits that display culture and heritage. You'll be told of art galleries that house works by the country's past masters. You'll be pointed in the direction of temples or churches, of shrines or statues.
Even tour guides take people to see these things. I used to work on tours in Europe and this is what we'd do. In Paris we'd go to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. In Florence we'd visit the Uffizi Gallery and see the Statue of David. In Venice it's the Doge's Palace. In Berlin it's the East Side Gallery.
Even when I travel now, as a travel writer, I'm told to go to these sorts of places. Tourism boards tell you to do this. Marketers want people to see them. Even somewhere as far-flung and frankly fairly different as Kazakhstan, which I recently visited, was all about the museums. I was dragged through exhibit after exhibit after exhibit there.
But that's not interesting to me. That's not what travel is about. That's not the good stuff. So why do we even bother doing it?
The highlights of travel are so often the organic experiences, the personal interactions, the chance happenings that come your way when you open yourself up to them. Most travellers don't go home telling people about this great museum they went to; they talk about the crazy night out they had with new friends, about the amazing food at a certain restaurant, about the football game they went to see, about the weird thing they saw local people doing, about the ride through traffic on the back of a scooter, about the beautiful place they stayed, about the friendly people they met.
Take Tokyo as a random example. Go to a guidebook and have a look at what it tells you to do in Tokyo. Yes, there's a short mention of Shinjuku nightlife and Harajuku shopping. But most of the supposed highlights of the city are the traditional sights: Senso-ji temple in Asakusa; Meiji-jingu shrine near Harajuku; the Tokyo National Museum; the Ghibli Museum.
Is that how to have fun in Tokyo? Not for me. I've had more fun at a Shibuya arcade parlour than I have at Senso-ji. I've enjoyed drinking in an Ebisu whisky bar more than going to the national museum. Those guidebooks have missed eating in izakayas, going to see live music, drinking tea in gardens, checking out retro electronics shops.
Those things are cultural too. They're just not what has been accepted as culture for travellers, what you're told you're supposed to do.
I can think of very few museums or galleries or religious monuments around the world that are legitimate must-dos. The Natural History Museum in London; La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona; the Smithsonian in Washington, DC; the Pantheon in Rome. These are truly great, no doubt. And there are more.
But travellers shouldn't get hung up on this stuff as the only way to travel. Seeing sights isn't for everyone. It's not the only way to experience a destination. Just because the guidebooks suggest temples and museums, don't think there's nothing else out there to do.
Go hang out in cafes if you want to. Wander markets. Walk around parks. Go to concerts or sporting events. Spend time in arcade parlours or movie theatres. Eat. Drink. Relax.
Those experiences could well be the highlights of your whole holiday.
Do you like museums and galleries and religious monuments? Or do you think travellers visit these things because they feel they have to? What do you always do when you visit a new city?
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