B1 · Intermediate
14 min
travelcultureenvironmentsocietyeconomics
Turismo sostenible: ¿Es el viaje lento la respuesta?
Sustainable Tourism: Is Slow Travel the Answer?
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
Here's something that's been sitting with me lately.
I've been to a lot of places, filed a lot of datelines, and I think I've done it wrong most of the time.
You land, you report, you leave.
Two days in a city and you think you know it.
Bueno, mira, eso es exactamente el problema con el turismo moderno.
Well, look, that is exactly the problem with modern tourism.
La gente llega, saca fotos, y se va.
People arrive, take photos, and leave.
No conoce realmente el lugar.
They don't really get to know the place.
Solo ve la superficie.
They only see the surface.
Right, and that's what we're digging into today.
This idea of slow travel, of sustainable tourism, what it actually means versus what it sounds like on a travel blog.
Because those two things are not always the same.
A ver, el turismo lento, o "slow travel", es una idea muy sencilla.
Well, slow travel is a very simple idea.
Significa quedarse más tiempo en un lugar, vivir como los habitantes locales, y no correr de monumento en monumento.
It means staying longer in one place, living like the local residents, and not rushing from monument to monument.
So instead of doing six cities in eight days, which, I will confess, I have absolutely done, you pick one place and you actually inhabit it for a while.
You shop where the locals shop, you eat where they eat.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y cuando haces eso, entiendes la cultura de una manera diferente.
And when you do that, you understand the culture in a different way.
Aprendes cómo funciona la vida diaria.
You learn how daily life works.
Pero también, y esto es importante, gastas tu dinero en negocios locales, no en cadenas internacionales.
But also, and this is important, you spend your money in local businesses, not in international chains.
Now, to understand why any of this matters, I think we need to go back a bit.
Because mass tourism didn't just happen.
It was built, deliberately, by governments and industries after World War Two.
The package holiday, the charter flight, all of that was a political and economic project.
Sí, y España es un ejemplo perfecto de esto.
Yes, and Spain is a perfect example of this.
En los años sesenta, el gobierno de Franco promovió el turismo masivo para ganar dinero para el país.
In the 1960s, Franco's government promoted mass tourism to earn money for the country.
El slogan era "Spain is different", y los turistas llegaron por millones.
The slogan was 'Spain is different,' and tourists arrived by the millions.
The extraordinary thing is that this was actually a cornerstone of what they called the "desarrollismo", the development strategy.
Tourism wasn't just a nice industry to have.
It was the engine that was supposed to modernize the Spanish economy.
And it worked, to a point.
Funcionó económicamente, sí.
It worked economically, yes.
Pero también destruyó muchas costas.
But it also destroyed many coastlines.
Construyeron hoteles enormes en la playa, sin mucho cuidado por el medio ambiente o por la cultura local.
They built enormous hotels on the beach, without much care for the environment or for local culture.
La Costa Brava, la Costa del Sol, muchos lugares cambiaron para siempre.
The Costa Brava, the Costa del Sol, many places changed forever.
And that tension, between the economic benefits and the cultural and environmental costs, that's the central argument of this whole debate.
It didn't start with Instagram.
It's been going on for sixty years.
La verdad es que el problema se hizo mucho más grande con las aerolíneas de bajo coste.
The truth is that the problem got much bigger with the budget airlines.
Cuando Ryanair y las otras compañías baratas llegaron, de repente todo el mundo podía volar a Barcelona por veinte euros.
When Ryanair and the other cheap companies arrived, suddenly everyone could fly to Barcelona for twenty euros.
Y Barcelona recibió veinte millones de turistas al año.
And Barcelona received twenty million tourists a year.
Twenty million.
In a city of one and a half million people.
I mean, do the math on that.
And we saw what happened.
The locals started getting priced out of their own neighborhoods.
And then, a few years ago, something remarkable happened.
Las protestas.
The protests.
Mira, en 2024, en Barcelona, en las Islas Canarias, en Mallorca, la gente salió a la calle con carteles que decían "Tourists go home".
Look, in 2024, in Barcelona, in the Canary Islands, in Mallorca, people took to the streets with signs saying 'Tourists go home.' Not because they hate tourists as people, but because the system was not working for the residents.
No porque odian a los turistas como personas, sino porque el sistema no funcionaba para los habitantes.
And this is the point where I want to push back slightly, because there's a version of this story where the tourist is the villain, and I'm not sure that's fair or even useful.
The tourist taking a cheap flight to Barcelona isn't doing something wrong in itself.
No, no, espera, estoy de acuerdo contigo.
No, no, wait, I agree with you.
El problema no es el turista individual.
The problem is not the individual tourist.
El problema es el modelo.
The problem is the model.
Un modelo donde los beneficios económicos van a las grandes empresas y los problemas, el ruido, los precios altos, los apartamentos turísticos, los sufren los vecinos.
A model where the economic benefits go to the big companies and the problems, the noise, the high prices, the tourist apartments, are suffered by the neighbors.
So slow travel, in theory, tries to fix that model.
You stay longer, you spend more locally, you put less pressure on the most crowded spots.
That's the pitch.
But here's what gets me, and I want to be honest about this: slow travel has a class problem.
A ver, explícame eso.
Well, explain that to me.
¿Qué quieres decir?
What do you mean?
Look, who can afford to spend three weeks in one place?
Not a nurse with two weeks of vacation a year.
Not a factory worker.
Slow travel, as it's often marketed, is a lifestyle for people with flexible jobs, remote work, time and money.
It can become another form of privilege dressed up as virtue.
La verdad es que tienes razón, y es un problema real.
The truth is that you are right, and it is a real problem.
Pero también creo que no tienes que ser rico para viajar de forma más lenta.
But I also think you don't have to be rich to travel more slowly.
Si tienes dos semanas de vacaciones, puedes ir a un lugar en vez de cinco.
If you have two weeks of vacation, you can go to one place instead of five.
Es una decisión, no solo una cuestión de dinero.
It is a decision, not just a question of money.
That's fair, and I take the point.
Concentration versus dispersal.
The choice of where to put your limited time.
Okay, so let's talk about the environmental angle, because that's the other big pillar of this argument, and it's where things get genuinely complicated.
Bueno, el problema más grande es el avión.
Well, the biggest problem is the airplane.
Un vuelo de Madrid a Nueva York produce más emisiones de CO2 que un europeo medio en tres meses.
A flight from Madrid to New York produces more CO2 emissions than an average European produces in three months.
Y el número de vuelos en el mundo creció mucho antes de la pandemia, y ahora volvió a crecer otra vez.
And the number of flights in the world grew a lot before the pandemic, and now it is growing again.
So the argument goes: if you travel slowly, you fly less.
You take one long trip instead of four short ones.
Fewer flights, smaller footprint.
And in Europe especially, there's a real alternative, because the train network is genuinely good.
Mira, en España tenemos una red de trenes de alta velocidad muy buena.
Look, in Spain we have a very good high-speed train network.
Puedes ir de Madrid a Sevilla en dos horas y media, o de Madrid a Barcelona en menos de tres horas.
You can go from Madrid to Seville in two and a half hours, or from Madrid to Barcelona in under three hours.
Es cómodo, es rápido, y produce mucho menos CO2 que el avión.
It is comfortable, it is fast, and it produces much less CO2 than the plane.
But here's the honest limitation of that argument.
It works beautifully within Europe.
It works between major cities.
It doesn't work if you're flying from Austin to Madrid in the first place, which is three thousand miles over the Atlantic.
You can't train that.
So what do you do?
Es que no tienes una solución perfecta.
The thing is you don't have a perfect solution.
Pero si vuelas una vez al año y pasas un mes en Europa en vez de dos semanas, usas el mismo vuelo pero tienes una experiencia más rica y más sostenible.
But if you fly once a year and spend a month in Europe instead of two weeks, you use the same flight but have a richer and more sustainable experience.
La frecuencia es el problema, no el viaje en sí.
The frequency is the problem, not the trip itself.
The thing is, there's also a deeper cultural argument here that I find more interesting than the carbon math, honestly.
And it's about what tourism does to place.
To identity.
I spent time in Venice once, proper time, not a day trip from the cruise terminal, and the difference between those two experiences was almost shocking.
Venecia es el ejemplo extremo de todo esto.
Venice is the extreme example of all of this.
La ciudad tiene menos de cincuenta mil habitantes ahora, pero recibía más de treinta millones de turistas al año antes de la pandemia.
The city has fewer than fifty thousand residents now, but it received more than thirty million tourists a year before the pandemic.
Los venecianos no pueden vivir allí porque los apartamentos son todos para turistas y los precios son imposibles.
Venetians cannot live there because the apartments are all for tourists and the prices are impossible.
And the cruise ships.
I remember standing on a small bridge over one of the canals, and one of these floating hotels, this massive white wall of steel, just moved slowly past the end of the street.
It felt genuinely surreal.
Like someone had parked an office building in the middle of a museum.
Los cruceros son el peor ejemplo del turismo no sostenible.
Cruise ships are the worst example of unsustainable tourism.
Los pasajeros llegan, comen en el barco, gastan muy poco dinero en la ciudad, y producen contaminación en el agua y en el aire.
The passengers arrive, eat on the ship, spend very little money in the city, and produce pollution in the water and air.
Italia prohibió los cruceros grandes en el canal de Venecia en 2021, pero el debate continúa.
Italy banned large cruise ships from the Venice canal in 2021, but the debate continues.
So what does slow travel actually look like in practice, in a way that's realistic?
Not the idealized version on a lifestyle blog.
What's the practical version?
Bueno, para mí, significa tres cosas concretas.
Well, for me, it means three concrete things.
Primero, quedarse en un barrio normal, no en el centro turístico.
First, staying in a normal neighborhood, not in the tourist center.
Segundo, comer en restaurantes donde comen los locales, no donde hay fotos en el menú.
Second, eating in restaurants where locals eat, not where there are photos on the menu.
Y tercero, ir a lugares que no están en las guías turísticas típicas.
And third, going to places that are not in the typical tourist guides.
I can speak to this from experience, actually.
When I was based in Buenos Aires for two years, I was living there, not visiting.
And the city I knew was completely different from the city I'd seen when I passed through as a journalist on a forty-eight-hour trip five years before.
Unrecognizable, almost.
Exacto, y eso es la diferencia fundamental.
Exactly, and that is the fundamental difference.
Cuando vives en un lugar, aunque es solo por unas semanas, empiezas a entender los ritmos de la ciudad.
When you live in a place, even if it is just for a few weeks, you start to understand the rhythms of the city.
Sabes a qué hora comen las personas, qué problemas tienen, qué les importa.
You know what time people eat, what problems they have, what matters to them.
Eso no lo puedes aprender en dos días.
You cannot learn that in two days.
But, and I want to make sure we don't lose this thread, there's a real tension in this whole conversation that I think we'd be dishonest to ignore.
And it's this: for a lot of communities, mass tourism isn't a problem.
It's the entire economy.
Sí, y es una contradicción muy difícil.
Yes, and it is a very difficult contradiction.
En las Islas Canarias, por ejemplo, el turismo representa más del treinta por ciento de la economía.
In the Canary Islands, for example, tourism represents more than thirty percent of the economy.
La gente protestó contra el turismo masivo, pero también necesita el dinero que trae.
People protested against mass tourism, but they also need the money it brings.
No es una situación simple.
It is not a simple situation.
And this is where the pandemic became this brutal, unplanned experiment in what actually happens when tourists stop coming.
Cities like Barcelona and Venice initially saw residents celebrate the quiet, the clean air, the reclaimed streets.
And then, within months, the economic pain hit hard.
La pandemia fue un desastre económico para el sector turístico en España.
The pandemic was an economic disaster for the tourism sector in Spain.
Millones de personas perdieron su trabajo.
Millions of people lost their jobs.
Muchos hoteles y restaurantes cerraron para siempre.
Many hotels and restaurants closed forever.
Fue muy doloroso, y nos recordó que el turismo, aunque tiene problemas, también crea empleo real para personas reales.
It was very painful, and it reminded us that tourism, even though it has problems, also creates real jobs for real people.
So where does that leave us?
Because I don't want to end this conversation with just a shrug and a 'well, it's complicated.' I think there are some things that are actually clearer than the debate sometimes makes them seem.
A ver, para mí, la respuesta no es "turismo sí" o "turismo no".
Well, for me, the answer is not 'tourism yes' or 'tourism no.' The answer is a different model.
La respuesta es un modelo diferente.
More taxes on cruise ships and tourist apartments.
Más impuestos a los cruceros y a los apartamentos turísticos.
More money for local businesses.
Más dinero para los negocios locales.
And more tourists going to lesser-known places, not always the same ten famous destinations.
Y más turistas que van a lugares menos conocidos, no siempre los mismos diez destinos famosos.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
And I'd add one thing.
I think the conversation about slow travel, at its best, isn't really about travel at all.
It's about attention.
About choosing to pay attention to a place, to its people, to its rhythms.
And that's a choice you can make on almost any budget.
Sí, exacto.
Yes, exactly.
Y la próxima vez que vayas a Madrid, Fletcher, te lo prometo, no te voy a llevar al Museo del Prado el primer día.
And the next time you come to Madrid, Fletcher, I promise you, I am not going to take you to the Prado Museum on the first day.
Te voy a llevar al mercado de mi barrio.
I am going to take you to the market in my neighborhood.
Primero el café, primero la vida normal.
First the coffee, first normal life.
El Prado puede esperar.
The Prado can wait.
I will take that deal.
I will take that deal completely.
Though I'm going to want ice in my coffee and I know that's going to be a whole thing.
Dios mío.
My God.
Veinticinco años como corresponsal en todo el mundo, y todavía no aprendiste a tomar el café como una persona normal.
Twenty-five years as a correspondent all over the world, and you still didn't learn to drink coffee like a normal person.
Mira, hay límites para el turismo lento, Fletcher.
Look, there are limits to slow travel, Fletcher.
Hay límites para todo.
There are limits to everything.