Friday open thread: a tourist in your own home town

[dolorosa_12]

I'm not likely to get to your responses to this open thread until Sunday, as my in-laws are visiting for the weekend and I'll be flat out looking after them and showing them around.

This is in fact what sparked today's prompt: do you find it easy to think of touristy things to do for visitors?

(For those of you new to this journal — e.g. the people who subscribed through the recent snowflake_challenge friending meme, these 'Friday open threads' are a semi-weekly feature. I ask a prompting question, and people can chat about it in the comments.)



Depending on how you define 'home town,' mine could be New York, Sydney, Canberra or Cambridge. The town in which I live now is really only my 'home town' insofar as it is the town where my home is, but it's not where I was born, it's not where I spent my childhood, it's not where my family is from, and it's not really somewhere where I had particularly formative moments. In any case, all of my previous 'home towns' have ample things to do to suit various tourist-y tastes — museums, art galleries, historic buildings, nice places to walk, shows and cultural performances, good food, etc etc. That being said, I was starting to run out of things to do with repeat visitors in Cambridge, particularly if they weren't very mobile or keen on walking.

Where I live now has ... a massive cathedral, a tiny art gallery, and a couple of pretty parks along the river. If you like walking or bike riding, there are lots of routes on which to do so — all through flat fields and fens (the landscape here is very much like that of the Netherlands). It's got a handful of nice restaurants, cafes and tearooms, but basically it's the sort of place that a tour group is bused into for the day from London, they're shown around the cathedral and given a scone and a cup of tea, and then taken back to London on the bus at 4 or 5pm. So I really struggle to know what to do with people who have a) seen the cathedral before and b) have limited mobility. The whole thing is, of course, more complicated when you are an immigrant and any visit from relatives will last for longer than a few hours, and things to do need to be found to fill the time.

In general, I find cities easier to see through the eyes of a tourist and find things to do to suit all interests and needs. Small towns (this town's population is just over 20,000, and by my standards that is tiny) are difficult if the visitors in question can't or don't enjoy going for long walks.

Do you get the idea that I'm a little bit stressed about the whole thing?

Comments

[svgurl]

There is a difference between 'home town' and place where you live and place you were born. I was born in one place and lived in a few different ones until I reached what I consider my home town since that is where I really grew up and spent the most time and where I still live. However, it is definitely the suburbs so there is very little to do that is actually the city, but they would know that coming in. Depending on what they want to do, most people need to go to a bigger city (San Francisco, about 40 mins away) or go to the beach. The public transportation isn't all that reliable though so you do need a car. If people aren't aware of how big California is, they will be a little surprised that San Francisco and Los Angeles are not right next to each other though lol

Good luck with the in laws! Are they the kind of people who need to be kept busy or are they more chill? I don't know how the weather is right now but maybe a picnic at the park? I feel like if you visit a place multiple times, you can't expect to be wow'd with something brand new after a while, especially if there are restrictions.

[dolorosa_12]

There definitely is a strong difference between 'home town' and 'place where you were born' (unless they are the same, I guess). I sort of think of the city where I grew up, and the city where my maternal family grew up (and where my mother, sister and all my maternal relatives live) as both being my home town, but at the same time they're not — I left one when I was eighteen, returned when I was 22 and found that it wasn't my home any more. The other, I lived in for a year when I was three, four years between the ages of eighteen and 22, and then nine months when I was 23 — and then I left the country and built a home in a new one. For me, home is an age, not a place, and home is other people.

I can well imagine that visitors to California, especially from Europe or Asia where everything is so much closer together, would struggle to have an accurate sense of distance. And yeah, that whole area is out of reach for me because I can't drive — I can only travel to places with decent public transport or that are entirely walkable.

Are they the kind of people who need to be kept busy or are they more chill? I don't know how the weather is right now but maybe a picnic at the park? I feel like if you visit a place multiple times, you can't expect to be wow'd with something brand new after a while, especially if there are restrictions.

The thing is, I think everyone would have been happy just hanging out and chatting, but they're the sort of people who always feel a visit must be A Visit in capital letters with lots of activities. We ended up doing a bunch of stuff that satisfied everyone, but I also think it left everyone very tired, and I myself was just completely stressed out the entire time.