Does Documenting while Travelling Take Away From the Experience?

Does Documenting while Travelling Take Away From the Experience?

by Alex Tyndall

Illustrations by Vivika Sahajpal

Memories are precious but fickle things, able to slip away as easily as they were created. Very few of us can remember every little detail of an event, journey, or experience, so we rely on pictures and videos to fill in the blanks. Fortunately, in an age of smartphones and social media, it’s easier than ever to capture and relive moments from our past. Not only that, but we can then share these memories with our friends, family, and online followers.Impact’s Alex Tyndell shares his experience with documenting his travels.

This is especially true when it comes to travelling – there’s so much in the world to see and do that it can be tempting to record every little bit of it. And it’s nice to share what we’re up to with others. It’s a great way to keep in touch, or just show off a bit when you’re proud that your hard work has come to fruition.

However, do we get so caught up in trying to document our time away that we forget to live in the moment? Alternatively, do we spend too much time worrying about what other people think of what we post online that we end up not enjoying ourselves?

Last summer, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to the Dominican Republic for a friend’s wedding. For two weeks, in 40-degree heat, we splashed about on whitesand beaches, played surprisingly intense matches of pool volleyball, and swam through coral reefs filled with tropical fish.

As wonderful as it all was, I found myself taking surprisingly few photos. And those I did take were often brief, a one-and-done snapshot, immediately sent via private message to my parents back home to keep them updated. Perhaps it would be an image of the sea, a lizard lazing on a sign, or the lobster-red glow of my severely sunburnt back.

If they wanted anything more than that, then they would have had to turn to my partner’s Instagram. She carefully and meticulously took photos each day whilst we were there, eagerly preserving our fondest moments. For her, Instagram is an immediately accessible virtual photo album. It’s a point of reference, a way for her and those who follow her, to see how she has grown as a person, and keep connected with her loved ones and their lives.

It’s true that if she had not taken charge of snapping pictures, I would have severely lamented the lack of digital proof I had of our trip. My memory is poor at the best of times; the images we take help me to ground myself and piece my life experiences together in clear chronological order. To this day we’ll look back through pictures and I’ll find one I’ve never seen before, from a day out I’d long since forgotten, not because it wasn’t special, but because so much else gets in the way. It’s a sobering thought, to realise how much of one’s life slips away unnoticed.

But this ignores a larger issue at hand. When it comes to posting online, the vast majority of people will only showcase the highlights and the triumphs. Whilst there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, there seems to be a culture of competition on social media which leads to a constant battle of people trying to one-up each other and show off how “perfect” their lives are.

It can be tough. Even the most self-reliant of people aren’t immune to the fear of missing out, or ‘FOMO’, as it is often referred to. When we see millions of people online posting their most amazing moments one after the other, it’s easy to feel inadequate or, God forbid, boring. It’s not a healthy mindset. And, in certain cases, it’s reached the point where people will create fake scenarios to appear more interesting to their potential followers. Photoshop has allowed people to doctor and splice images, leading to some notable examples of content theft.

Back in 2022, American singer Aubrey O’Day was allegedly found to have stolen photos from other users on Instagram and edited herself into them instead. Her defence appeared to be that she had, in fact, visited the multitude of countries (which included Indonesia, Thailand, and Greece) displayed in the background of these images, but the ones she decided to upload were designed to make her Instagram account look like “a museum of art”, rather than an authentic representation of her travels (not that I would consider this a justifiable argument for plagiarism).

- NOTE: due to the accusational nature for interpretation, the use of allegedly should be reflected to negate libellous connotation.

In some cases, our public image on social media is the first thing people see of us, whether that is due to a person carefully curating their persona online, or if you happen to stumble across the page of someone you vaguely recognise from work or university. Either way, a lot of pressure has been put on us as individuals to only display the most perfect version of ourselves. We never want to show a fault –we want to do the amazing things we see our peers doing and only publish postcard-ready images that will leave others tinted green with envy.

The obsession with capturing the perfect moment can lead to feelings of frustration and disappointment when the reality doesn’t align with the image curated in one’s mind. I’ve never been one to take 30 different pictures of the same scene, but I’ve certainly spent my fair share of time lining up grid references and racking my brain for anything I’ve learnt about photography’s “rule of thirds”. It can feel like a missed opportunity, which detracts from the real-world beauty of a place as we become caught up worrying about what people online will think.

This superficial validation is the true culprit. We shouldn’t feel bad about documenting our travels, but we shouldn’t let it consume our thoughts either. Striking a balance between immersing yourself in an environment and taking a few pictures as sentimental reminders is key for making the most of your travels. After all, we live in the real world – not the digital one.