Sarah Macdonald as a tourist

                In her novel Holy Cow, Sarah Macdonald starts by narrating a trip she had for her twenty first birthday which her parents gave her the plane ticket as a present. It was a middle class rite passage and had become a family tradition. Her mother wanted all of her children to experience the joy of travel before they settled in their jobs.  The narrator does not tell much details of her trip but she does make it clear she did not enjoy her two month tour in India and throughout the novel she explains little bits or reasons of things that she did not like from India or situations that happened to her that were really bad. After this trip she says she hates India and that she will never go back.

                This trip that Sarah Macdonald did at her twenty first years was only for the experience of travelling and to enjoy the trip. It was a tradition in her family and something that she was expected to do just because she had to.   This was not a trip for a specific purpose but more to have a good time and to enjoy herself before entering the laboring world.  In my opinion this first trip that Sarah MacDonald has is more a tourist’s trip than a traveler’s trip because even though it was one year she was on this trip, it did not seem she had any other purpose in the trip other than just having the experience of a trip.

                Even though we are not given too much detailed information about this trip, Sarah Macdonald can be considered more as a tourist than a traveler in this trip. We can see this because she did not go on the trip searching for a purpose to be fulfilled but more as an experience she had to live. Also we can see this because she does not have a lot to say about the trip and barely remembers it. She tells us more about the place that she did not like and did not want to go to again, India, than the other places where she went.  She does not narrate a lot of experiences she had or things she learned. By these brief things we know about this trip, we can assume she was more in the position of a tourist than a traveler.