Be a Traveler Not a Tourist

Traveling 40 countries by age 40

  • Chile, South America 2025

    Santiago We take an annual birthday trip. If it’s March 28th or 29th, you probably won’t find us in the USA. This year (2025), I procrastinated a little too long. I had no real thoughts or ideas about where we wanted to go, and we were limited by both weather and time. With no firm Continue reading

  • Sydney, Australia 2025

    We had such a short time in Sydney that I can’t pretend to do it full justice. So I’ll start with my simplest, most honest impression: it’s a beautiful city. We landed at the ever-busy Sydney International Airport after a 4.5-hour flight from Fiji. In many ways, Sydney feels familiar: Uber is easy, the highways Continue reading

  • Malolo Island, Fiji

    LikuLiku Resort It’s hard to give a summary of Fiji. I usually like to go into the details; what the grocery stores are like, what the food tastes like, what the streets smell like, but I can’t really do that here. With over 330 islands, Fiji is both massive and isolating, scattered and yet interconnected Continue reading

  • New Zealand: Aukland and Rotorua

    It was a 45 minute flight to Detroit, a 4 hour flight to LA and a 13 hour flight over the Pacific. The time difference is 18 hours and you cross the international date line, meaning a whole day just disappears. The jet lag feeling was not that bad however, we left the US at Continue reading

  • Hello World!

    I’m finally doing it, I’m blogging my travel. Every trip, every time I step foot off of an airplane, I promise myself I am going to write about it. I haven’t done it… yet. I want to remember these adventures. I want to remember that Japan has humidity so dense you basically inhale salt water. Continue reading

About This Site:

I named this blog Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist for a very specific reason.

A few years ago, we were in the Dominican Republic. When we arrived, something unexpected happened: they handed us a contract to sign.

Not a liability waiver. Not a damage agreement.
A promise.

The contract stated that by staying there, we agreed to be travelers, not tourists. Naturally, we asked the hotel manager what that actually meant. His answer stuck with me long after we checked out.

A tourist, he explained, passes through a place and consumes it: the sights, the food, the experience, all without engaging with what already exists. A traveler arrives with curiosity. A traveler listens. A traveler respects the culture, the people, the land, and understands that they are a guest in someone else’s home.

Tourism asks, What can this place give me?
Travel asks, What can I learn here?

That conversation reshaped how I move through the world. It’s the reason I pay attention to grocery stores, overheard conversations, customs that don’t make sense at first, and histories that aren’t comfortable. It’s why I try to understand a place before I judge it, and why I believe travel should change you, even slightly, when you do it right.

This blog exists because of that contract.
Because I don’t want to collect destinations. I want to understand them.