Their digital lives look so glamorous and perfect. Their fit, scantily clad bodies make them look like a different species from those of us with the hard-earned pallor and plumpness of an office life. They look like gods and goddesses as they flow down the steps from their over-the-water cabanas into the turquoise waters of the Maldives. They can go wherever they want, whenever they want, and the money will follow. They are free.

But they aren’t free.

When I graduated from college, my girlfriend and I spent a year traveling through India and Southeast Asia. Cellphones didn’t exist yet. There were no Google searches and no internet cafes. I distinctly remember her explaining to me what this new technology called “email” was. I was at a loss to understand how you could send a message electronically across the world.

Occasionally, we would send an aerogram (heard of those?) home with an update, and once a month, we would find a phone center and call to let our parents know we were alive.

Most of the time, nobody back home knew what country we were in, let alone what beach we were on! And that was amazing. That felt like freedom.

We were having our own experience that was all about us and the places and people we encountered. We were fully immersed in each moment and didn’t have to report back to anyone.

I truly miss that kind of travel, and I’m not sure it exists anymore.

The only camera we had was a small point-and-shoot that used precious film. Taking pictures was an afterthought. We never chose our next destination based on how it would play on social media. We chose our next destinations by talking with people traveling in the opposite direction who said “this was amazing.”

Most of the places we visited were complete mysteries to us. We had never seen pictures of them unless they were one of the few locations highlighted (often in black and white) on the pages of our Lonely Planet guidebook, leaving us to experience that thrilling first moment of awe.

When’s the last time you’ve visited a place you haven’t already seen on Instagram or somewhere on the web? While it does allow you to focus your precious and limited travel time on places with a vetted wow-factor, something is also lost when you’ve already been there digitally. You have to dig deeper to be surprised now.

Yes, all jobs have parts that suck.

I’m a guide, and I’ll be the first to admit that working in travel puts a strange filter over exploring the world. When I am leading a trip, I experience destinations through my guests’ needs just like an influencer experiences them through the eyes and desires of their followers. The magic of a place doesn’t hit me quite the same way when I’m also counting heads and worrying about whether my guest with the shellfish allergy will be served a curry that someone in the kitchen simply pulled the prawns out of. And yet I still feel lucky every time I realize I’m getting paid to be eye to eye with a mountain gorilla in Uganda or to be zipping past an iceberg in a Zodiac in Greenland. I’m sure influencers have those moments too.

There’s also the business side. I was at a travel conference a few years ago that was focused on influencers, and it was an eye-opener to realize how much of their work is invisible. They have agents and contracts and chasing down brands that don’t pay and meetings with marketing people and tracking stats and hours and hours of editing in their hotel room before posting a shot that looks effortless to the viewer. The mystique relies on keeping that hidden. We want to envy their perfect lives.

Ultimately, influencers have found a way to make a career out of something they presumably enjoy doing, and a few of them make good money doing it. It is a job, and most of us have to do some kind of work. Good for them. I would never tell a successful influencer they should stop doing what they are doing.

But I wish they didn’t inspire other people to want to do influencer-style travel.

I’ve been in the travel industry for 30 years and have seen a lot of changes. I worry that people are forgetting there is another, simpler way to travel. We don’t have to document and share every plate of ceviche or bend over backwards to make every moment of our trips look perfect and track our “likes.” It is possible to be in the moment and not worry about who is envying us.

Sure, nobody wants to see me with my shirt off on a beach, and maybe I wrote this whole article because I’m bitter about that. But mostly, I want to send a reminder out into the world that it is ok to leave the folks back home in the dark a little bit. Leave them wondering where you are and what you are up to. They won’t forget you exist.

When my family travels, we try to get back to that old style of disappearing and just being present. We have been in Peru now for two months and haven’t posted a single picture on social media.

We will tell our stories when we get home.