In summer, the village seemed crowded. Indeed, the resident population quadruples [increases by 8x] to around 240 [4000] in the summer... In the early afternoon, when the waves of day trippers reach their crescendo, there can be as many as 1,500 [8000] people on the island... In the height of summer, many residents feel overwhelmed by the tourist onslaught... But others say it's not the sheer numbers that trigger resentment; it's the minority of short-term visitors who can't seem to grasp that they've arrived in a real, living island community. And a few think that they are coming to a resort like Newport or Nantucket, and arrive at the dock with golf clubs and tennis racquets (there are no facilities for either [We actually do have a tennis court]) or evening wear or high-heeled shoes... But the most dull-witted think they are visiting a theme park like Colonial Williamsburg or Disneyland. Monheganers have awakened to find day-trippers wandering around their kitchen and living rooms [walk into our house and demand to use the bathroom] and have apprehended them picking flowers [eating berries, using swings, garden hoses, and swimming pools] in the backyard. "Where is the t-shirt shop [ATM, McDonald's]?" one such person asked me ... and stood agape and confused at the notion that there wasn't such an establishment in the village. In fact ... there was no shopping [ATM, McDonald's] on Monhegan at all. She looked at me in horror and, after a long pause to gather her wits asked, desperation in her voice: "Well, why do people come here then?" (pp. 19-20, emphasis added).
So, anyway, in addition to completely understanding this quote, I've been thinking about travel. I have observed what I think of as 2 very different orientations to travel. I associate one such orientation with the Midwest and the other with Maine. However, this is likely because these are the 2 places I've lived.
1. Maine orientation: travel to relax. Most towns in Maine don't rush to build some cheesy museum, upscale resort, or hotel with a water park to try to get folks to come. The thinking is that the reason to come is all around you: the beautiful ocean and mountain vistas; the quiet -in most of Maine there is quiet in the background, if I sit absolutely quietly in my backyard here in Milwaukee, there is noise behind the quiet (e.g. cars several blocks away); outdoor activities.
2. Midwest orientation: travel to see and do. You choose your travel destinations and spend your trip seeing and doing that which one is supposed to see and do when a tourist in that place. The Corn Palace, Wall Drug, the Spam Museum, Circus World Museum, House on the Rock, all of those silly giant fiberglass cows, dinosaurs, cheeses, etc. - all of this stuff is supposed to recommend a travel spot to you and occupy your time while you are there.
When I met him, my partner had the latter orientation to travel while I was a number 1. When I go somewhere, I just want to hang out and do what the "real people" do. I want to go to grocery shopping to see what the different products are and how people go about buying things( e.g. supermarket or actual market), I want to walk around random neighborhoods, find a nice park and sit in the sun people watching, eat at the restaurants that seem to be the most local. I get very annoyed if I find myself in situations where it is obvious that I am a tourist (hard to avoid on account of height and race in many places). So, although I am happy to follow the Lonely Planet Guide's walking tour, I will NEVER pull the guide out to reference it if I am in clear view of other people on the street.
Jason, on the other hand, peruses countless guidebooks in the weeks before our trip, or even before we decide where to go, to see what it is one is supposed to see when in X. He writes a detailed itinerary for the trip and feels that no visit to Paris, for example, is complete if one hasn't seen Notre Dame, the Louvre (including the Mona Lisa), the E. Tower, Versailles, Disneyland Paris, and been on the tour of the sewers.
Our early trips were a disaster. We would just argue about how to spend our time and one of us would end up sullenly giving in to the other. He would be annoyed when I wanted to depart from the itinerary to wander around, go to church or the movies, or see where in X one goes to get their driver's license. I would be mortified to find myself in a crowd of people taking pictures of a double decker bus or perturbed that I waited for 30 minutes to see a poorly-lit Mona Lisa behind several feet of glass.
We've been together long enough that we've worked this out and I think we both get more out of our trips as a result. Instead of jumping all over (e.g. 4 cities/countries in 3 days), we travel to fewer places and stay longer. Ideally, I like to be in a place long enough that I feel like I will need to get a job and apartment if I stay any longer (about 12 days) but I will settle for a shorter stay. If we go to Seattle, for example, we stay there for 3 or 4 days without taking extended day trips to the Cascades or whatever. If we want to go to the Cascades, we go for a week, much of it spent camping in remote locations as far from the park loop road as possible We also divide our days. We get up early and do the touristy stuff before too many other tourist are out and about. Then we grab lunch and spend the afternoon putzing around so I can follow my nose. We divide our dinners between places Jason finds in his guidebooks and whatever street vendor or greasy spoon catches my eye.
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I have also done some terrible things to tourists - e.g. telling them that if they walk down island ave and take a left at the first stoplight they will come to our McDonald's. Of course, there is no stoplight just like there is no McDonald's.
Something else I remember particularly well is people asking me where #32 Meridian street is (for example). Island houses didn't get numbers until I was in high school so the number is useless to me. However, often the street name is just as useless. My typical response to such a question was, "Who are you looking for?" If they weren't looking for a particular islander or didn't know the family name or other descriptive information I would then ask, "What is the name of the house?" Because most summer residences are named.
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