The Sustainability of Travel TV Shows

In the first half of 2023, TV programs about travel were everywhere. Hoping for travel content that is fun but also mindful of sustainability, here is a subjective viewing review.

Words Pyo Youngso

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that variety-show producers were just as restless as ordinary travelers. Since late last year, travel-themed programs have poured out as if they had been waiting for their moment. I don’t usually watch much travel video content, but thanks to this flood (?), I ended up sampling quite a few. Most travel variety shows put the emphasis on the variety. The people who travel matter more than the travel itself, and the entertainment value (the ratings) of the content they create matters more than the stories of the destinations. Watching these shows, I started thinking about the sustainability of the travel they contain. It was probably never a consideration when the programs were made, so it may be a stretch, but I’d like to compare several shows I watched this year from the perspective of sustainable travel.

Programs compared (airing period / destination / concept)
- ‘Earth Marble World Trip’: March–May 2023 / around the world / a views battle between travel YouTubers
- ‘Busan Country Boys in Sydney’: April–July 2023 / Sydney, Australia / a working holiday experience
- ‘Europe Outside the Tent in Norway’: May–July 2023 / Norway / a winter camping trip
- ‘Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2’: June–July 2023 / India / an unplanned backpacking trip

Experiencing and Preserving Local Culture

I believe the greatest value of travel lies in stepping outside the frame of the society you belong to, experiencing something unfamiliar and new, and broadening your understanding of the world. The ‘Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2’ series stays fairly faithful to that essence. As much as the director’s intentions, the attitude of cast member Kian84 seems to play a major role in setting the program’s direction. He is a rare, open-minded traveler. He dips into the Ganges and eats with his hands without hesitation, and he also attends a local wedding and enjoys the dance, and even dives into a traditional laundry-washing experience. Even when he is shown surrounded by five or six masseurs kneading his body at random, it hardly makes viewers wince, thanks to the traveler’s perspective: he meets and respects local culture and ways of life without prejudice. In ‘Busan Country Boys in Sydney’, the cast’s travel experiences are limited by the working holiday concept. Even so, through a farm run by Chinese owners, a café whose owner is Turkish, a Korean tiler, and a cleaning company boss, along with working holidayers of many ethnicities employed there, we catch a glimpse of an Australian society where diverse cultures coexist. Interacting with locals at farmers’ markets and cafés also offers a chance to look a step closer at their daily lives (I learned just how finely divided Australia’s coffee menu is). From the Gudvangen campground deep within a fjord to the campground in Lofoten facing the beach, ‘Europe Outside the Tent in Norway’ deserves credit for roaming all over Norway and showing a variety of camping facilities and natural scenery. The ice bath, a signature Norwegian custom of plunging into cold seawater after a sauna, and the ski resort blanketed in natural snow were also fresh. By contrast, in ‘Earth Marble World Trip’, which sets up a ‘content views battle’ among three travel YouTubers, travel is a game and closer to a means of extracting content. Only two or three days are allotted to each destination, and (whether or not they were conscious of the views competition) the focus on completing missions makes the outcome inevitable: sleeping in an airport in Singapore to ‘survive on 14 dollars a day’, or traveling 15 hours in Madagascar to see baobab trees.

Earth Marble World Trip ★☆☆☆☆
Busan Country Boys in Sydney ★★★☆☆
Europe Outside the Tent in Norway ★★☆☆☆
Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2 ★★★★☆

Contribution to the Local Economy

The lead of ‘Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2’, who is generous about every situation he runs into while traveling, also contributes diligently to the local economy. From a taxi driver who insists he has no change to a Hindu priest on the street who all but forces a blessing prayer on him, he willingly plays the ‘sucker’ for the people he meets in India, and because he embraces and enjoys even that as part of the travel experience, it’s awkward to measure it against a yardstick of right and wrong. In ‘Busan Country Boys in Sydney’, the money earned on the working holiday went toward local living expenses and travel costs, so the cast did, in any case, help the local economy. The team of ‘Europe Outside the Tent in Norway’ takes care of food and lodging by using campgrounds and local supermarkets across Norway. In this category, ‘Earth Marble World Trip’ earns some points too. True to their status as veteran travel YouTubers, they followed local ways without strain in lodging, transportation and meals, and they used local travel agencies when traveling from Antananarivo to Morondava in Madagascar and when touring Pinzón Island in the Galapagos.

Earth Marble World Trip ★★☆☆☆
Busan Country Boys in Sydney ★★★☆☆
Europe Outside the Tent in Norway ★★★★☆
Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2 ★★★★☆

Saving Energy and Protecting the Natural Environment

Backpacking and camping trips compete for first place with different eco-friendly strengths. In ‘Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2’, the cast uses public transportation within each destination and travels with minimal luggage, helping cut carbon emissions. The campers in ‘Europe Outside the Tent in Norway’ offset emissions by riding three or four to a vehicle rather than driving separately, and they minimize energy consumption by staying at campgrounds with limited hot water and electricity. Considering that staying longer in one place helps reduce carbon emissions, ‘Busan Country Boys in Sydney’ is the most sustainable concept. The two programs that stayed within a single country, India and Norway respectively, come next. And ‘Earth Marble World Trip’, in which three people visited 15 countries in a month and covered 250,000 kilometers, equal to five times around the Earth, is a prime example of the least sustainable kind of travel.

Earth Marble World Trip ☆☆☆☆☆
Busan Country Boys in Sydney ★★★☆☆
Europe Outside the Tent in Norway ★★★★☆
Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2 ★★★☆☆

Protecting Biodiversity

Respecting the nature and people of a destination, contributing to the local economy, and reducing carbon emissions: these are sustainable ways of traveling that anyone can try without much difficulty, with just a little attention. But when it comes to ‘protecting biodiversity’, things suddenly get harder. How can travel possibly help protect biodiversity? Fortunately, the final episode of ‘Busan Country Boys in Sydney’ offers a good example. After a week of working holiday experiences, the cast spent their last night at Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary. Located about two and a half hours north of Sydney by car, it is not simply a glamping site where you can see koalas. As its name suggests, it is a ‘koala refuge’ that treats and cares for wild koalas that are sick, injured or orphaned, created through a partnership between the Port Stephens Koala Hospital and the local council. Its eight hectares of woodland make an ideal habitat focused on koala rehabilitation and treatment. Visitors and overnight guests observe koalas and join tours led by experienced local guides to learn about koala conservation, naturally taking part in protecting biodiversity. Strictly speaking, the stylish glamping tents are more of a bonus.
‘Earth Marble World Trip’ falls into the category of stumbling into it by chance: under the game’s rules, the cast won a trip to Ecuador and visited the Galapagos. The show introduced policies such as a tourist tax and a ban on bringing in single-use items to protect the local ecosystem, so I give it one star.

Earth Marble World Trip ★☆☆☆☆
Busan Country Boys in Sydney ★★★★☆
Europe Outside the Tent in Norway ☆☆☆☆☆
Since I Was Born, I’ll Travel the World 2 ☆☆☆☆☆