Location Taken: Banff, Alberta
Time Taken: June 2012
Tourist towns are an odd little phenomena, coming in a few varieties.
There’s the tourist traps, full of places selling overpriced junk, the largest x in y stands, and billboards. Tourist traps love billboards for some reason.
There’s also the “doesn’t really care” place, where there’s a bunch of touristy stuff but the locals just keep on living their lives as normal, just with a few more hotels and the like around.
And then there’s the tourist utopias. That’s where the place embraces its status as the place to visit. Frequently there’s a theme all the shops follow, such as the mountain resort theme this town of Banff has going on. There’s lots of parking and wide sidewalks for walking on, and my goodness are the restaurants good. Expensive, yes, but good.
And – ok, my train of thought got derailed entirely. No idea what I was going to say next. Be right back, conquering the land of cupcakes for some reason.
*Beep. Beep.* Brain not found. Try again later. *Beep. Beep.*
Ok, back, remembered I don’t like cupcakes. I unconquered the land of cupcakes shortly after conquering it. It’s tough to properly unconquer something, you know, so it took a little.
Right, tourist towns.
Both the tourist traps and tourist utopias are great places to go window shopping. In the traps, you see the magnificent range of useless knick knacks people make these days, including three with your name on them. Your name, not mine, mind you. I’ve never found one with “Sharayah” on it. So tragic. The best part of tourist traps, though, is the snack food. Those places always have some place selling locally made candy or fudge or beef jerky or ice cream or what have you, and it’s always really tasty.
The tourist utopias, on the other hand, are great for window shopping because you can’t afford to go real shopping there. The items are magnificent, and many of them are more than just decorative. But they’re priced according to their quality, and the quality is through the roof. I think I actually end up spending more money at the tourist traps just because the large price tags at the tourist utopias make me go into full miser mode. So tragic.
