Here’s an alternative point of view: If you’re cosy-conscious; then don’t travel. Many places would be much better without a constant onslaught of poor tourists.
It’s a luxury only for the wealthy? My parents went on walkabout through the 60s and 70s dragging their kids behind them (starting about age 3, and not even two for my sister) and it was great. All over South and Southeast Asia and Western Europe. We certainly saw the countries in ways that would have been invisible had we been staying in luxury hotels, or spent the whole of the first 15 years of my life in Australia.
Nobody asks you to pay for a _luxury_ hotel, by the way.
Also today for me it seems that renting a cheap AirBnb is akin to making photos of yourself next to sedated tigers/elephants/you name it - it does the same to erode the local culture.
