Luffarturisten och längtan efter det autentiska

Abstract

To travel around the world as a lone tourist — as a "backpacker" or a "vagabond" — for a few months or maybe years, has become like a rite of passage for many young women and men in Sweden. It is a way of transcending the routines of everyday life, to meet the unpredictable and experience the adventures of travelling. It is like a Grand Tour of the 20th century. To see the "real" world, how it "really" is, seems to be an important aspect of this type of tourism. There is a search for the authentic; for "authentic" people and "authentic" places — not yet "destroyed" by the commercial hordes of charter-tourists. This gives backpacking an anti-touristic, anti-commercial and primitivistic character. But paradoxically, this type of tourism has become increasingly institutionalized and commercialized. The aim of this article is to study the paradox of "constructed authenticity" and how it becomes apparent in backpacking. It is further argued that travelling has a ritual, extraordinary and transcendent character which is highlighted in the activity of taking photographs. I'm concluding the article by suggesting that travel photography is a meta-commentary of the tourist experience which calls into question the authenticity of the tourist sight.