Sons of those who stayed behind

(Tuesday, 30 June 2009)

In 5 months of wondering around Latin America I haven’t met a single fellow Portuguese traveller. Actually, I can say more: I haven’t met any foreigner who has met a Portuguese backpacker during their Latin American travels either (besides me, that is!). I’m constantly being seen as a “rarity”.

While talking about that fact, with both locals and other tourists, it’s not the first time I’m asked something along the lines of: “But aren’t you a country of travellers? Haven’t you discovered the world centuries ago? What happened?”.

After discussing the matter a few times, I came with a few hypotheses for the answer.

First, we’re a small country – especially when compared with other “heavyweights” like the US or the UK that so much contribute to the tourism numbers. This, of course, doesn’t explain everything: we were a small country six centuries ago too, and the Dutch, for instance, with a population the same size of ours, are seen now, as back then, in every corner of the world. But hey, it’s a fact: less people, less travellers.

Second, we’re a relatively poor country when compared with most European nations, or the US, Canada and Australia, whose travellers you constantly bump with in this part of the world. Moreover, I think the Portuguese youth is disproportionably affected by our lower purchase power. I mean, my impression is that Portuguese youngsters struggle much more to find a first job, to move out from their parents’ homes, and to become financially independent than what our GDP per capita would predict. And who travels the most as backpackers? The youth. So…

I actually find this second factor, the economic, the most powerful one. But I don’t think it explains everything either. I mean, many young people in Portugal are in a financial situation that would allow them to pack their things and wonder around the world for a few months. But they don’t (they might decide to spend a month in a resort in Brazil or in the Caribbean, but that's a different story!). Why is that?

Apart from personal reasons – that should wash out when we talk of the average behaviour of millions of people – it’s here that I think the third and final factor kicks in: the cultural one.

On a first dimension, there is the effect of the society culture’s on the individual. What do I mean by this? Well, what about this example: what would be the reaction of the typical Portuguese “boss” to the request by a young employee of a “half-a-year leave of absence to go around and get to know the world”? Not a very nice one, would it? Now compare it with the answer from a, say, typical British employer. Believe me, on average, they would be quite different!

On a second dimension, there is also the effect of the culture of the individual him/herself – the one we learn to grow up with in Portugal, which, in what travelling is concerned, is so different from many other European countries. For instance, take Britain as an example, once again. There, the “gap year” is an institution (that’s the year just before college, when often teenagers are given a period off to travel and try out new things, before embarking on the career ladder). So, in result, you see thousands and thousands of British youngsters travelling to the other side of the world, volunteering in NGOs, partying like there is no tomorrow, or just getting to know new places – and themselves. Yes, not always such an opportunity is put at good use, but the travelling “seed” is planted in their young minds, and in many cases it will be harvested throughout their lives. Compared with that, what do we have in Portugal? Close to nothing…

The other day I read online a statement that amused me, but also made me think: “We, the Portuguese, aren’t sons of the sea travellers who discovered the world in the XV and XVI centuries – we are sons of those who stayed behind”.

Would that be true?