Untangling the Ethics of Travel in Myanmar

On Christmas Day of 2022, I stood in a country overthrown by its own military, without cell signal. Throughout Myanmar a humanitarian crisis was unfolding. Yet just a few years ago, this magnificent place was a sought-after tourism destination. 

Admittedly, I applied for a visa knowing full-well the government was committing war crimes against its citizens. I had read the headlines. At the time, the prevailing myopic narrative was that Myanmar was inhumane, dangerous, and doomed to deteriorate further. But as is often the case in countries steeped in geopolitical strife, there isn’t just one story.

When I stepped out of the airport in Myanmar’s capital Yangon, I sighed, fixing my pupils on the sky’s orange hue. I subdued the mild panic; I kept an open mind.

In February of 2021, just as election results were set to announce a Democratic victory, Myanmar’s military seized control. The coup overthrew major institutions, suspended communication channels, canceled flights, and captured pro-democracy leaders. On the global stage, this sequence of events did not come as a complete surprise. For decades, the nation has struggled with military rule, civil war, poor governance, and widespread poverty. 

Despite the ongoing conflict, in November of 2021, visa applications for tourists re-opened, calling into question both the safety and morality of Myanmar’s tourism.

Violence can feel antithetical in a country where ninety percent of the population is Buddhist. But neglecting to acknowledge Myanmar’s brutal past would be misleading. Even amidst leaders who preach nonviolence, devout monks, and amicable locals, there are inevitable and cruel outliers. Atrocities against the Rohingya and other minorities demand justice. And yet, a deterministic framing of Burmese history is not the full picture — it’s dangerously simplistic.

Despite its troubled past and present, Myanmar is a country interwoven with stories of hope and compassion. These are narratives are largely overlooked by the mainstream media.

My impression of Myanmar began with the smell of Papaya. How could you not notice the unending sea of fruit markets, lining roads to Buddhist pagodas, temples which traditionally represent the bridge between the natural and spiritual world. Fragrant carts selling black sesame sticky rice and melons too large to carry were balanced in careful piles along the cracked pavement, a stark contrast to the hazy images of gunfire I’d absorbed from reading the news. Everywhere locals wrapped themselves in multicolored cloth sarongs, called longyis. With so much beauty around, even the truth can seem artificial.

Places of worship remained especially ethereal. At twilight, the sun transmuted golden stupas into glowing silhouettes as barefooted men, woman, and children softly chanted, delivering their offerings. In these spaces every gesture belonged to an external world without deadlines.

With a surprising effortlessness, I spent hours at pagodas in Bagan and Mandalay, meeting locals from all walks of life. Monks, nuns, former tourist guides, university students, even police officers. With kind and eager eyes, everyone wished to know of the outside world.

We exchanged stories. I listened to horrific recollections of the military regime and in return explained current events to the best of my ability. Despite overwhelming tragedy, most conversations and exchanges ended with hope, not my own, but an explicitly stated hope from the other party, the hope for nation-wide peace. The people I met in Myanmar told me that they longed to travel, even just within their own country. They longed to go back to school, they longed to get jobs, they longed to get out; their sentiments, expressed with faces full of hope, left my body empty of words and feelings.

Monasteries provide reasons for optimism. Run by monks, and relying solely on donations, these communities provide free meals, shelter, and hope to anyone in need.

The military, or Tatmadaw, was omnipresent, except for places of worship. I was stopped at roadside checkpoints, but not bothered. Tourism brings in money — money which goes straight into the pockets of the regime. And even though I did not meet a single other tourist whilst in Myanmar, I couldn’t shake the inevitable reality that my travels were funding the very oppression which horrified me.

Why then, was I treated with sincere kindness?

With each new town I felt more like family than foreigner. I was greeted with free food and trinkets and trusted with stories that if shared, would lead to imprisonment. I joined family photos with those enthusiastic to capture just one image of the outside world. Police officers surrounded me, snapping selfies.

Perhaps travelers, like me, are a symbol of a once safe and prosperous time; a not too-distant history that today can only be longed for, both for its economic prospects and for its promise of peace. 

Travel, in my view, is frequently painful. Witnessing oppression, knowing full-well that my observational discomfort ends once I leave, despite the oppression itself persisting, is hard. I struggle to sit with this feeling. I try my best to dig into it, rolling it over in my mind, interrogating how best to act. Rarely am I settled. So instead, I grab for something tangible.

I look for clarity in words. It has taken me many sentences of real, confused, jumbled thinking to arrive at half-decent answers on how to morally navigate tourism. As a result I’ve come to understand that I’ve been asking the wrong questions all along.

To live ethically in a multipolar world requires sincere engagement. Engagement not just in the philosophical sense, but in our lived experience too. More often than not, false assumptions persist until we experience things firsthand.

If we don’t explore foreign places, whether in fear of political correctness or narratives which dominate the media, we inadvertently stagnate global peace and cooperation. Without visiting myself, the media’s flattened portrayal of Myanmar would have remained my reality. And this exchange of personal stories, ones which have moved me in ways I am still untangling, wouldn’t have materialized.   

Solutions—whether to global crises or personal growth—are never absolute; they evolve. The first step toward any meaningful solution is understanding. And what better way to understand a conflict, culture, or country than to experience it firsthand? Thoughtful travel can be ethical travel. History shows us that, every so often, the first step to a resolution was lit by a single, meaningful exchange.