This now-old post by Rich on poverty tourism sat in my inbox for the last couple of weeks. I couldn't delete it, even knowing that this is not the sort of topic I usually write about.

Let me back up. The topic is people traveling to another country/area to check out poor folks. There is a good and a bad side to this story. The positive is that some people legitimately want to seek out poverty, and poverty-alleviation programs, so they can better choose options for charitable donations, volunteering, etc. That's great, and this is the sort of thing that Rich was writing about, not to mention the financial effects on these local communities.

The other side of all of this are the people that dress up in their best Banana Republic gear, go see the poor folks while on vacation, get some sort of psychological boost out of (maybe) making a one-time donation, and then move on with their Yuppie existence. These people piss me off, particularly when they proudly display their photos of a disease-ridden refugee camp in Central Africa where they spent two hours handing out rice to naked kids. Every time they show that pic to a visitor (look, I'm actually touching a poor person in the Third World!), it gives them a special warm smuggy feeling of superiority.

Barf.