The Same Photo That Everybody Else Has

Today we are talking about travel selfies and famous Instagrammable locations around the world — but perhaps talking about it in a way that is not what you’re expecting. Because I don’t really agree with the adjective Instagrammable. And I definitely don’t agree with this trend towards specific locations that become really famous and this feeling that we must go somewhere so we must take a photo at this famous location and have the same photo that everybody else has.

I am not an avid Instagram user, that has to be said. I am not someone who is looking for followers on Instagram, so I am not looking for the absolute perfect photo. For me, the most magical moments of travel is the first impression. A first impression that can happen many, many, many times in a single day. Turning a corner to see the waterfall, reaching the top of a mountain and seeing the view, getting out of a tuk-tuk into a new city, into a new location. Stepping through the gate and encountering for the first time some of the wonders of our world. Diving below the surface and that first image on the water.

Those first impressions are really precious to me. And I don’t want to be taking photos of them. When I  arrive, I never want to have my camera with me. When I arrive, I want to get out, I want to see it, I want to soak it up. I want to absorb everything. And then a few minutes later, or an hour later, however long later, then I’ll go to take photos. That’s how I travel. Everybody’s different, and that’s great. Some people like to go there straight away out of the taxi with the camera, taking the photos and then go and relax and enjoy it.

A Thousand Different Photos In One Place

But what got me onto this topic was that today I was in my hometown — which is Alicante  in Spain — with some friends, we went walking on the castle walls, highly recommended. Alicante is a definitely underrated destination — the city, certainly. So we’re walking around the castle walls. We had a nice picnic on the side of the castle, almost completely alone. Beautiful views, very relaxed. I could have taken like 500 photos. It was lovely up there.

And then we walked on a little further, five minutes, and there was a kind of a massive people — it was like 15, 20 people, which is quite rare to see on the top of a castle during COVID. I was wondering, what are these people doing? And they were queuing to take a photo at Alicante’s most Instagrammable location. It’s a great photo. It’s a great photo on top of the castle with the city and the Mediterranean sprawling out below, but I was looking around and it seemed to me that on the top of that castle, there were a thousand different photos to take.

So why was everybody queuing for this famous Instagrammable location? I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen it, especially in Cape Town, on Lion’s Head. From the top of Lion’s Head, the most stunning 360 degree view of the ocean, of Table Mountain, of the city, of the beach.

Usually nobody, except for a massive — people queueing for a very famous and probably the most famous Instagram spot in the whole of Africa. A specific rock that if you sit on it and someone takes your photo, you get this glorious shot down Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles and the Pacific Ocean and Camps Bay Beach. But on the top of Lion’s Head, there are thousands and thousands of  photos. And when we travel, every time we travel, there are thousands of different stories. What I experienced will be different to what you experience in the same place at the same time.

You Don’t Have To Follow A Set Routine

And we don’t need to feel like we have to follow the same set routine. Many of us do really now want to travel different. We don’t want to follow mass tourism. We don’t want to follow the number one on TripAdvisor. We want to create our own story, our own narrative. We want to enjoy the serendipity of random encounters. We want travel to change us. We want travel to be about the connections and the experiences that we can change, but also that can change us.

And when I look around travel, it seems that that is how most of us travel. Most of us want to travel. So it always surprises me when I get to the top of a castle and see a queue, or I get to a location anywhere in the world and see this massive people patiently queueing to get the same photo as the person before, who is getting the same photo as the person before them. All following the same people who have already published their photos.

As I say, I’m not an Instagrammer, so that’s not how I do it. I actually like to do something quite different. My background is writing and one of our colleagues here at Kated, Beatrice, she got me onto a really nice trick, which is going to a destination and trying to find 12 words — only 12 words — that can sum up that destination, can sum up that experience, can sum up that place.

So the memory is her creative written memory, not a photo. Again, I’m not a selfie person. Like I don’t want to see myself in a photo. I want to have a photo of the place I was. I have a face for podcasts. I don’t have a face to be in the photos. And I don’t really want to be reminded in 10 years’ time of how much I’ve aged. I want to remember that incredible place where I was.

But that’s me and everybody does travel different. So this isn’t a rant about “we should stop certain things”. Everybody should travel the way they want to travel. Everybody should collect their memories the way they want to do that. And everyone should take the photos they want. So this is just food for thought, just an idea that I’m sharing on today’s episode of the Kated travel podcast. Agree or disagree, I’d love to hear what you think, you can email me. And perhaps I will see you on the top of Lion’s Head or the top of Alicante Castle, and if we take two different photos, well, that is travel different, right?