I Will Never, Ever Visit
Channel Islands National Park
This astounding photograph from the depths of Channel Islands National Park is not mine. It was snapped by a very talented work colleague named Brett. But as you’ll see further down, I took the time to create a 3D version of the image because it helps me enjoy the park vicariously. That’s important, since I’ll go to my grave before I ever go to the Channel Islands.
It's not that I wouldn’t want to visit the Channel Islands…believe me, I would! I’m certain a visit to the park would be an enjoyable, fulfilling experience. I’m certain I would marvel at the scenery. And I’m certain time spent on the islands would become a cherished, life-long memory. But I’m also certain I’m never going, largely because I’m making the conscious decision—at the ripe old age of 48—to never, ever try.
About the Park
Channel Islands National Park is a cluster of five remote islands off the coast of southern California that are often referred to as the “Galapagos of North America”. Ferries provide regular transportation to the park, which—depending on the island you choose to visit—can take up to 4 hours over rough seas. Services on the islands are virtually nonexistent, so visitors—especially overnight campers—are strongly advised to be totally self-reliant for the length of their stay.
Thus a trip to the Channel Islands requires considerable planning, and a day-long commitment at minimum. And it also requires fairly deep pockets: the round trip alone can run nearly $100 per person. Those with the means and leisure time to make the journey are undoubtedly rewarded with beautiful vistas, bountiful opportunities for solitude, and dazzling night skies.
I would likely find a visit very enriching. But I really don’t need to physically travel to the park to learn about it, understand its importance, or appreciate its charms. Countless books, websites, films, and photographs—like the one from my colleague Brett—already provide a crystal clear window through which to enjoy the islands’ marvels. And, fortunately, I’ve already done more than enough in my life to faithfully imagine what a visit to the park must be like.
Sufficiency of the Mind’s Eye
Here’s some text taken verbatim from the Channel Islands website:
“Even the shortest visit to the islands exposes visitors to the beauty and richness of park resources, whether it be leaping dolphins, undulating kelp, flowering Coreopsis, scampering mice, or soaring bald eagles.”
I’ve watched bottlenose dolphins cavort in the churning froth of a boat’s wake numerous times. I’ve admired the bright yellow flowers of many species of Coreopsis from coast to coast. I’ve seen bald eagles soar overhead from Florida to Alaska. I’ve seen plenty of mice in the wild (and in my tent, at the pet shop, beneath my office desk at work, and—too often—in my attic.) I’ve even spent several nights tent camping on a remote archipelago in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. And though I’ve never really poked around a submerged tangle of kelp (which honestly sounds awful), I can nonetheless imagine what the sensation is like, since I’ve explored coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests with SCUBA and snorkel.
Given all this, it’s fair to ask: is a short visit to the Channel Islands really worth the time, expense, and carbon to get there? Is the opportunity to encounter only slightly different versions of things I’ve already seen sufficient justification for all the negative externalities from my trip? Would briefly observing those things in a marginally different environment be of any significant value? And would the experience of hiking, diving, or camping on the islands be so materially different from what I’ve already done elsewhere?
Of course not. The hard ground beneath my feet, the buoyancy and taste of saltwater, the brilliant constellations in the night sky, and the comfort of my tent would still feel fairly familiar were I to visit the exotic-sounding “Galapagos of North America”. Combining my own recollections from earlier experiences with abundantly available media about the Channel Islands yields a imaginative, evocative elixir: one that simultaneously provides a potent appreciation for the place, but an equally potent deterrent for visiting. My flights of fancy are, in fact, powerful enough to deter me from actual flights.
A Slippery Slope
Of course, this line of reasoning is an admittedly slippery slope. I’ve had nearly fifty years to amass a collection of past experiences that can easily be recalled, remixed, and reimagined as representative of unvisited locales. So there are probably few locations on the globe sufficiently novel to justify a trip.
I’ve already visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison, camped in Canyonlands, and hiked rim to rim through the Grand Canyon. By now, I get what a canyon looks like…and I have a pretty good idea how they differ. Some are wider, some are deeper, some are redder, some are steeper. So there’s really no good reason to burn time, money, effort, and fuel traveling to Waimea Canyon in Hawaii, or Verdon Gorge in France, or Fish River Canyon in Nimibia. I don’t learn anything more of consequence about canyons by merely casting my eyes on every single example on Earth.
I know this all sounds glib, but I’m actually serious. The advent of commercial flight and the mass-produced automobile occurred scarcely a century ago. Our grandparents—if they were lucky enough to take a long-distance vacation—likely considered it an occassional delight. Their grandparents likely traveled long distances by steam or rail, and only rarely. And their grandparents likely didn’t travel long distances at all, being constrained by the force of muscle and bone—those of a horse, if they were very lucky.
Within only a few generations, we have cultivated a somewhat familiar form of “manifest destiny”. But in the modern context, we seek to conquer far more than just the American West. Rather, we aspire to invest our accrued savings of time and money to canvas as much of the globe as we can before making our eternal exit. We do so with no real purpose, other than to say we did, or to provoke envy from friends by posting pictures to social media, or to fill a tacky sticker map of the United States on the back of an even tackier RV.
Learning from Marjory
Today the unprecedented demand for largely frivolous travel has given rise to a dismal array of callous transportation options that prioritize profit over basic human comfort. Campgrounds are overrun with oversized recreational vehicles, and tourist towns are overwhelmed with traffic. Our parks and public lands are increasingly ruined by oppressively large crowds that threaten the very values for which they were established. And our willfully ignorant bliss about the cost of eternal wandering has bequeathed us an atmosphere awash in dangerously high concentrations of pollutants and greenhouse gasses that we seem only too happy to bequeath to our own kids in turn. When it comes to long-distance travel, it’s well past time to reexamine both our spurious motivations and our staggering sense of entitlement.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote the book River of Grass, and is largely credited for her role in the eventual protection of the lower Florida Everglades as a national park. But famously, she rarely visited the area. In her autobiography Voice of the River, she beautifully refutes the assumption that in-person visits are a de facto form of appreciation:
“To be a friend of the Everglades is not necessarily to spend time wandering around out there.”
Taking my cue from Marjory, I will similarly be a friend to my children, to my pocketbook, to my time, to my planet, and to all my fellow inhabitants by being far more discerning about why, when, and where I choose to travel. And I will be a good friend to the Channel Islands by enjoying the park from afar…and in 3D.
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