Tourism at home
When you travel the same route every day, the things that you see become routine. You don’t see them as unique or interesting. They become part of your landscape, to be overlooked as overly familiar. You become bored and you want to take a vacation.
Somewhere else.
Somewhere exotic. Somewhere interesting. Somewhere not like home.
Somewhere expensive.
Then you take a good look into your bank balance and you realize that you can’t afford to spend your vacation traveling to an exotic and interesting place that’s not like home. You still, however, want to take a vacation. So you take a “staycation.” You stay at home and take little day trips. You begin to see your community through the eyes of a tourist, instead of through the bored eyes of someone who has seen the same things over and over again. You see the familiar as new. You see everyday things as fascinating.
That happened to me. I live near Buffalo, New York, a city that I frequently visit. In the summer, I go to Buffalo’s Garden Walk, which is one of the biggest garden walks in the United States. I see gardens in public places – in medians of streets, in front of government buildings, and in front of schools. I explore gardens in front of and behind of the homes of people who have opened their gardens for the event. Viewing the gardens helps me to see a city that I once saw as only gritty and grimy as more than that. I started seeing Buffalo as bright and colorful and full of life.
At the same time, I started taking a look at Buffalo’s architecture. Many famous architects had come to design buildings in Buffalo late in the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth century. They included Frank Lloyd Wright, who was famous for the prairie style of design. He designed houses to be “organic,” to use the materials that were readily on hand in the local community, such as limestone and field stone.
The Guaranty Building was designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler to be an early skyscraper in Buffalo. It was completed in 1896, at a time when Buffalo was the eighth biggest city in the United States, thanks to the Erie Canal, which, at the time, was a major shipping channel that connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Midwest.
My experiences at local tourism have taught me that, whether the place you visit is near or far, there are beautiful places to see and to experience. All of these places have stories to tell. They were always there. I just had to be open to hearing them.
For conversation: describe some interesting tourist destinations in your local community.
Howdy folks! This december starts with a bang on my blog as I run a unique bloghop with 28 bloggers to write guestposts for me and each other all this month. I hope my readers will catch all the action and support this drive with their comments and feedback to encourage the writing. To know more about this blog hop in detail, you could catch this post here.
Today’s guest is Alice Gerard – a freelance journalist, gardener, blogger, and artist, who lives in western New York in the United States, between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. She is currently engaged in a 52-week photography project and is writing a novel. You could catch her blog and connect on Facebook Twitter too.
Yep, beauty is all around—you just need the eyes to see it.
For me, when I can’t travel, I read books, and they take me places I haven’t been.
I often feel that holidays at home are the best especially if you do have a pretty town to explore like you do
Yeh you are right Alice…there is so much for the city to offer if we look at it from the tourists eyes! Loved the walk around the Bufalo with your narration and clicks!
I loved the way you started thus off- looking at things with a new set of lens. Seeing beauty in the mundane and ordinary things. These are the things we would crave for once they are taken away all of a sudden. Wonderful post Alice
Its was a good virtual tour. Seeing the place with new pair of eyes makes so much difference. Following so many posts even I feel evolved to see things differently.
Such a wonderful post….so true!!!!
True. for us, the world around us becomes too ordinary as we fail to really look at the things around us. Maybe if we saw really well, we would notice the thousand things we fail to notice everyday.
wow the concept of garden walk is interesting! Many-a-times we are so lost in this mechanical life that we fail to see the beauty around us. Lovely post. Enjoyed reading it 🙂
True! You just need to see your surroundings in a different light. One should always keep exploring and discovering the city they live in. Thanks for sharing, Alice!
Loved the thought shared in your post Alice. Its so true that we often dismiss our immediate surroundings as mundane and never try to listen to the stories they have to tell…. Very well written!!
This is an extremely novel post! Local tourism. But so true. We usually miss out on all the local stuff due to a combination of procrastination and ignorance.
A beautiful post Alice and enjoyed how you saw your city from a tourist perspective. It’s beautiful.
I agree with you Alice. Even I always keep an eye out on my local areas to spot interesting, new, and unique things that might have escaped my notice before. One can very well enjoy touring through local areas and find a treasure right there! I love that you wrote this post – it’s different from the other travel posts that talk about travelling far 🙂 Good going.
Exotic is a relative word. There is so much beauty in our everyday lives that we can take them a notch higher just by changing our perspective. Lovely pictures!
I agree… Our home has much to offer too.. We just need to open our eyes to the experience. I love noticing people’s gardens and decor and the personalisation of row houses… Totally fascinating.
How true is that! I live in Mumbai and commute to work everyday for good 1 hour. This year, I went out to explore the city during night and it was a wonderful experience. Our backyards can be as exotic as any other place. Its just that we look at it with a different perspective. Thanks for sharing your experience. Totally loved it 🙂
I completely agree with you Alice. It’s always nice to explore not the city in another of the globe but also the places sitting right in front of our eyes. This post introduced me to the largest garden parks in the US, I love the interiors, the architecture, and the garden itself is so beautiful!!
After reading your post i have realized that there are many places i haven’t visited in the city i live in. Your post has inspired me to explore places around me. Great read Alice !
Tourism at home! What a lovely new idea! I live in bangalore and some time back I visited cubbon park and the tiny aquarium connected to it. This place is generally visited by tourists. The kids had a great time seeing the fishes and riding the toy train and just running around in the garden
How very well mentioned – look around from a different angle and you will see beauty everywhere. Routine life & hustle takes the charm of taking a breath and appreciate what we already have. Your post is like an inspiration to me, will head to grab some neighborhood captures and enjoy it.
I so love your idea of a staycation. It’s true that while we yearn to visit the foreign locales but we fail to ‘visit’ our own city which has so much to offer. Thanks for a great thought, Alice!