Are We Traveling or Consuming Travel: A Case for Mindful Travel

I remember standing in front of Tanah Lot Temple as the sun dipped toward the horizon behind the Batu Bolong Shrine, phone raised alongside two hundred other phones, all of us angling for the same shot of the same temple silhouette. It was beautiful, no doubt, but this shot was not quite mine. I'd seen the exact frame a dozen times on Pinterest boards and reels.

And somewhere I started to wonder: Was I practicing mindful travel, or just collecting the version of Bali I'd already consumed online?

I knew beforehand what the place around the temple would look like. I'd seen the photographs, saved the posts, read reviews, made the lists of must-see places; I even had the exact viewpoint pictured in my mind before I landed, that perfect moment when the setting sun turns the sky to gold and water to molten silver.

So, basically, my dream destination was a place that I had already seen so many times, through so many different lenses and so many angles. And everyone around me had seen it too, the same photograph, and everyone wanted to stand in the same place and take the same photograph. I know it sounds ridiculous when I put it this way.

The real realization was that I had pre-consumed the destination of my dreams before arriving at that destination.

When we arrived in Bali, we were not living that dream, and not even discovering it. We were just checking it against the version we'd already seen.

And the funniest part is that we travelled thousands of kilometers to see our dream destination with our own eyes, and yet when we reached there, we got busy seeing it through our camera lens. Ironic, isn't it? If seeing the place through a camera lens was enough, then why did we travel all that way?

For the first time in all the years that we've traveled, I felt not like a curious tourist gazing at this sunset with longing, trying to inscribe the memory of this riot of color on my mind. Instead, I felt like a consumer in a superstore on sale, collecting stuff for later use.

The whole idea behind this Bali trip was to see this stunning island country, soak in its ethereal beauty, and to leave the world behind. And here I was, frantically clicking pictures of the sunset to get the perfect shot, oblivious to the waves that were eagerly lapping around my feet, hungry for my attention. But I had eyes only for my camera.

I still have that photo from Tanah Lot: the perfect sunset and the silhouette of the temple against the twilight sky. I don't regret taking that picture. But now, when I think back on that trip, it isn't the photo that I remember most.

What I remember is walking back to the car, with our sandals in our hands, our feet still warm and wet from the seawater, and that short stop at a small shack selling coconut water, the elderly woman vendor who signaled with her hands to pay cash only, and the refreshing sweetness of that water as we gulped it down our parched throats.

Nobody photographed that moment. It isn't on any Pinterest board, not on any reel. It's just mine. A memory that I kept with me, long after the photos stopped mattering.

So, next time I land somewhere, I will take pictures. I am a travel blogger, after all. Taking pictures is what I do. I'll click pictures and then forget about my camera. Then we'll be just the two of us, that place and me, with moments that will not feature in any itinerary. That's when I would have finally arrived at my dream destination.