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I'd love to hear concretely what you guys who traveled actually gained from traveling the world? Because I always hear that it's really exciting and you get to

I'd love to hear concretely what you guys who traveled actually gained from traveling the world? Because I always hear that it's really exciting and you get to go to exciting places - but what exactly did you gain in terms of perspectives besides your instagram pictures and cocktail stories? I've never get beyond this superficial in hearing people's travel stories online and IRL. Maybe it's just me; but the idea of going from one place to another for 2 weeks, to take pictures and get led around by locals tourist industry is the very definition of Western Consumerism. If you want to immersed into a culture, wouldn't you want to commit to learning the language and go to your local city's meetup for that language - instead of going to a foreign country with a phrasebook. If you want to dance, wouldn't you want take a class for salsa, shuffle, tango at your local club instead of a single experience at a beach bar at some exotic locale. If you want to meet new people and break out of your comfort zone, wouldn't you want to make friends locally where you can build up that friendship or relationship consistently by dinners, outings instead of a single chance encounter? Listening to live music at some exotic place vs. going to local musicians jams where you're up on the stage playing, take instagram pictures of Prague vs. urban sketching your local city streetscape… I could keep going. Maybe I'm wrong. Please tell me know what you've personally gained from traveling the world!

openfuture 6y ago
I've been to around 50 countries across 6 continents, hitchhiked tens of thousands of kilometres and never have I even taken a single picture. These experiences are not for others, they are for yourself and they give you the capacity to understand stories and circumstances that otherwise would be foreign to you.
- killtimeatwork 6y ago
  I take pictures (but relatively few - maybe a couple times in a week-long trip) just to look at them in the future - they're great for bringing out memories of a certain place, situation in life etc.
  - supernovae 6y ago
    I take lots of photos, but mostly as part of the experience not being the experience. I'm not gonna waste time setting up for selfies or clearing out people to get a group photo or any nonsense like that - most of my pictures will never have me in it - but they're photos that show my take on the history, culture, scenery and beauty of the area that i'm experiencing and I love to share that with friends/family people who may not be able to do it. I travel for curiosity - so photography helps me capture it in a way that i can go back and study the history, find other photos, see how its changed, connect the dots, fill in timelines - learn more and discover more that i may not have been able to do with being consumed in being there in the moment. The only selfie i ever took was me standing on top of a 14er... which was a huge accomplishment for me at the time but i never share that with anyone but my family - otherwise they'd never believe it :) never understood the fascination with NOT taking photos but also i've never understood those who take photos to make them the center of attention either (the instagrammers)
- nonninz 6y ago
  Do you keep a journal though?
cornzz 6y ago
Nobody is talking about quitting their job to travel for 2 weeks. This is about months or years of travel.
keiferski 6y ago
You have a very stereotypical view of what "traveling the world" is, so it's not surprising that you're dismissive. > If you want to immersed into a culture, wouldn't you want to commit to learning the language and go to your local city's meetup for that language - instead of going to a foreign country with a phrasebook. Meet-ups are not even remotely comparable to actually being there. This is especially true for non-Western countries that haven't been permeated by Starbucks/McDonalds global American culture. The idea that Google Street View and a Wikipedia article can replace real life is absolutely absurd. Personally, it would take books to write about how living abroad has concretely impacted my life. I don't even know where to start. It has exposed me to ideas and places that I previously had zero knowledge of. I'll summarize by saying the trajectory of my life has been shifted dramatically by traveling, and this is obvious when I compare myself to the people I grew up around.
- noname123 6y ago
  So far in some of the comments. I've gotten the same answer, "it changed my life!"; "I heard some new stories from the countries I stayed and it changed my perspective!"; "and I'm different from people back home now!"; and a subtle swipe that OP is dismissive and maybe "small-minded"; and I love it and appreciate your guys feedback! Allow me to share my experience of being immersed in American culture for 25 years as a Chinese immigrant. It may seem off-topic but if you guys'll bear with me - I have also a lot of Chinese friends, some of whom are graduate students who even stay in US for several years. To them, experiencing America means going to an "American party", maybe go clubbing, going to the Yellowstone Nat'l park, the gun range or the Burning man, and most of all - making an American friend or the ultimate pinnacle getting an American boyfriend or girlfriend! I hope y'all agree with me that American spirit is not encapsulated in just getting an American boyfriend or going to Burning Man! But are my Chinese friends' self-centered efforts to (understandably) efforts to "become more confident", "self-reliant", get "exposed to ideas and places [they] had zero experiences in"; so that when they go back to China and compare themselves to Chinese compatriots, it's "obvious that [their] trajectory has changed compared to other [plebeian folks] back home". Just my humble opinions, most human beings have remarkably similar values across different culture, we all want paradoxically to belong to the herd and also distinguish ourselves from the herd. And yet 25 years of living in America, I've been so self-centered at my own "culture refinement" all this time that I rarely and truly listened to others around me and their experiences.
Hadriel 6y ago
Traveled around south america for 2 years. 1 year backpacking thru hostels with 3 months in bolivia studying spanish then one year volunteering as an english teacher.
- noname123 6y ago
  I'd love to have gone that immersion experience of learning Spanish; and use that language skill to practice and go full circle to be an ESOL teacher (was an ESOL volunteer teacher too)!
q-base 6y ago
You do not seem like you want to change your mind - and that is fine. If you are doing a cost/benefit analysis, then you are doing it wrong. You mock western consumerism but radiate tells of "western overoptimization" attacking everything as a task that can be broken down to individual parts, prioritized and optimized. That is in my opinion a very reductionist way to go about your life. Traveling the world can open your eyes to other ways of living a life. It can teach you something about yourself if you are open to it. It can teach you to be more confident and self-reliant. You will likely dismiss this and if I wrote long explanations of what I learned myself you would come up with faster, better or more "local" ways to get the same outcome - and that is fine. You do you. Then I do me.
- noname123 6y ago
  Thanks for your critique! Your "over-optimization" comment (vs. presumably being more spontaneous and improvising as your travel or just in everyday life) is very valid. I will say that my original feeling is not even "squeezing the most out of the paste-tube" or "maximizing profits" of some objective - it's more about commitment, whether be a subject or to people. Travel to me is like watching TED talks of experienced professors or artists in their field - it makes me feel very smart for 15 minutes listening; but in no way skilled nor committed as a practitioner of that field who dedicate time to their craft everyday over years.
  - michaelnik 6y ago
    There are tangible benefits to world trip "optimization". We started planning our 1 year, 14-country trip, 1 year in advance. There are places (some national parks, certain hiking trails) where you need to make reservation well in advance. It also allows being in countries in their cool, dry or bloom season. Finally, it allows lower budget for the trip as you can reduce travel time..
- michaelnik 6y ago
  There are tangible benefits to world trip "optimization". We started planning our 1 year, 14-country trip, 1 year in advance. There are places (some national parks, certain hiking trails) where you need to make reservation well in advance. It also allows being in countries in their cool, dry or bloom season. Finally, it allows lower budget for the trip as you can reduce travel time..
dejv 6y ago
It taught me that it is ok to not be high on career/income ladder and there many niches outside tech that are worth to be living in and you can easily carve some for yourself.
- noname123 6y ago
  Thanks for answering! I hope to find that niche (that's outside tech) one day too!
deleted 6y ago
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ericmcer 6y ago
I find travel/experiences is a terrible way to make yourself a more interesting person. Some people can tell a story about a drunken brawl in a foreign country and make it boring. Another person can describe getting coffee in the morning and leave people hanging on their every word.
- noname123 6y ago
  This. When people talk about break-ups, you learn something about human nature like people's different attachment styles and each person's unique emotional vulnerabilities and their resilience in spite of it. When people talk about their careers and work stories and when you really listen, you learn about what people truly value (getting money vs. an academic pursuit, integrity vs. personal expediency); with travel stories, there is no character arc, more like a pastiche, a camera pan of the landscape they traveled to.
  - ungamedplayer 6y ago
    Maybe in this case, you could learn what they considered beauty.
- hayst4ck 6y ago
  This is so true. There is no preparation for how little people care about your travel experiences.
- blago 6y ago
  > I find travel/experiences is a terrible way to make yourself a more interesting person. Maybe this is not to point of travel :-)
tayo42 6y ago
> I've never get beyond this superficial in hearing people's travel stories online and IRL. I think most people aren't very articulate, they cant express their experiences well. Or maybe don't self reflect well. But anything you experience will leave an effect on you. Food, locations and just getting dropped into to situations you wouldn't normally be in are the biggest things about traveling. There's a lot of little things that can leave an impact. Some things are just seeing how similar people around the world really are too. I've discovered a lot of new food and learned about food from traveling. A cookbook, youtube and imported ingredients aren't quite the same.(I saw in your other post your a chinese immigrant, do you think I could claim to know about chinese food without visting and eating in china?) I took one off cooking classes in kyoto, bali and morroco and learned a lot about the culture and what i learned left a lasting effect on me. I found I really like indonesian food, mie goreng is a regular weeknight dinner for me now. There is a lot to write i think what I gained from travel,probabaly to much for a forum post. One other thing i want to mention is seeing nature is impactful. Going to the carribean and seeing dead coral reefs really drives home the damage humans are doing to this planet. You probably won't see that in your suburb, or realize it in a city.
- noname123 6y ago
  >I found I really like indonesian food, mie goreng is a regular weeknight dinner for me now. That's awesome. You've inspired me to look up some recipes and try to attempt it (keyword: attempt). > One other thing i want to mention is seeing nature is impactful. Going to the carribean and seeing dead coral reefs really drives home the damage humans are doing to this planet. I hear what you're trying to communicate; sometimes experiences are more powerful than its equivalent wiki or statistical infographics format; somethings are meant to be experienced, not a pre-conceived notion transmitted and interpreted secondhand in a book or a documentary or online post.
randomsearch 6y ago
Firstly: agree that there are some aspects of travelling that will be looked down upon in the future, particularly exploiting the difference in the cost of living. But travelling was massively beneficial for me. I'll focus on the biggest trip, which was a year backpacking. > what you guys who traveled actually gained from traveling the world? * I worked and rented in another country. So I had to work out how to do that, and work in a different type of business environment. * Developed key life skills: organising things, budgeting extremely tightly, Coped with emergencies abroad. * Building confidence. For example, driving all kinds of vehicle, learning to speak to and bond with anyone at all from a cold start. * Staying with families in different countries and seeing how they lived, how they treated their kids, and their priorities. This was very formative in deciding how to live my life. * Understanding the politics of the world better. I spent time with a guy from the Economist who had just spent months sleeping rough in India. I still think about his insights into the way the world works. I played cards with a relative of the president of fiji. Etc. * Understanding the history of the world better - for example, the origins of the industrial revolution in the USA, or the Ho Chi Minh tunnels, or the fate of aboriginal people in Australia. * Physical fitness. Learnt to scuba dive, climbed mountains, rock climbed, hiked a gazillion miles, hell just carrying 25kg for the year was a good workout. Some of this could have been done in my own country, but it would have been very different. * Removing stress and having space. After a while the stresses of travelling become fairly routine and you have a lot of time to relax on journeys and think about what you want to do with your life. That really shaped how I've lived since. Just sitting in a bus on a long road in a very different country you can watch how people live and it gets you thinking. How close are their families? Do I want to live like that? How do informal networks replace more structured western timetables etc. * Gratitude. Live with a cold bucket of water for a shower for a while. Sleep in a hut full of rats. You'll soon learn to appreciate that hot shower in your bathroom and the comfy bed. Honestly, even now there are few days I forget to appreciate that shower when I step into it. And this trip was over 10 years ago. * A very Hacker News point for me: I found I really missed computers. I didn't think I'd be a geek for the rest of my life but after that trip I realised how much I just like machines. Being in a different environment brought that into sharp focus, being deprived of it then (as a real example) coming across a Linux box in a hut somewhere. They're so neat and tidy and orderly and enabling, you can be endlessly creative. I only had a burner phone (and that was only for a part of the year) and this was the era of internet cafes, so no nerding for a year. * Spending quite a while in one place, indeed learning a bit of the language, reading about the culture, and then through local contacts really experiencing ceremonies that were pretty out there by western standards. It helped me understand the diversity of the world, where different cultures were at, and the size of cultural boundaries. * Friends. Met a lot of travellers. I did hardly any of the "party" backpacking thing but I met people on the way, and one couple I met have become life long friends. * Seeing the extent of human suffering in the world. I'm not sure I want to say too much about this, but it really hammers home the message - we have a long way to go, and there are many problems to devote your life to. * Understanding a lot about the universality of the human condition by seeing the same patterns in different places. For example, social drug taking. * Finding "paradise" in several places, which shall remain nameless, and having that experience of dozing in a hammock on a beautiful beach that isn't on a tourist brochure. It was a beautiful experience but it also made it clear to me that just enjoying life was not enough for me. Have to build something.
bambataa 6y ago
You are largely right. Western ideas of tourism feed off this idea "I'm a traveller, everyone else is a tourist sheep." Asian tourists generally don't seem to have the same pretensions and are happy getting coached around. Walking around busy temples and stuff can be pretty hard because people don't want anyone else in their photo. It has to look like they just chanced upon this ancient temple in the jungle, rather than getting a minibus there with 20 other people. Sometimes the more savvy local tour companies cotton on to this and market to "travellers", but I liked it when locals just called us all "tourists" because that's really what we are. Yes, it's another form of consumerism. I spent a year backpacking and it was mostly seeing cool places. I don't think it really changed me, but then I have worked and studied abroad before (there I go, pointing out how I'm not like the others!!). Considering those experiences too, I think there are two main things you're missing: 1) People who genuinely find hostel slogans like "live at the edge of your existence" deeply inspirational are probably late teens/early 20s and so for them it's all wrapped up in being independent, moving out of their childhood home, experimenting etc. Possibly the first time they've been out of their home culture and so even standard, Western backpacker hostels is a big jump. 2) A lot of people really find scary and challenging things you might be more comfortable with. Lots of people live within a few miles of where they grew up. If they go abroad, it's a package holiday on a resort full of people from their home country. Maybe a city break to be adventurous. Even though backpacking in SE Asia etc is heavily commodified, it's still a pretty small fraction of people who would even consider it.
- noname123 6y ago
  Thank you for your thoughtful response! I think there's 100% value for people in their 20's to take any opportunity to meet new people, go on an adventure and force yourself into (and learn from) uncomfortable and fun situations! I wish that we could keep and activate this wanderlust, open-ness and spontaneity regardless of what context we're in (why I posed the question, what perspectives people gained from their travel?). I know I had this hold over me, like I'd only enjoy a certain "couples activities" like ice skating, trying out new restaurants or paint nite - based on the context of going on a date. Which when I thought about it is super ridiculous, why can't I enjoy these things if I was going by myself??? Or put in another way, why can't we see our local city and people in our local community with the same freshness, open-ness and kindness as we'd if we were tourists or backpackers traveling in a distant land?
megablast 6y ago
But you don’t know what you want to do, until you experience it. And you experience so many new activities when travelling. Like food. There is so much good in different countries that you will not get at a dozen restaurants of the same country. People actually treat you differently if your travelling in their country. They are a lot nicer to you, and want to show you around, and include the unique parts of their culture.
Kiro 6y ago
It taught me that I never want to leave my home again. I'm happiest sitting in front of my computer. Feels good to have "been there, done that" so I don't need to worry about what-ifs.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  That's funny, I kind of feel the same way. I've been lucky enough to travel internationally and domestically a fair bit and yeah it's pretty cool, but I truly enjoy being at home coding things, learning things and experimenting with stuff.
  - seppin 6y ago
    Traveling is not about finding a new, better place. It's about appreciating where you are now.
- Havoc 6y ago
  This in part is why I don’t mind travelling alone. Everything happens on my terms
Grustaf 6y ago
> Maybe it's just me; but the idea of going from one place to another for 2 weeks, to take pictures and get led around by locals tourist industry is the very definition of Western Consumerism. If you're travelling like this, you're doing it wrong. Stay much longer, not with foreigners, learn the language, get a basic job. Live like an immigrant, not a tourist, and definitely not like an American tourist.
- ehershey 6y ago
  To each their own. They’re just different forms of travel.
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    What exactly is the point of travelling like a stereotypical American tourist? No adventure, no challenges to overcome, no learning. Just to be able to say you've "seen Florence"?
Cro_on 6y ago
It is absolutely worthwhile doing any of the immersion techniques you mentioned. Volunteer work would probably be the most important thing that you're missing. And I don't mean 'gap year help build a library' kind of volunteering, that stuff is implicitly pre-college, instagram stories and expat heavy. I mean exchanging a few hours of light work for bed and board (the language exchange is free). You can be pretty picky in most countries with sites like workaway or helpx, and probably find a little family to hole up with and do work remotely. And yes, you will find (single) people of all ages doing this. EDIT: i see I'm supposed to say how traveling changed my life personally. pretty simple if you are me because studying language is my favourite hobby, and, as an amateur linguist, it is essential for my life satisfaction to immerse in something new every couple of years.
vmception 6y ago
I’ve gained perspective that I can get into important rooms because of my background, easier than I can in my own country. It makes considering to fight for inclusion in my home country seem to be a waste of my life and that I can choose causes to spend energy on without feeling like I was neglecting an obligation to my gender or heritage or race/ethnicity. I’ve gained perspective that there are a mixture of political systems in countries that have redeeming benefits and seem more advanced than my home country. This tells me that I don't have to subscribe to the limiting choices presented to me, by people in my home country. Or perhaps that there might be an opportunity to inspire the people in the future. I’ve gained in depth knowledge of obscure regulations in obscure autonomous regions that I find useful. I’ve gained perspective that I can be seen as more desirable in some places for dating, hook ups, I can be accepted by families readily as an individual. In my home country, the go-to is to make this as awkward as possible, and it has been nice and endearing to understand how and why this isn’t the experience everywhere. It helps me really resonate with the concept of going where you are treated the best, and building a life where that is possible. This has been a overwriting of the indoctrination of tying my identity to my national, even its currency, which is now absurd to me.
- noname123 6y ago
  Thank you for your honest and personal answers! As an Asian guy living in America and reading between the lines re: your xp dating and how different cultures treat you, I can relate to a lot what you're saying. >It helps me really resonate with the concept of going where you are treated the best, and building a life where that is possible. Maybe it's me becoming institutionalized and just used to this by now in America lol; but I have a different perspective on this, oppression is universal (Puritans, Germans, Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews in 1700-1800's) and creativity is driven by constraints (blues/jazz was born on plantations, Cosa Nostras arose out of Italian Americans being shut of WASP society, the humor/hutzpah in spite of overt and covert anti-semitism is seen in Mel Brooks movies).
  - vmception 6y ago
    oppression towards you is not universal, and the constraints you refer to don’t have to be oppression based there are plenty of art forms and styles born from privilege but are you an artist? Is this diamond forging pressure even beneficial to you? to me, I am long past the idea of trying to proselytize or debate about how an advantage in another society could or couldn't work in a much larger less homogenous society, and can simply see how I can choose which one I want to be in when I want to be in it
neebz 6y ago
Personally I learnt to be less judgmental of people. From media you compartmentalize everyone into neat little boxes to make sense of the world. We find other people's values ridiculous when we hear/read about it but only when we go and live with them we find out it makes sense. It may be wrong but it makes sense. And there is a good chance if you were brought up in that same society you may have had the same behavior. I've learned to empathize only when I experienced this first hand.
blago 6y ago
0. Experience joy. If you haven't you won't get it. The same kind of awe and joy you might have experienced the first time a compiler you wrote finishes without errors and you are able to run the executable. 1. I'd like to think it made me less intense and easier to work with at my (remote) job 2. I became more extroverted 3. I've embraced extreme uncertainty and became much more flexible and creative. Pivoting in life doesn't scare me. I thrive when things are in flux and I have to improvise. 4. It helped me discover my passion for street photography 5. I met amazing people and created a circle of friends 6. I met my wife 7. The pandemic has been a non-event for me 8. I have not experienced winter in 10 years 9. Amazing food. Nothing wrong with food in the US but it's not as good as most people think, especially if you are poor. Unless you live in NYC and you can afford it. 10. When I woke up pre-pandemic on Sat morning I had 100 postcard-worthy places to choose from that most people only dream about visiting in their lifetime. All within a one or two hour flight radius. When most people contemplate driving 4 hours up north to a state park, I was debating if Hong Kong or Bali are worth the extra hours of flight only for the weekend. To sum it all up, if the thought of getting drunk with random non-English speaking people in a small bar in Tokyo you stumbled upon, or going astray and walking though a field in Myanmar to take you to a small village with no roads and interacting with the people there who are wearing traditional clothing doesn't excite you, than you won't get it. But that's ok, we all enjoy different things.
- eertami 6y ago
  >I have not experienced winter in 10 years As someone who travels in order to get more winter, not less, I don't see this one as a benefit! But the rest makes sense.
  - cddotdotslash 6y ago
    Well, just rephrase it > I have not experienced summer in 10 years That sounds depressing though.
  - blago 6y ago
    Haha, like I said - to each their own. To be honest I'm starting to miss winter a little bit too.
ggregoire 6y ago
I thought like you in my early 20s. I remember thinking that travelling was a waste of money. Until my first travel. I visited New York and it completely blew my mind. That was almost 10 years ago and I can still remember the first time I got out of the subway, I was speechless. Sure it looked like all the movies I had seen but being actually there and feeling the life in that city was such a mind blowing experience. It was also my first time in the US. At the end I don't think I really "gained" anything from it, but it allowed me to experience a place that was so different from where I lived all my life. Obviously each city is a different experience. I visited San Francisco and it was kinda meh. I visited Tokyo and it was dope. You can't really know until you actually go over there. :)
- Xcelerate 6y ago
  > I visited New York and it completely blew my mind. [...] I visited San Francisco and it was kinda meh. Haha, my experience was the exact opposite of yours. The first time I visited NYC, I thought it felt dystopian and was glad to leave. Easily the least favorite city I have visited. But my first time visiting the west coast was intoxicating. Growing up I lived in a few different states in the southeastern U.S. and even lived in Paris, France for three years. I traveled Europe extensively both as a child and in my late teens and thought some places were interesting and nice to visit, but the first time I arrived in the Bay Area I thought "What is this place?! I have to move here." I had traveled there for a Hackathon in 2010, and the first place I visited after leaving the airport was Palo Alto. It just blew my mind to see sunny weather, blue skies, trees with leaves, and green grass in December. And once I saw San Francisco, I was hooked. The beautiful terrain just captivated me. There were giant cliffs, ocean views, rolling hills, and interesting plants everywhere. Plus, I really missed the walkable cities in Europe. My wife and I just moved away from the Bay Area in October after living there for almost three years to be closer to family, but I miss it everyday and hope to go back at some point. I miss the food and tech scene (although I still have my same job, remotely now), but I think what really captivated me is the climate and terrain. It's just otherworldly compared to what I was used to in the southeast. > I visited Tokyo and it was dope Tokyo seems like somewhere that I would really enjoy living, culture-wise (although my impression is that the climate is pretty similar to where I grew up). Hoping to visit after the pandemic. Any tips on where to go? More interested in unique local experiences and maybe taking trains to some other cities than tourist attractions.
hayst4ck 6y ago
Of everything I learned and experienced in traveling one thing stands out above all the others: "self improvement is the primary good in your life" Traveling involves a lot of hedonism, and one day while traveling you suddenly realize you are on a hedonic treadmill. The first amazing meal you eat is life changing. The second one is about 50% as novel and good as that. Then you're comparing the next meal to 2 others, and the meal after that to 3 others... The cycle continues until you have consumed the earth and achieved emptiness. What remains is yourself. Once there is nothing left to consume to satisfy yourself you really have to ask whats next. The answer is building, and probably building yourself. The lessons I learned about myself were some of the most hard: - I understood escapism is not the answer - I got a realistic set of priorities for my life - I challenged and surprised myself socially - I learned what really matters and what doesn't More explicit examples of things I appreciate from having traveled: - Someone broke down to me why china is the way it is from an informed and educated position in a way I found mostly compelling - Visiting Shenzhen made me afraid for America - I experienced Hong Kong before china destroyed it. - I watched history in real time (NK trump, HK, covid) - I saw a Chinese person shrink to 1/4 their size when a conversation got political - I see video of foreign countries and I see streets I have literally walked on - I experienced being a guest in multiple different cultures and was culture shocked to my core. - I saw the insides of homes and buildings in different cultures as well as the different ways things were constructed - I experienced the inhumanity that poverty causes - I experienced real life poverty and actual real happening today slavery - I have seen the costs of not having rule of law - I have seen pollution on the scale you cannot even imagine until you experience it - I experienced my own privilege in very visceral ways - I have experienced cultures without workers rights and its effects - I have experienced multiple civil protests in other countries - I have seen what its like to be in a functioning democracy - I have been in a country where the voting system makes sense - I have been around police officers that made me feel more safe instead of less safe - I have made multiple friends I still talk to - I almost fell in love - I visited a major holy site and saw religion being practiced in a way I never had before. - I have seen cultures in decline and cultures on the rise and how the people in them act and function - I experienced being in cities older than my country - I met people from parts of the world I wasn't aware of, with histories I'd never heard of - I saw foreign propaganda first hand - I found ways of life I liked better (and not) than what I grew up in - I saw both how good things can be and how bad things can be - I experienced pro-diversity cultures and anti-diversity cultures and their effects - I was exposed to multiple different non conventional ways of life - I have several outstanding invites and opportunities to visit people I have met who were also traveling. - I saved one person's life with some first aid - I learned several new skills
estreeper 6y ago
I spent 3.5 months backpacking in India and Southeast Asia. I saw incredible places and stood in a hundred postcards. For me though, people are what had the most impact. Tens of thousands of Hindus come to die in Varanasi each year. If you die and are cremated there, you are freed from the cycle of rebirth and can attain salvation. I stood with an Indian friend on the edge of tears as I watched them burn the dead. He asked me why I was sad, and I told him I was sad for the dead. He said do not be sad, this is the way they wanted to die. We were warned never to get a train ticket on Indian Railways below 2nd class. It wasn't safe. There were only enough 2nd class tickets for my friends, so I went to 3rd class alone, in the middle of the night, and went to sleep in a top bunk, the warnings echoing in my mind. When I awoke my 5 neighbors were speaking softly to each other. They shared food with me they had brought from their homes. We showed each other where we had come from and pictures of our families. I didn't speak the same language. Cambodia had 25% of its people starved or murdered less than a decade before I was born: Year Zero. Anyone educated was the first to go. We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the temples around Siem Reap. He was the son of farmers. At one temple we came out the entrance and snuck up on him while he waited for us. In his lap he held open a book in English, and tucked into it a smaller book. It was a Khmer-English dictionary. I had a lot of good times meeting people at hostels and going to bars with other travelers, a few of whom have become dear friends. You could easily stay with tour groups, never leave the westernized areas of anywhere you go, and take lots of selfies in incredible places. It brings money to the local economy. It's up to you though. If that's not what you want, getting away from it is as simple as walking 2 blocks in any direction.
- anandrm 6y ago
  "Many Hindus come to die in Varanasi." Sorry this is an exaggeration , very few old people mostly around that region , most of them women abandoned by their family .
  - estreeper 6y ago
    I updated "many" to "tens of thousands", since the word "many" is too subject to interpretation.
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Gatsky 6y ago
I found that going to new places lights up my brain in a way that doesn't happen otherwise. Going somewhere new is something we are supposed to do I think, there is special machinery that turns on. You step off the plane at midnight in Istanbul, or off the ferry in the Lofoten, or off the shinkansen in Kyoto and everything is different... the quality of the light, the weight of the air, how it smells, sounds, tastes... and you realise how much of your conscious experience is rooted in the ineffable features of your environemnt. You can't get this from moving around in the same city or country even. Your brain does a kind of experiential 'etc etc etc' when it gets used to a place. The times of my life when I traveled for long periods are dense with rich, vivid memories, whereas I can't remember if I had breakfast today.
- palavilli 6y ago
  Well said. It feels as if all your senses are fully open and totally engaged in a foreign place, whereas most are sated and asleep back home.
anandrm 6y ago
I think its a matter of taste. I have friends who say what big deal about mountains or beaches ..its the same everywhere.I accept that its their taste , and there nothing to look down upon it. To me every mountain n beach has a beauty to it when you hike them . To me when you travel , there are many aspects which you can experience , the people , the smell , the weather , the noise and chatter on the streets ,the food ( the most important aspect of my travel) . I love to visit offbeat villages and towns , personally that where i experience the feel of travel . These are experiences which IG cannot express
loughnane 6y ago
Related: It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet. I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
jasonkester 6y ago
I suppose one thing I've brought back is the ability to conceive of travel in a way that doesn't involve Instagram pictures and getting led around by the tourist industry for 2 weeks. Reading your post and suggestions, it sounds as though that's something you might not yet posses. I'll admit that I do have quite a few good cocktail stories, but very few of them happened anywhere near a major city or tourist destination. Occasionally you may hear me telling an anecdote about briefly intersecting with the Tourist Industry as they were whisked past the interesting thing I was up to on their way to the next photo op, but for the most part the people on that ride are in fact having the experience you describe. Mostly, the things you take away are experiences so you're also correct that they're not particularly tangible. But they're valuable. But I suppose if we're forced to provide examples, I can report having collected a wife overseas. A girl I certainly wouldn't have met at a salsa class in the 'states, with a mindset similar to mine that had led her to also be halfway around the world from her home for enough months overlapping for me to wear her down and convince her to bring me home with her. (I guess that technically makes me her concrete benefit, but close enough). Give it a try some time (for real, no 2 week package holidays) and I hope you'll find it worthwhile!
meiraleal 6y ago
I interacted with foreigners in a daily basis for the first time and got to learn how to speak english. Next, I found a remote job as a software engineer for an american company and have been travelling the world since then, for 5 years. I multiplied my earnings by 5x while having 10x more fun in life in a common day. That's a lot of personal gains.
- faceless33 6y ago
  Do you work at top company like faang?
  - meiraleal 6y ago
    No, I work for a Inc 500 company as a contractor
gregorymichael 6y ago
I just left a lengthy reply to the parent that addresses this.
socialist_coder 6y ago
The main reason is that by seeing how other countries and other cultures live, it challenges your idea that the Western way is the best (and only) way of living. Why do we need huge houses and big cars and shiny new things? I see people in other countries that are just as happy and their kids are playing with a soccer ball made from old plastic bags. Westerners have so much and yet, really, we're no better off.
roamingryan 6y ago
If I had to list one thing it would be this: People everywhere, regardless of their race, religion, politics, or wealth are generally decent and primarily interested in making a better living for themselves and their family. Some may see this as an obvious fact about human nature. However, for someone like me who grew up viewing the world through the lens of the US media, I used to think otherwise. Travel fundamentally changed my views in this regard.
yowlingcat 6y ago
You're not wrong from a Pareto frontier standpoint. It's certainly the case that many western travelers are engaging in what can pejoratively be called lifestyle consumerism. But I'd caution you against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And in fact, I'd urge you to look backwards in history to see evidence of the value of this kind of cultural exchange. Cultural exchange is not a one time thing, but an ongoing process. Perhaps someone goes to Europe for utterly superficial reasons a couple of times and enjoys it. But maybe the next time they do it, they seek to actually set roots in and assimilate into the culture. Nobody really knows when or where the conversion point is; it's somewhat unique and up to the individual. I'll give you an example from my personal experience -- I didn't really get the hubbub and the point of "traveling to Europe" and had skeptically discarded it as something that Americans do in order to pass off a feeling of vague superiority and worldliness. Even so, it was very challenging for my gruff preconceptions to last very long when I spent a few weeks in Lisbon. My friend and I met some amazing local folks who showed us the Portugal we wouldn't see on the tourist path. I was hooked. My eyes were opened to a "third path" between the grind and hustle of American culture, and the low key daze of bucolic village life. Hitting the dancefloors until 4am paired with spending beautiful afternoons on the waterfront, eating delicious seafood and walking until our feet hurt. It's true that we could do all of this in America, too. But it was just a lot more fun in Lisbon. My eyes were opened to the deep, rich history of cultural exchange with the Moors, and I never got tired of the architecture, the cuisine, and so on. Had I "really" assimilated into the city? Well, not really. I didn't quite have the guts to go all in, but my friend did, and went on to spend the next 6 months there. And then we visited again next year. And maybe we'll buy property there at some point. My point is that it's a little reductionist to reduce an extremely broad human interaction (traveling) into a fixed point. It's a beginning, not an end. Just because so many people never get past the beginning doesn't change the fact that much exists beyond it. Almost every major civilization and empire was born from trade routes that existed to serve this exact kind of exchange. Consider the greater Silk Road for one. It's easy to become cynical about rampant consumerization and the dull, lifeless, almost suburban collapse of what could be such a rich experience into two dimensions and an instagram filter. But that is a loss on the part of the person who lives life that way. It doesn't reduce the potential of the experience itself.
tamiral 6y ago
background: culturally mixed , travelled a lot as a kid(20+ countries), speak more than 3 languages There are many mannerisms of speech that cultures use and you can learn a lot about them by the time/place it is used at. Food: Ceremonies in preparing food + eating (slurping in Asian cultures normal vs western countries its rude). How many cultures share food for example or the type of food they eat can tell you a lot about the history of the place (ie a place that was a hub of trade back in the day that got exposure to tons of cultures (Philippines) vs western food of meat and potatoes). I still go do the top 10 touristy things in a city/country but then always try to find what are the normal breakfast/lunch/dinners in the city/country and try them. Sitting down and observing people at a café or restaurant for example how the Greeks have tables looking towards the street, or how literally the country is all out at night. What we've found is going to a bar and trying to strike some conversations with individuals.
beningrad 6y ago
The things that jump out at me: -Seeing another societal system in practice and realizing that there are things from back home (CA, USA) which I took for granted which actually worked better than anywhere I went. The corollary is things I took for granted that were actually horribly broken and easily done better everywhere else. -If you're gone long enough, coming back to your own culture can actually give you culture shock, which is about as unique an experience as I've had. It is somewhat related to the above. Hard to put this one in to words... kind of a "dancing about architecture" thing. It's a new set of eyes. -Perspective broadening interactions around relative wealth, prosperity, historical inertia, and personal responsibility. It became much more clear to me and much less hypothetical how some poverty is legitimately just lazy people and some poverty is circumstantial. -I'm not ashamed to admit this one even a little: If you managed to extend your comfort zone while traveling, you win dinner party conversations when you return. I climbed big dangerous mountains and traveled to unique place. Nobody cares about the algorithm I worked out on a Thai beach, but everybody wants to know about North Korea. -You develop the skill of being comfortable inside your own skull. Assuming you are traveling alone, there will be lots of time without a stranger to talk to. That's a lot of down time to spend with yourself and really examine your own thoughts. -You develop a self reliance related to not needing a lot. Once you realize you are fine just fine with a book and an afternoon and maybe spending the night sleeping in a park (that the locals say is safe!), the world is less menacing.
lappet 6y ago
I have not traveled the "world", but I have been to a few places. I think I know where you are coming from, but your comment about going to a local city's meetup for a language doesn't make sense. As an adult, immersion is often the best way to pick up a new language. How many Americans who learn Spanish can actually speak it? I also deplore the instagram crowd, but perhaps I am extreme, I rarely take photos. At the end of the day, I believe people are the same everywhere, but they are also different. This dichotomy makes traveling interesting - when you figure out for yourself how a different culture is similar or different than your own.
JackMorgan 6y ago
I grew up in Latin America and and moved to the US for university. I have lived and worked in the US my entire adult life (other than a brief stint as a tour guide in Mexico). I'm very pale, so I was often treated with distain growing up because I was assumed to be a rich tourist. Regularly I would be ripped off and lied to because of my skin color. After working as a tour guide, I realized I hated to be seen as a tourist, because it felt so superficial. Showing people around places I lived in, they missed the most important parts: the people. Then I realized something very important, travel with another person bonds you together in a unique way. Sharing a meal with someone builds a little bit of trust between you, it links you together. Travel with another person is that, but 100x stronger. This is why many people break up while traveling, they get to a new level of intimacy very quickly and realize they can't stand each other, they just didn't really know each other before, but it took travel to actually let them see the other person. Similarly, I met my wife while working as a tour guide. She was a trainee guide, and I was the trainer. Being the only two who spoke the language, we had to rely on each other in very unique ways. When the the whole tour group got sick except for us, we had to take care of them. I got to know this woman in very close proximity and intimacy. We quickly learned that we matched very well together, and 15 years later we still agree getting married was the best decision of our lives. So travel in my mind is much less about seeing new things, but it's all about seeing new things with another person, and bonding with them, either romantically or platonically. Many of my strongest friends were made traveling, because we shared something together.
jrslv 6y ago
When I was a child, everyday so many things were new for me, summer holidays took seemingly forever because there was a small adventure behind every corner. Interactions with people and the nature were very often memorable, instructive, sometimes life-changing. Food was usually some kind of experience, sometimes even frightening. Using different tools and machines for the first time, mindblowing superpowers in my hands. Getting hurt in various ways for the first time. Emotions, learning, surprises, memories, touching and tasting and smelling the wonderful world. That was the childhood. Then the adulthood arrived - a successful one so far. But during the adulthood, days started to went by noticeably faster. I couldn't tell what I had for lunch two days before, how I spent last Monday or how I felt two months ago. And I started to understand why old people say that life unfolds slowly when you're young and then years pass like weeks. I think this happens to many people once they no longer (or rarely) meet the unexpected, try new things, get kissed/hurt/deceived/smiled at/laughed at/gifted/fed/etc/etc in previously unknown ways in different settings. They start making far fewer memories compared to when they were kids. When I started traveling to different countries and cultures, I realised that - at least for me - this is bringing back my childhood wonder and the slow passing of time. I can sit a whole day on a pavement in Cambodia and watch the street, or watch the day in life of a Cuban fisherman, or eat fruit or insect that I have never heard of before, feel and hear the morning around a Buddhist temple, then Hindu temple, Confucian temple, learn scuba-diving and see on my own eyes what we've done to the marine world, or spend a night with my wife on a train station in the middle of nowhere, and it all has a profound impact on who I am as a person, a friend, a partner. I cannot tell exactly who I would be if I have spent these days in the small Czech town where I grew up, of course. After having done some 3 years of traveling (backpacking mostly) I am very likely less bored, less scared of the unknown, more curious and definitely feeling very much more alive and appreciative of what the world and especially the natural world really is. This personal experience cannot be substituted by literature, documentaries or local meetup groups. But I understand that for some people these may be enough. I would rather never come back to live in one place than stop traveling entirely.

openfuture 6y ago

I've been to around 50 countries across 6 continents, hitchhiked tens of thousands of kilometres and never have I even taken a single picture. These experiences are not for others, they are for yourself and they give you the capacity to understand stories and circumstances that otherwise would be foreign to you.

killtimeatwork 6y ago
I take pictures (but relatively few - maybe a couple times in a week-long trip) just to look at them in the future - they're great for bringing out memories of a certain place, situation in life etc.
- supernovae 6y ago
  I take lots of photos, but mostly as part of the experience not being the experience. I'm not gonna waste time setting up for selfies or clearing out people to get a group photo or any nonsense like that - most of my pictures will never have me in it - but they're photos that show my take on the history, culture, scenery and beauty of the area that i'm experiencing and I love to share that with friends/family people who may not be able to do it. I travel for curiosity - so photography helps me capture it in a way that i can go back and study the history, find other photos, see how its changed, connect the dots, fill in timelines - learn more and discover more that i may not have been able to do with being consumed in being there in the moment. The only selfie i ever took was me standing on top of a 14er... which was a huge accomplishment for me at the time but i never share that with anyone but my family - otherwise they'd never believe it :) never understood the fascination with NOT taking photos but also i've never understood those who take photos to make them the center of attention either (the instagrammers)
nonninz 6y ago
Do you keep a journal though?

cornzz 6y ago

Nobody is talking about quitting their job to travel for 2 weeks. This is about months or years of travel.

keiferski 6y ago

You have a very stereotypical view of what "traveling the world" is, so it's not surprising that you're dismissive. > If you want to immersed into a culture, wouldn't you want to commit to learning the language and go to your local city's meetup for that language - instead of going to a foreign country with a phrasebook. Meet-ups are not even remotely comparable to actually being there. This is especially true for non-Western countries that haven't been permeated by Starbucks/McDonalds global American culture. The idea that Google Street View and a Wikipedia article can replace real life is absolutely absurd. Personally, it would take books to write about how living abroad has concretely impacted my life. I don't even know where to start. It has exposed me to ideas and places that I previously had zero knowledge of. I'll summarize by saying the trajectory of my life has been shifted dramatically by traveling, and this is obvious when I compare myself to the people I grew up around.

noname123 6y ago
So far in some of the comments. I've gotten the same answer, "it changed my life!"; "I heard some new stories from the countries I stayed and it changed my perspective!"; "and I'm different from people back home now!"; and a subtle swipe that OP is dismissive and maybe "small-minded"; and I love it and appreciate your guys feedback! Allow me to share my experience of being immersed in American culture for 25 years as a Chinese immigrant. It may seem off-topic but if you guys'll bear with me - I have also a lot of Chinese friends, some of whom are graduate students who even stay in US for several years. To them, experiencing America means going to an "American party", maybe go clubbing, going to the Yellowstone Nat'l park, the gun range or the Burning man, and most of all - making an American friend or the ultimate pinnacle getting an American boyfriend or girlfriend! I hope y'all agree with me that American spirit is not encapsulated in just getting an American boyfriend or going to Burning Man! But are my Chinese friends' self-centered efforts to (understandably) efforts to "become more confident", "self-reliant", get "exposed to ideas and places [they] had zero experiences in"; so that when they go back to China and compare themselves to Chinese compatriots, it's "obvious that [their] trajectory has changed compared to other [plebeian folks] back home". Just my humble opinions, most human beings have remarkably similar values across different culture, we all want paradoxically to belong to the herd and also distinguish ourselves from the herd. And yet 25 years of living in America, I've been so self-centered at my own "culture refinement" all this time that I rarely and truly listened to others around me and their experiences.

Hadriel 6y ago

Traveled around south america for 2 years. 1 year backpacking thru hostels with 3 months in bolivia studying spanish then one year volunteering as an english teacher.

noname123 6y ago
I'd love to have gone that immersion experience of learning Spanish; and use that language skill to practice and go full circle to be an ESOL teacher (was an ESOL volunteer teacher too)!

q-base 6y ago

You do not seem like you want to change your mind - and that is fine. If you are doing a cost/benefit analysis, then you are doing it wrong. You mock western consumerism but radiate tells of "western overoptimization" attacking everything as a task that can be broken down to individual parts, prioritized and optimized. That is in my opinion a very reductionist way to go about your life. Traveling the world can open your eyes to other ways of living a life. It can teach you something about yourself if you are open to it. It can teach you to be more confident and self-reliant. You will likely dismiss this and if I wrote long explanations of what I learned myself you would come up with faster, better or more "local" ways to get the same outcome - and that is fine. You do you. Then I do me.

noname123 6y ago
Thanks for your critique! Your "over-optimization" comment (vs. presumably being more spontaneous and improvising as your travel or just in everyday life) is very valid. I will say that my original feeling is not even "squeezing the most out of the paste-tube" or "maximizing profits" of some objective - it's more about commitment, whether be a subject or to people. Travel to me is like watching TED talks of experienced professors or artists in their field - it makes me feel very smart for 15 minutes listening; but in no way skilled nor committed as a practitioner of that field who dedicate time to their craft everyday over years.
- michaelnik 6y ago
  There are tangible benefits to world trip "optimization". We started planning our 1 year, 14-country trip, 1 year in advance. There are places (some national parks, certain hiking trails) where you need to make reservation well in advance. It also allows being in countries in their cool, dry or bloom season. Finally, it allows lower budget for the trip as you can reduce travel time..
michaelnik 6y ago
There are tangible benefits to world trip "optimization". We started planning our 1 year, 14-country trip, 1 year in advance. There are places (some national parks, certain hiking trails) where you need to make reservation well in advance. It also allows being in countries in their cool, dry or bloom season. Finally, it allows lower budget for the trip as you can reduce travel time..

dejv 6y ago

It taught me that it is ok to not be high on career/income ladder and there many niches outside tech that are worth to be living in and you can easily carve some for yourself.

noname123 6y ago
Thanks for answering! I hope to find that niche (that's outside tech) one day too!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ericmcer 6y ago

I find travel/experiences is a terrible way to make yourself a more interesting person. Some people can tell a story about a drunken brawl in a foreign country and make it boring. Another person can describe getting coffee in the morning and leave people hanging on their every word.

noname123 6y ago
This. When people talk about break-ups, you learn something about human nature like people's different attachment styles and each person's unique emotional vulnerabilities and their resilience in spite of it. When people talk about their careers and work stories and when you really listen, you learn about what people truly value (getting money vs. an academic pursuit, integrity vs. personal expediency); with travel stories, there is no character arc, more like a pastiche, a camera pan of the landscape they traveled to.
- ungamedplayer 6y ago
  Maybe in this case, you could learn what they considered beauty.
hayst4ck 6y ago
This is so true. There is no preparation for how little people care about your travel experiences.
blago 6y ago
> I find travel/experiences is a terrible way to make yourself a more interesting person. Maybe this is not to point of travel :-)

tayo42 6y ago

> I've never get beyond this superficial in hearing people's travel stories online and IRL. I think most people aren't very articulate, they cant express their experiences well. Or maybe don't self reflect well. But anything you experience will leave an effect on you. Food, locations and just getting dropped into to situations you wouldn't normally be in are the biggest things about traveling. There's a lot of little things that can leave an impact. Some things are just seeing how similar people around the world really are too. I've discovered a lot of new food and learned about food from traveling. A cookbook, youtube and imported ingredients aren't quite the same.(I saw in your other post your a chinese immigrant, do you think I could claim to know about chinese food without visting and eating in china?) I took one off cooking classes in kyoto, bali and morroco and learned a lot about the culture and what i learned left a lasting effect on me. I found I really like indonesian food, mie goreng is a regular weeknight dinner for me now. There is a lot to write i think what I gained from travel,probabaly to much for a forum post. One other thing i want to mention is seeing nature is impactful. Going to the carribean and seeing dead coral reefs really drives home the damage humans are doing to this planet. You probably won't see that in your suburb, or realize it in a city.

noname123 6y ago
>I found I really like indonesian food, mie goreng is a regular weeknight dinner for me now. That's awesome. You've inspired me to look up some recipes and try to attempt it (keyword: attempt). > One other thing i want to mention is seeing nature is impactful. Going to the carribean and seeing dead coral reefs really drives home the damage humans are doing to this planet. I hear what you're trying to communicate; sometimes experiences are more powerful than its equivalent wiki or statistical infographics format; somethings are meant to be experienced, not a pre-conceived notion transmitted and interpreted secondhand in a book or a documentary or online post.

randomsearch 6y ago

Firstly: agree that there are some aspects of travelling that will be looked down upon in the future, particularly exploiting the difference in the cost of living. But travelling was massively beneficial for me. I'll focus on the biggest trip, which was a year backpacking. > what you guys who traveled actually gained from traveling the world? * I worked and rented in another country. So I had to work out how to do that, and work in a different type of business environment. * Developed key life skills: organising things, budgeting extremely tightly, Coped with emergencies abroad. * Building confidence. For example, driving all kinds of vehicle, learning to speak to and bond with anyone at all from a cold start. * Staying with families in different countries and seeing how they lived, how they treated their kids, and their priorities. This was very formative in deciding how to live my life. * Understanding the politics of the world better. I spent time with a guy from the Economist who had just spent months sleeping rough in India. I still think about his insights into the way the world works. I played cards with a relative of the president of fiji. Etc. * Understanding the history of the world better - for example, the origins of the industrial revolution in the USA, or the Ho Chi Minh tunnels, or the fate of aboriginal people in Australia. * Physical fitness. Learnt to scuba dive, climbed mountains, rock climbed, hiked a gazillion miles, hell just carrying 25kg for the year was a good workout. Some of this could have been done in my own country, but it would have been very different. * Removing stress and having space. After a while the stresses of travelling become fairly routine and you have a lot of time to relax on journeys and think about what you want to do with your life. That really shaped how I've lived since. Just sitting in a bus on a long road in a very different country you can watch how people live and it gets you thinking. How close are their families? Do I want to live like that? How do informal networks replace more structured western timetables etc. * Gratitude. Live with a cold bucket of water for a shower for a while. Sleep in a hut full of rats. You'll soon learn to appreciate that hot shower in your bathroom and the comfy bed. Honestly, even now there are few days I forget to appreciate that shower when I step into it. And this trip was over 10 years ago. * A very Hacker News point for me: I found I really missed computers. I didn't think I'd be a geek for the rest of my life but after that trip I realised how much I just like machines. Being in a different environment brought that into sharp focus, being deprived of it then (as a real example) coming across a Linux box in a hut somewhere. They're so neat and tidy and orderly and enabling, you can be endlessly creative. I only had a burner phone (and that was only for a part of the year) and this was the era of internet cafes, so no nerding for a year. * Spending quite a while in one place, indeed learning a bit of the language, reading about the culture, and then through local contacts really experiencing ceremonies that were pretty out there by western standards. It helped me understand the diversity of the world, where different cultures were at, and the size of cultural boundaries. * Friends. Met a lot of travellers. I did hardly any of the "party" backpacking thing but I met people on the way, and one couple I met have become life long friends. * Seeing the extent of human suffering in the world. I'm not sure I want to say too much about this, but it really hammers home the message - we have a long way to go, and there are many problems to devote your life to. * Understanding a lot about the universality of the human condition by seeing the same patterns in different places. For example, social drug taking. * Finding "paradise" in several places, which shall remain nameless, and having that experience of dozing in a hammock on a beautiful beach that isn't on a tourist brochure. It was a beautiful experience but it also made it clear to me that just enjoying life was not enough for me. Have to build something.

bambataa 6y ago

You are largely right. Western ideas of tourism feed off this idea "I'm a traveller, everyone else is a tourist sheep." Asian tourists generally don't seem to have the same pretensions and are happy getting coached around. Walking around busy temples and stuff can be pretty hard because people don't want anyone else in their photo. It has to look like they just chanced upon this ancient temple in the jungle, rather than getting a minibus there with 20 other people. Sometimes the more savvy local tour companies cotton on to this and market to "travellers", but I liked it when locals just called us all "tourists" because that's really what we are. Yes, it's another form of consumerism. I spent a year backpacking and it was mostly seeing cool places. I don't think it really changed me, but then I have worked and studied abroad before (there I go, pointing out how I'm not like the others!!). Considering those experiences too, I think there are two main things you're missing: 1) People who genuinely find hostel slogans like "live at the edge of your existence" deeply inspirational are probably late teens/early 20s and so for them it's all wrapped up in being independent, moving out of their childhood home, experimenting etc. Possibly the first time they've been out of their home culture and so even standard, Western backpacker hostels is a big jump. 2) A lot of people really find scary and challenging things you might be more comfortable with. Lots of people live within a few miles of where they grew up. If they go abroad, it's a package holiday on a resort full of people from their home country. Maybe a city break to be adventurous. Even though backpacking in SE Asia etc is heavily commodified, it's still a pretty small fraction of people who would even consider it.

noname123 6y ago
Thank you for your thoughtful response! I think there's 100% value for people in their 20's to take any opportunity to meet new people, go on an adventure and force yourself into (and learn from) uncomfortable and fun situations! I wish that we could keep and activate this wanderlust, open-ness and spontaneity regardless of what context we're in (why I posed the question, what perspectives people gained from their travel?). I know I had this hold over me, like I'd only enjoy a certain "couples activities" like ice skating, trying out new restaurants or paint nite - based on the context of going on a date. Which when I thought about it is super ridiculous, why can't I enjoy these things if I was going by myself??? Or put in another way, why can't we see our local city and people in our local community with the same freshness, open-ness and kindness as we'd if we were tourists or backpackers traveling in a distant land?

megablast 6y ago

But you don’t know what you want to do, until you experience it. And you experience so many new activities when travelling. Like food. There is so much good in different countries that you will not get at a dozen restaurants of the same country. People actually treat you differently if your travelling in their country. They are a lot nicer to you, and want to show you around, and include the unique parts of their culture.

Kiro 6y ago

It taught me that I never want to leave my home again. I'm happiest sitting in front of my computer. Feels good to have "been there, done that" so I don't need to worry about what-ifs.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
That's funny, I kind of feel the same way. I've been lucky enough to travel internationally and domestically a fair bit and yeah it's pretty cool, but I truly enjoy being at home coding things, learning things and experimenting with stuff.
- seppin 6y ago
  Traveling is not about finding a new, better place. It's about appreciating where you are now.
Havoc 6y ago
This in part is why I don’t mind travelling alone. Everything happens on my terms

Grustaf 6y ago

> Maybe it's just me; but the idea of going from one place to another for 2 weeks, to take pictures and get led around by locals tourist industry is the very definition of Western Consumerism. If you're travelling like this, you're doing it wrong. Stay much longer, not with foreigners, learn the language, get a basic job. Live like an immigrant, not a tourist, and definitely not like an American tourist.

ehershey 6y ago
To each their own. They’re just different forms of travel.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  What exactly is the point of travelling like a stereotypical American tourist? No adventure, no challenges to overcome, no learning. Just to be able to say you've "seen Florence"?

Cro_on 6y ago

It is absolutely worthwhile doing any of the immersion techniques you mentioned. Volunteer work would probably be the most important thing that you're missing. And I don't mean 'gap year help build a library' kind of volunteering, that stuff is implicitly pre-college, instagram stories and expat heavy. I mean exchanging a few hours of light work for bed and board (the language exchange is free). You can be pretty picky in most countries with sites like workaway or helpx, and probably find a little family to hole up with and do work remotely. And yes, you will find (single) people of all ages doing this. EDIT: i see I'm supposed to say how traveling changed my life personally. pretty simple if you are me because studying language is my favourite hobby, and, as an amateur linguist, it is essential for my life satisfaction to immerse in something new every couple of years.

vmception 6y ago

I’ve gained perspective that I can get into important rooms because of my background, easier than I can in my own country. It makes considering to fight for inclusion in my home country seem to be a waste of my life and that I can choose causes to spend energy on without feeling like I was neglecting an obligation to my gender or heritage or race/ethnicity. I’ve gained perspective that there are a mixture of political systems in countries that have redeeming benefits and seem more advanced than my home country. This tells me that I don't have to subscribe to the limiting choices presented to me, by people in my home country. Or perhaps that there might be an opportunity to inspire the people in the future. I’ve gained in depth knowledge of obscure regulations in obscure autonomous regions that I find useful. I’ve gained perspective that I can be seen as more desirable in some places for dating, hook ups, I can be accepted by families readily as an individual. In my home country, the go-to is to make this as awkward as possible, and it has been nice and endearing to understand how and why this isn’t the experience everywhere. It helps me really resonate with the concept of going where you are treated the best, and building a life where that is possible. This has been a overwriting of the indoctrination of tying my identity to my national, even its currency, which is now absurd to me.

noname123 6y ago
Thank you for your honest and personal answers! As an Asian guy living in America and reading between the lines re: your xp dating and how different cultures treat you, I can relate to a lot what you're saying. >It helps me really resonate with the concept of going where you are treated the best, and building a life where that is possible. Maybe it's me becoming institutionalized and just used to this by now in America lol; but I have a different perspective on this, oppression is universal (Puritans, Germans, Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews in 1700-1800's) and creativity is driven by constraints (blues/jazz was born on plantations, Cosa Nostras arose out of Italian Americans being shut of WASP society, the humor/hutzpah in spite of overt and covert anti-semitism is seen in Mel Brooks movies).
- vmception 6y ago
  oppression towards you is not universal, and the constraints you refer to don’t have to be oppression based there are plenty of art forms and styles born from privilege but are you an artist? Is this diamond forging pressure even beneficial to you? to me, I am long past the idea of trying to proselytize or debate about how an advantage in another society could or couldn't work in a much larger less homogenous society, and can simply see how I can choose which one I want to be in when I want to be in it

neebz 6y ago

Personally I learnt to be less judgmental of people. From media you compartmentalize everyone into neat little boxes to make sense of the world. We find other people's values ridiculous when we hear/read about it but only when we go and live with them we find out it makes sense. It may be wrong but it makes sense. And there is a good chance if you were brought up in that same society you may have had the same behavior. I've learned to empathize only when I experienced this first hand.

blago 6y ago

0. Experience joy. If you haven't you won't get it. The same kind of awe and joy you might have experienced the first time a compiler you wrote finishes without errors and you are able to run the executable. 1. I'd like to think it made me less intense and easier to work with at my (remote) job 2. I became more extroverted 3. I've embraced extreme uncertainty and became much more flexible and creative. Pivoting in life doesn't scare me. I thrive when things are in flux and I have to improvise. 4. It helped me discover my passion for street photography 5. I met amazing people and created a circle of friends 6. I met my wife 7. The pandemic has been a non-event for me 8. I have not experienced winter in 10 years 9. Amazing food. Nothing wrong with food in the US but it's not as good as most people think, especially if you are poor. Unless you live in NYC and you can afford it. 10. When I woke up pre-pandemic on Sat morning I had 100 postcard-worthy places to choose from that most people only dream about visiting in their lifetime. All within a one or two hour flight radius. When most people contemplate driving 4 hours up north to a state park, I was debating if Hong Kong or Bali are worth the extra hours of flight only for the weekend. To sum it all up, if the thought of getting drunk with random non-English speaking people in a small bar in Tokyo you stumbled upon, or going astray and walking though a field in Myanmar to take you to a small village with no roads and interacting with the people there who are wearing traditional clothing doesn't excite you, than you won't get it. But that's ok, we all enjoy different things.

eertami 6y ago
>I have not experienced winter in 10 years As someone who travels in order to get more winter, not less, I don't see this one as a benefit! But the rest makes sense.
- cddotdotslash 6y ago
  Well, just rephrase it > I have not experienced summer in 10 years That sounds depressing though.
- blago 6y ago
  Haha, like I said - to each their own. To be honest I'm starting to miss winter a little bit too.

ggregoire 6y ago

I thought like you in my early 20s. I remember thinking that travelling was a waste of money. Until my first travel. I visited New York and it completely blew my mind. That was almost 10 years ago and I can still remember the first time I got out of the subway, I was speechless. Sure it looked like all the movies I had seen but being actually there and feeling the life in that city was such a mind blowing experience. It was also my first time in the US. At the end I don't think I really "gained" anything from it, but it allowed me to experience a place that was so different from where I lived all my life. Obviously each city is a different experience. I visited San Francisco and it was kinda meh. I visited Tokyo and it was dope. You can't really know until you actually go over there. :)

Xcelerate 6y ago
> I visited New York and it completely blew my mind. [...] I visited San Francisco and it was kinda meh. Haha, my experience was the exact opposite of yours. The first time I visited NYC, I thought it felt dystopian and was glad to leave. Easily the least favorite city I have visited. But my first time visiting the west coast was intoxicating. Growing up I lived in a few different states in the southeastern U.S. and even lived in Paris, France for three years. I traveled Europe extensively both as a child and in my late teens and thought some places were interesting and nice to visit, but the first time I arrived in the Bay Area I thought "What is this place?! I have to move here." I had traveled there for a Hackathon in 2010, and the first place I visited after leaving the airport was Palo Alto. It just blew my mind to see sunny weather, blue skies, trees with leaves, and green grass in December. And once I saw San Francisco, I was hooked. The beautiful terrain just captivated me. There were giant cliffs, ocean views, rolling hills, and interesting plants everywhere. Plus, I really missed the walkable cities in Europe. My wife and I just moved away from the Bay Area in October after living there for almost three years to be closer to family, but I miss it everyday and hope to go back at some point. I miss the food and tech scene (although I still have my same job, remotely now), but I think what really captivated me is the climate and terrain. It's just otherworldly compared to what I was used to in the southeast. > I visited Tokyo and it was dope Tokyo seems like somewhere that I would really enjoy living, culture-wise (although my impression is that the climate is pretty similar to where I grew up). Hoping to visit after the pandemic. Any tips on where to go? More interested in unique local experiences and maybe taking trains to some other cities than tourist attractions.

hayst4ck 6y ago

Of everything I learned and experienced in traveling one thing stands out above all the others: "self improvement is the primary good in your life" Traveling involves a lot of hedonism, and one day while traveling you suddenly realize you are on a hedonic treadmill. The first amazing meal you eat is life changing. The second one is about 50% as novel and good as that. Then you're comparing the next meal to 2 others, and the meal after that to 3 others... The cycle continues until you have consumed the earth and achieved emptiness. What remains is yourself. Once there is nothing left to consume to satisfy yourself you really have to ask whats next. The answer is building, and probably building yourself. The lessons I learned about myself were some of the most hard: - I understood escapism is not the answer - I got a realistic set of priorities for my life - I challenged and surprised myself socially - I learned what really matters and what doesn't More explicit examples of things I appreciate from having traveled: - Someone broke down to me why china is the way it is from an informed and educated position in a way I found mostly compelling - Visiting Shenzhen made me afraid for America - I experienced Hong Kong before china destroyed it. - I watched history in real time (NK trump, HK, covid) - I saw a Chinese person shrink to 1/4 their size when a conversation got political - I see video of foreign countries and I see streets I have literally walked on - I experienced being a guest in multiple different cultures and was culture shocked to my core. - I saw the insides of homes and buildings in different cultures as well as the different ways things were constructed - I experienced the inhumanity that poverty causes - I experienced real life poverty and actual real happening today slavery - I have seen the costs of not having rule of law - I have seen pollution on the scale you cannot even imagine until you experience it - I experienced my own privilege in very visceral ways - I have experienced cultures without workers rights and its effects - I have experienced multiple civil protests in other countries - I have seen what its like to be in a functioning democracy - I have been in a country where the voting system makes sense - I have been around police officers that made me feel more safe instead of less safe - I have made multiple friends I still talk to - I almost fell in love - I visited a major holy site and saw religion being practiced in a way I never had before. - I have seen cultures in decline and cultures on the rise and how the people in them act and function - I experienced being in cities older than my country - I met people from parts of the world I wasn't aware of, with histories I'd never heard of - I saw foreign propaganda first hand - I found ways of life I liked better (and not) than what I grew up in - I saw both how good things can be and how bad things can be - I experienced pro-diversity cultures and anti-diversity cultures and their effects - I was exposed to multiple different non conventional ways of life - I have several outstanding invites and opportunities to visit people I have met who were also traveling. - I saved one person's life with some first aid - I learned several new skills

estreeper 6y ago

I spent 3.5 months backpacking in India and Southeast Asia. I saw incredible places and stood in a hundred postcards. For me though, people are what had the most impact. Tens of thousands of Hindus come to die in Varanasi each year. If you die and are cremated there, you are freed from the cycle of rebirth and can attain salvation. I stood with an Indian friend on the edge of tears as I watched them burn the dead. He asked me why I was sad, and I told him I was sad for the dead. He said do not be sad, this is the way they wanted to die. We were warned never to get a train ticket on Indian Railways below 2nd class. It wasn't safe. There were only enough 2nd class tickets for my friends, so I went to 3rd class alone, in the middle of the night, and went to sleep in a top bunk, the warnings echoing in my mind. When I awoke my 5 neighbors were speaking softly to each other. They shared food with me they had brought from their homes. We showed each other where we had come from and pictures of our families. I didn't speak the same language. Cambodia had 25% of its people starved or murdered less than a decade before I was born: Year Zero. Anyone educated was the first to go. We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the temples around Siem Reap. He was the son of farmers. At one temple we came out the entrance and snuck up on him while he waited for us. In his lap he held open a book in English, and tucked into it a smaller book. It was a Khmer-English dictionary. I had a lot of good times meeting people at hostels and going to bars with other travelers, a few of whom have become dear friends. You could easily stay with tour groups, never leave the westernized areas of anywhere you go, and take lots of selfies in incredible places. It brings money to the local economy. It's up to you though. If that's not what you want, getting away from it is as simple as walking 2 blocks in any direction.

anandrm 6y ago
"Many Hindus come to die in Varanasi." Sorry this is an exaggeration , very few old people mostly around that region , most of them women abandoned by their family .
- estreeper 6y ago
  I updated "many" to "tens of thousands", since the word "many" is too subject to interpretation.
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Gatsky 6y ago

I found that going to new places lights up my brain in a way that doesn't happen otherwise. Going somewhere new is something we are supposed to do I think, there is special machinery that turns on. You step off the plane at midnight in Istanbul, or off the ferry in the Lofoten, or off the shinkansen in Kyoto and everything is different... the quality of the light, the weight of the air, how it smells, sounds, tastes... and you realise how much of your conscious experience is rooted in the ineffable features of your environemnt. You can't get this from moving around in the same city or country even. Your brain does a kind of experiential 'etc etc etc' when it gets used to a place. The times of my life when I traveled for long periods are dense with rich, vivid memories, whereas I can't remember if I had breakfast today.

palavilli 6y ago
Well said. It feels as if all your senses are fully open and totally engaged in a foreign place, whereas most are sated and asleep back home.

anandrm 6y ago

I think its a matter of taste. I have friends who say what big deal about mountains or beaches ..its the same everywhere.I accept that its their taste , and there nothing to look down upon it. To me every mountain n beach has a beauty to it when you hike them . To me when you travel , there are many aspects which you can experience , the people , the smell , the weather , the noise and chatter on the streets ,the food ( the most important aspect of my travel) . I love to visit offbeat villages and towns , personally that where i experience the feel of travel . These are experiences which IG cannot express

loughnane 6y ago

Related: It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet. I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

jasonkester 6y ago

I suppose one thing I've brought back is the ability to conceive of travel in a way that doesn't involve Instagram pictures and getting led around by the tourist industry for 2 weeks. Reading your post and suggestions, it sounds as though that's something you might not yet posses. I'll admit that I do have quite a few good cocktail stories, but very few of them happened anywhere near a major city or tourist destination. Occasionally you may hear me telling an anecdote about briefly intersecting with the Tourist Industry as they were whisked past the interesting thing I was up to on their way to the next photo op, but for the most part the people on that ride are in fact having the experience you describe. Mostly, the things you take away are experiences so you're also correct that they're not particularly tangible. But they're valuable. But I suppose if we're forced to provide examples, I can report having collected a wife overseas. A girl I certainly wouldn't have met at a salsa class in the 'states, with a mindset similar to mine that had led her to also be halfway around the world from her home for enough months overlapping for me to wear her down and convince her to bring me home with her. (I guess that technically makes me her concrete benefit, but close enough). Give it a try some time (for real, no 2 week package holidays) and I hope you'll find it worthwhile!

meiraleal 6y ago

I interacted with foreigners in a daily basis for the first time and got to learn how to speak english. Next, I found a remote job as a software engineer for an american company and have been travelling the world since then, for 5 years. I multiplied my earnings by 5x while having 10x more fun in life in a common day. That's a lot of personal gains.

faceless33 6y ago
Do you work at top company like faang?
- meiraleal 6y ago
  No, I work for a Inc 500 company as a contractor

gregorymichael 6y ago

I just left a lengthy reply to the parent that addresses this.

socialist_coder 6y ago

The main reason is that by seeing how other countries and other cultures live, it challenges your idea that the Western way is the best (and only) way of living. Why do we need huge houses and big cars and shiny new things? I see people in other countries that are just as happy and their kids are playing with a soccer ball made from old plastic bags. Westerners have so much and yet, really, we're no better off.

roamingryan 6y ago

If I had to list one thing it would be this: People everywhere, regardless of their race, religion, politics, or wealth are generally decent and primarily interested in making a better living for themselves and their family. Some may see this as an obvious fact about human nature. However, for someone like me who grew up viewing the world through the lens of the US media, I used to think otherwise. Travel fundamentally changed my views in this regard.

yowlingcat 6y ago

You're not wrong from a Pareto frontier standpoint. It's certainly the case that many western travelers are engaging in what can pejoratively be called lifestyle consumerism. But I'd caution you against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And in fact, I'd urge you to look backwards in history to see evidence of the value of this kind of cultural exchange. Cultural exchange is not a one time thing, but an ongoing process. Perhaps someone goes to Europe for utterly superficial reasons a couple of times and enjoys it. But maybe the next time they do it, they seek to actually set roots in and assimilate into the culture. Nobody really knows when or where the conversion point is; it's somewhat unique and up to the individual. I'll give you an example from my personal experience -- I didn't really get the hubbub and the point of "traveling to Europe" and had skeptically discarded it as something that Americans do in order to pass off a feeling of vague superiority and worldliness. Even so, it was very challenging for my gruff preconceptions to last very long when I spent a few weeks in Lisbon. My friend and I met some amazing local folks who showed us the Portugal we wouldn't see on the tourist path. I was hooked. My eyes were opened to a "third path" between the grind and hustle of American culture, and the low key daze of bucolic village life. Hitting the dancefloors until 4am paired with spending beautiful afternoons on the waterfront, eating delicious seafood and walking until our feet hurt. It's true that we could do all of this in America, too. But it was just a lot more fun in Lisbon. My eyes were opened to the deep, rich history of cultural exchange with the Moors, and I never got tired of the architecture, the cuisine, and so on. Had I "really" assimilated into the city? Well, not really. I didn't quite have the guts to go all in, but my friend did, and went on to spend the next 6 months there. And then we visited again next year. And maybe we'll buy property there at some point. My point is that it's a little reductionist to reduce an extremely broad human interaction (traveling) into a fixed point. It's a beginning, not an end. Just because so many people never get past the beginning doesn't change the fact that much exists beyond it. Almost every major civilization and empire was born from trade routes that existed to serve this exact kind of exchange. Consider the greater Silk Road for one. It's easy to become cynical about rampant consumerization and the dull, lifeless, almost suburban collapse of what could be such a rich experience into two dimensions and an instagram filter. But that is a loss on the part of the person who lives life that way. It doesn't reduce the potential of the experience itself.

tamiral 6y ago

background: culturally mixed , travelled a lot as a kid(20+ countries), speak more than 3 languages There are many mannerisms of speech that cultures use and you can learn a lot about them by the time/place it is used at. Food: Ceremonies in preparing food + eating (slurping in Asian cultures normal vs western countries its rude). How many cultures share food for example or the type of food they eat can tell you a lot about the history of the place (ie a place that was a hub of trade back in the day that got exposure to tons of cultures (Philippines) vs western food of meat and potatoes). I still go do the top 10 touristy things in a city/country but then always try to find what are the normal breakfast/lunch/dinners in the city/country and try them. Sitting down and observing people at a café or restaurant for example how the Greeks have tables looking towards the street, or how literally the country is all out at night. What we've found is going to a bar and trying to strike some conversations with individuals.

beningrad 6y ago

The things that jump out at me: -Seeing another societal system in practice and realizing that there are things from back home (CA, USA) which I took for granted which actually worked better than anywhere I went. The corollary is things I took for granted that were actually horribly broken and easily done better everywhere else. -If you're gone long enough, coming back to your own culture can actually give you culture shock, which is about as unique an experience as I've had. It is somewhat related to the above. Hard to put this one in to words... kind of a "dancing about architecture" thing. It's a new set of eyes. -Perspective broadening interactions around relative wealth, prosperity, historical inertia, and personal responsibility. It became much more clear to me and much less hypothetical how some poverty is legitimately just lazy people and some poverty is circumstantial. -I'm not ashamed to admit this one even a little: If you managed to extend your comfort zone while traveling, you win dinner party conversations when you return. I climbed big dangerous mountains and traveled to unique place. Nobody cares about the algorithm I worked out on a Thai beach, but everybody wants to know about North Korea. -You develop the skill of being comfortable inside your own skull. Assuming you are traveling alone, there will be lots of time without a stranger to talk to. That's a lot of down time to spend with yourself and really examine your own thoughts. -You develop a self reliance related to not needing a lot. Once you realize you are fine just fine with a book and an afternoon and maybe spending the night sleeping in a park (that the locals say is safe!), the world is less menacing.

lappet 6y ago

I have not traveled the "world", but I have been to a few places. I think I know where you are coming from, but your comment about going to a local city's meetup for a language doesn't make sense. As an adult, immersion is often the best way to pick up a new language. How many Americans who learn Spanish can actually speak it? I also deplore the instagram crowd, but perhaps I am extreme, I rarely take photos. At the end of the day, I believe people are the same everywhere, but they are also different. This dichotomy makes traveling interesting - when you figure out for yourself how a different culture is similar or different than your own.

JackMorgan 6y ago

I grew up in Latin America and and moved to the US for university. I have lived and worked in the US my entire adult life (other than a brief stint as a tour guide in Mexico). I'm very pale, so I was often treated with distain growing up because I was assumed to be a rich tourist. Regularly I would be ripped off and lied to because of my skin color. After working as a tour guide, I realized I hated to be seen as a tourist, because it felt so superficial. Showing people around places I lived in, they missed the most important parts: the people. Then I realized something very important, travel with another person bonds you together in a unique way. Sharing a meal with someone builds a little bit of trust between you, it links you together. Travel with another person is that, but 100x stronger. This is why many people break up while traveling, they get to a new level of intimacy very quickly and realize they can't stand each other, they just didn't really know each other before, but it took travel to actually let them see the other person. Similarly, I met my wife while working as a tour guide. She was a trainee guide, and I was the trainer. Being the only two who spoke the language, we had to rely on each other in very unique ways. When the the whole tour group got sick except for us, we had to take care of them. I got to know this woman in very close proximity and intimacy. We quickly learned that we matched very well together, and 15 years later we still agree getting married was the best decision of our lives. So travel in my mind is much less about seeing new things, but it's all about seeing new things with another person, and bonding with them, either romantically or platonically. Many of my strongest friends were made traveling, because we shared something together.

jrslv 6y ago

When I was a child, everyday so many things were new for me, summer holidays took seemingly forever because there was a small adventure behind every corner. Interactions with people and the nature were very often memorable, instructive, sometimes life-changing. Food was usually some kind of experience, sometimes even frightening. Using different tools and machines for the first time, mindblowing superpowers in my hands. Getting hurt in various ways for the first time. Emotions, learning, surprises, memories, touching and tasting and smelling the wonderful world. That was the childhood. Then the adulthood arrived - a successful one so far. But during the adulthood, days started to went by noticeably faster. I couldn't tell what I had for lunch two days before, how I spent last Monday or how I felt two months ago. And I started to understand why old people say that life unfolds slowly when you're young and then years pass like weeks. I think this happens to many people once they no longer (or rarely) meet the unexpected, try new things, get kissed/hurt/deceived/smiled at/laughed at/gifted/fed/etc/etc in previously unknown ways in different settings. They start making far fewer memories compared to when they were kids. When I started traveling to different countries and cultures, I realised that - at least for me - this is bringing back my childhood wonder and the slow passing of time. I can sit a whole day on a pavement in Cambodia and watch the street, or watch the day in life of a Cuban fisherman, or eat fruit or insect that I have never heard of before, feel and hear the morning around a Buddhist temple, then Hindu temple, Confucian temple, learn scuba-diving and see on my own eyes what we've done to the marine world, or spend a night with my wife on a train station in the middle of nowhere, and it all has a profound impact on who I am as a person, a friend, a partner. I cannot tell exactly who I would be if I have spent these days in the small Czech town where I grew up, of course. After having done some 3 years of traveling (backpacking mostly) I am very likely less bored, less scared of the unknown, more curious and definitely feeling very much more alive and appreciative of what the world and especially the natural world really is. This personal experience cannot be substituted by literature, documentaries or local meetup groups. But I understand that for some people these may be enough. I would rather never come back to live in one place than stop traveling entirely.