Have you been on a guilt trip?

Have you been on a Guilt Trip lately?

You know the kind: you're travelling in a picturesque but impoverished country where food, service and the prices of goods are astonishingly cheap because of low wages. You do your bit for the local economy by spending up big in hotels, restaurants and shops. All the while, though, you're feeling a tinge of guilt that your tourist dollars may have propped up some dodgy regime with a poor human rights record, one that exploits or oppresses those same friendly citizens who were so eager to sell you a sarong by the side of the road.

The world is a moral minefield at present, with alleged human rights abuses in some of its most popular destinations. If you're a sensitive traveller and wish to navigate your way around them, there are some hard choices to be made. Do you avoid travelling to the United Arab Emirates because of the way its guest workers are treated? Do you boycott the Maldives because of its appalling record on women's rights? Do you avoid Shanghai until the Chinese stop imprisoning dissenters?

And if you do, does it do any good?

I'm not convinced about boycotts, which isolate the people of a nation from the outside. Besides, calling for tourists to boycott a destination is rarely effective. They'll voluntarily boycott a country when it becomes dangerous, like Egypt, but try to stop honeymoon couples from holidaying in the Maldives because on another island, hidden from tourists, a 15-year-old girl has been given 100 lashes for being raped, and you won't have much luck.

Beautiful Sri Lanka is a case in point.

I travelled through Sri Lanka a couple of years ago in the most comfortable of ways. I journeyed with a small group of people and at our disposal we had a driver, tour guide and host.

I tried not to be an obnoxious traveller. I read quite a bit about the country's recent history before I went and I spoke as often as I could to Sri Lankans - Tamils, Hindus and Muslims - not because I felt I was obliged to, but because they were delightful.

The tour operator was extremely knowledgable about the country and our guide spoke honestly about the political situation. But I can't pretend to have been much more than a pampered tourist on that trip. You're not experiencing the hard realities of Sri Lankan life from the pool at the five-star Amangalla, which was a very seductive place in the heat.