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Everyone has their own interests and while Americans get smeared as being country bumpkins that don't care about the rest of the world, I have found in my travels just as many if not more, uninformed, ignorant, uninterested people out there in the world as the USA.
This view that America sucks and the rest of the world has this incredible, enlightened view and great peace and acceptance is a major fallacy perpetrated by leftist pseudo intellectuals.
The average person who has been to school in Colombia or Malaysia knows more about Europe than a recent president of the United States did. Of course there are bumpkins everywhere, but that doesn't mean the typical educated person has been systematically sealed off from the rest of the world, as they are in the US. How many of the channels on your cable lineup originate in other countries? How many members of your extended family will sit and watch a subtitled movie with you? The whole world watches mostly foreign TV and subtitled foreign movies most of the time, except the US and China, and in China people risk arrest to expose themselves to global understanding, while Americans take pride in their ignorance of the world.
If you live in a country where most TV shows and most movies and most magazines come from another country, how can you help having some awareness of what those other countries are like? Which has absolutely nothing to do with peace and acceptance, or what sucks.
I feel like that, and the closest I've ever come to leaving the country is less than a day in Canada and Mexico.
But yeah the author is right. It is escapism, but if life wasn't lame you wouldn't need escapism would you?
Only thing holding me back is the hope that someday I'll have a wife and family, be rich enough to attempt to accomplish my goals, and the needing money for when I'm old.
Plus Lonely Planet was shown as an app on an iPhone commercial a few years back, and if you know anyone who has lived overseas they probably mentioned it when you talked to them about their travels. I'm as amazed no one asked jtur about his travels.
The thing that I found when I got back from traveling, was that nobody asked me anything about where I had been. Literally Nobody..
That's my basic experience, with a very few exceptions.
My parents are one of those people who never inquires and never asks. I left the U.S. 15 years ago, and went back twice for a total of three years. So, mostly been far away.
They just simply never ask, and my mother just assumes I don't want to talk about it. One of my aunts asked a couple interesting questions to me once, and my response really surprised my mother, as it engaged me.
My mom usually asks 'are they christian there?' and a couple other related questions...and her curiousity stops there. None of those questions I really think are interesting - she is simply worried about their 'souls', and zero about anything else.
Old friends of mine, simply don't know know what to say or ask, so I just don't talk about it whatsoever when I'm visiting home, unless someone asks, and 99% of the people do not.
If I run across someone who has any curiousity whatsoever or asks an interesting question, I'll probably quickly feel a sense of kinship and share all I possibly can, until the person loses interest again.
Anyway: I am a traveler and I love traveling. But this article just stinks in my opinion. While I sometimes think similarly it is just highly judgmental, pretty much saying that everybody who doesn't enjoy this life-style of traveling is dumb and their lives have no meaning. To each his own, some people just don't enjoy this. My brother for example doesn't even understand why I want to leave the country, but I don't judge him because he does not judge me either.
If the blogger, or anyone, loves traveling and living like a king on 10 Euros a day, fine go for it. Do it, don't complain. Find people who tick similarly and leave those alone who don't enjoy it. Why bother with people who have different interests anyway?
So is Reading. And exercising. And Fishing. And Sex. And, for a lot of people, Working. Everybody needs to escape from the weight of a life that is not entirely of their own choosing, and it's selfish to pass judgment on people who aren't motivated to escape the same way you are.
So is Reading. And exercising. And Fishing. And Sex. And, for a lot of people, Working. Everybody needs to escape from the weight of a life that is not entirely of their own choosing, and it's selfish to pass judgment on people who aren't motivated to escape the same way you are.
I didn't mean to pass judgement on it. Like I said I'd be doing that sort of thing if I didn't want or worry about some things that I know it would make it difficult for me to having.
travelling is nice, but after a while I think you need some stability, some place you can call "home".
It doesn't have to be boring, and it doesn't mean you can never travel again. If you don't like your home country, you can always move and find a better one. And even at home you can live the life you want. There are many different kinds of jobs, for example my job allows me to travel for 3 months a year. That's great, and enough for me. When I'm at home in Belgium I read books, movies, go to friends I really like for some drinks, visit my family, but I also have many foreign friends here, for example Russians. I married a foreign woman. And every few months we're off again, with my wife or with friends, to some crasy country like Cote d'Ivoire or whatever, or Thailand, for some serious adventure and wild partying. The positive side is that you have more money to spend, which makes your stay there more pleasant.
And by the way the things backpackers and travellers talk about are not necessarily more interesting than what people talk about at home. It all depends which people you hang out with.
Also, we have one kid now, and he goes everywhere with us when it's possible. If he has to go to school, and we want to travel, he stays with my mother. No problem. Why do you have to choose between a life of travelling or a boring family life?
Maybe next year we'll decide to move to Argentina if I can get a job there. Only for a year to try out. If we want we can still come back and take my old job back, in Belgium that's possible. For the kid that will be interesting too, children adopt very quickly if you learn it to them at a young age.
But, I think a traveler can always settle down whenever they want as well.
I also agree of the merits of having family and friends that you've known for ages. When I go back to Michigan, and see my own family roots there, I do feel envious of people who have that.
In the end, I know some people are envious of my life, and others not so much. I'm sometimes envious of their stability, but at the same time, not so much to stabilize myself.
I think in the end, we can really only be ourselves. I can't personally imagine living any other way than the way I already have.
Lonely Planet is just a guide book, what you do with that information depends on, well, you.
Plus, who knows of Lonely Planet before they make their first trip abroad? I think only couch travelers, those people that only read of faraway places but never really visit them (or anywhere.)
You learn of Lonely Planet after you made your decision to travel.
It's all about you, always was and always will. And guess on who the responsibility falls?
Yeup. You again.
You would take the credit if everything went well, in the "gosh, I'm so lucky for deciding to travel around the world" type; simply take responsibility when things go not as you planned, too.
I know a lot of travelers who really joke about Lonely Planet, as they say you see these same people clutching their LP books, seeing all the sights, restaurants and hostels in the books and everyone hanging out in their LP group. People essentially follow the LP books a bit too closely.
The author articulates one of the more negative aspects of traveling: it can alienate you from your home and make you become far too egotistical for your own good.
Some travel fanatics can come across as quite up themselves. Because they've traveled so extensively, they have an arrogant, know-it-all, "since I've traveled so much I'm more enlightened than you boring people with your boring lives" attitude. I've known a few like that. You can't engage with them or share travel experiences with them. It's almost like a competition for them, like their whole sense of worth is based on how much more well-traveled they are than others. Because they've spent months in a country versus your own 2 weeks, or if you didn't go to their favourite city/area, they act as if you just haven't really experienced the country at all, almost dismissing your effort as a waste of time, silly you. They're obnoxious bores.
So not everyone likes to, or can, go on long trips to exotic places, or even do much traveling at all, so what? I've met quite a few Western Australians who've never been out of the state and don't want to. I admit I used to view them not too favourably but then I came to see them as having an almost enviable sense of contentment with life here and have happy, fulfilled lives anyway, versus my perpetually itchy feet and sense of wanderlust. Their annual three weeks camping in the bush, or by a beach with nobody on it, year after year, is heaven to them, and good on them! I love to travel all over the world but it doesn't make me better than others. And for many, travel is just not in their budget so hearing long-winded stories about other people's travels might make them feel bad about not being able to afford it themselves.
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