Normalizing the Hater & Other Thoughts on Travel
(Prague)
By Camille May
Do not trust the reviews. I spent the greater part of this year away from my hometown and 3 steps outside my comfort zone. I saw Jackson, Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans, and Portland in the United States, and Johannesburg, Cape Town, Prague, and Paris outside of it. I currently feeling nervous about an upcoming trip to Morocco, plagued my usual narrative preceding any trip: Why are you doing this? Why don’t you wait? You know this is a bad idea.
I have been interested in traveling for several years and only recently found opportunities to do so. I endure these negative messages long after I click purchase on the plane ticket, allowing for ample opportunities to berate myself over all the stupid decisions I have ever made, now punctuated by the audacity to go somewhere new. Despite these swirling thoughts, I usually manage to make the flight and appreciate the destination. And on the off chance I would avoid returning in the future, at least I learn a lot.
(Paris)
But this leads to my initial statement, one that results from a few instances of being humbled by the gap between what’s said and what is. For years, I heard Paris specifically and France in general is brutally unforgiving to non-Francophones. I also heard that Paris is extremely dirty. Mix these attributes with the city’s status as an elite travel destination over (brown) countries I assumed had more to offer, and I relegated Paris to a discreet mention on my travel bucket list. I was so comfortable with my assessment of the Paris I had yet to see that I told virtually anyone who mentioned it how I felt and why my feelings were justified. But after my uncle’s weekend visit where he implored me, more specifically that I should go for an upcoming weekend because “You can do Paris in a day!”, I booked a ticket. After a seriously mad dash to the airport (superseded by the you-gon’-miss-this return flight Olympic sprint, which I made with three minutes to spare), I arrived to the city around midnight with 36 hours before my departure. While, I got chin-checked by reality so many times that I learned to appreciate it. The city was more beautiful than I expected and for all my French preparation I could only recall about 10 words to use in conversation, which I assessed on the good side of absurd. I was mostly amused that I let myself believe bad things because it aligned with wider beliefs about (black) people comfortably traveling to predominantly white countries, feeling justified in abandoning the hyper-critical lens they use to judge non-white countries. I thought Paris would be unimpressive because everyone says it is exceptional, and everyone saying the same thing tends to make me suspicious.
Sometimes. This is where Prague comes in. I booked that trip at the suggestion of a friend and told many people about these plans. Each person I talked to gushed about how lovely the city was and how thrilling the parties were. The overwhelming consensus was that I would enjoy it. Suspicion, pick up the phone! To make a short story shorter, Prague was less thrill and more chill (read: cold. Glad I brought my gloves!). I may have been more discerning if I listened closely to why people insisted Prague was so great, because I may have noticed that the reasons they provided did not align with my interests.
Prague
Reviews are trouble when they get communicated as absolutes. Everything is relative. I knew in my head that reviews were individual people’s experiences, but I still forgot to question them in real-time. One bad experience frequently influences an entire review, which explains the restaurant reviews that begin and end with “the service was slow”. We magnify our losses and fail to do that with our gains. And when other people’s negative reviews join forces with common traveling nervousness, the result may be that you stay home.
Now to Morocco. In trying to find accommodations I made the silly decision to rank reviews starting with the lowest-rated, which meant I found complaints about how a sometimes inaccessible front desk attendant made this hostel their worst stay in several years. Another reviewer complained that her room was hot. In Morocco. During the summer. Pause.
Reviews of anything, whether a hostel, city, country, or region of the world, are only one stroke of the painting. You need the appropriate blend of great, awful, and balanced to mirror life as we know it. I am more hesitant than ever before to decry a place because my experience left something to be desired. So whether you are thinking of Prague or Paris, I say GO! And I have some suggestions about how to plan your trip.
