Ask Lemmy

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

When I was more active on dating sites in my 20s, I encountered a lot of people who held up travel as this big, important thing in their lives. I recall at least one profile where a guy said, "Love of travel is a must."

At first, I was annoyed - travel takes money and time, which I don't have. Why limit potential dates in that way?

But then I realized, maybe that's the point? Someone with the leisure time and spending money can easily filter dates to just those in their socio-economic status by making frequent recreational travel a requirement. My poor ass never had a chance.

Thank you for this post. I’ve never been a fan of traveling, but do enjoy day trips. I love how I have everything setup at my home and always want to retire there at the end of the day. Nothing is better or more comfortable than my custom setup, especially since traveling to certain places can cause me major inconvenience due to health issues.

I’d probably be more likely to see places farther away if teleporting existed. Traveling long hours is horrible in itself.

I've thought about this a bit and think it comes down to mental wiring. Some people focus more on "peak" experiences, but I focus more on "average" day-to-day experiences. I live in a major city, so it's not like there's any shortage of activities to choose from.

I personally dislike travel and find it to be expensive and stressful. I rarely travel for leisure/tourism but do travel to see non-local friends and family. I find it's helpful to have a few days of downtime between work and travel, both before and after the trip, to give myself an opportunity to actually recharge.

Fully agree. I love my gf to pieces and for her traveling is what makes her, her. She's a minimalist consumer and talks about the environment all the time and bikes everywhere. She knows that flying polutes enormously but she can't help it. I like endurance sports and I find enough excitement right here around home and within let's say a 250km radius. She travels alone 3 weeks per year and she says she needs more. I stopped trying to figure it out.

The more I travel (37 countries on four continents) the more I realize everyone is the same. For me, it’s like a mini-version of the overview effect. 

Everyone has a hand wrap (pita, taco, wrap, sandwich).

Everyone has their customs that bleed into public life (religious, secular, religious-cum-secular)

Everyone has to take care of children

Everyone has a grocery store

Everyone likes to drink a hot liquid out of a mug. Everyone likes to drink a cold liquid out of a glass

Everyone has their pockets of disengaged youth who lash out at society, “normalcy” and the status quo

it’s not a weird, scary world. We are all people. We all live here. The content of my pita might be different from what’s in your taco, but it’s basically the same thing. The difference between my town and one a few kilometers away is not that much larger than one on the other side of the world. We are all people living our lives.

My ADHD prevents me from sitting still for more than a few minutes, even short road trips are torturous. To add to that, my driving limit due to my disability is about 2 hours and I physically can't drive at night. I also can't sleep during the day time.

How TF people survive 12+ hour flights is a mystery to me

Travelling show you that "normal" at home is not normal.

Travel Europe for a few weeks and get back to the US and realize just how sick and fat Americans are. And Europeans walk after dark, while Americans rarely walk, and never after dark.

Part of it is a different signaling of wealth. Goods outside of real estate get cheaper all the time while experiences don't.

Part of it is a way to signal willingness to experience the world differently. Saying that you've been in a place and experienced it gives greater authority on that place even if the trip is a curated experience.

For me, travel is a luxury. Even if it's not luxurious, it's still more expensive than being at home. I'm not rich by any means. So, it's special.

I think advertising did it. Advertising told everybody that it's the greatest thing so now it's the greatest thing.

The point is that after you've travelled yourself, you will no longer believe anyone who tries to tell you that people on the other side of the border are evil flesh eaters.

Maybe you wouldn't have believed this before either, in which case travelling wasn't as transformative for you as it has been for others, but that's the primary reason.

A while back I went to my high school reunion and met up with the guy who had been my best friend. He admitted to having never been more than 50 miles from where he was born …. And was exactly the same as in high school. No growth, no personal development. I had moved to a large city, which was totally alien and frightening.

Obviously there are degrees and most people aren’t this bad, but visiting other places and other people can really open your eyes. I don’t know if lack of travel is cause or effect but it really seems like people who have never been anywhere tend to be very small minded, have a very narrow view of people and the world.

Some of it might depend on where you're from. I live on a Scottish island, but have travelled extensively and can't recommend it highly enough.

Me and a young guy I worked with, here in my hometown, were once out on a tech support job. We passed an old quarry and the kid said "man, that's so cool and massive". He'd literally never been anywhere, so from his perspective this shitty (and actually rather small) quarry was impressive.

Travel gives you perspective. Dismissing travel for me is like dismissing art, or learning. You're willingly limiting your lived experience and that's not, to my mind, anything to be celebrating.

As for the kid, he's currently in Vietnam on a career break. Keen to hear how the sites he's seen compare to that quarry when he gets back.

Compared to some bumpkin who's never been more than 100 miles from home, though, you definitely have more perspective on the world.

Because its about the experience.

Whatever you buy now, you won't give a shit about in 5 years time. But you will remember the experiences.

Finally someone like me. I'm going through these comments reading things about wanting friends in other countries, having an experience, whatever.

And I'm like, I worked so hard to be comfortable at home, why would I spend 4 figures to leave? I absolutely have bought things 5 years ago that I still use and enjoy.

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with tonnnnns of museums, food from all over, and cultural hotspots in different neighborhoods.

Life is so absolutely chaotic these days that I'd rather just relax at home with the things I worked hard to get.

And of course, all that said, I am going on vacation in a week to a place further away than I've ever been before, so, ya know. Maybe once every few years is fine, but I'm not going to foam over it the whole time between.

Travel is too stressful for me

This is very interesting to read, I thought I was alone in this, I do not get excited when I travel, being with friends and family is what matters, not where I am, I have traveled many times (been to four continents and more than 10 countries at least once) but never really felt much about the traveling part, and I never get FOMO when someone tells me about their trip. But everyone seem to want to travel all the time.

I do like trying new things a lot, going to different restaurants, eating and drinking different types of food, testing different forms of entertainment or sports, and so on, learning about someone's experience, I just do not care for traveling.

But I do believe in diversity and that we should all get to experience many cultures so we can understand each other, seeing is believing, I think more people need to experience other perspectives.

That said, I still do not find traveling abroad appealing, I'm not against it, I'm just weirdly neutral on the topic, while my friends dream of traveling.

Human variation...

Some people are cool anywhere.

Some freak out when they leave home.

Some have to leave and never come back

And some have to ping pong all over the damn place constantly.

If everyone was the same we'd never have made it anywhere close to this far.

Apart from the perspective others have mentioned, it also resets my life when I'm in a rut.

Yeah, I’m kind of with you and people are very snobbish about where one travels to. In my mind where you travel to, should only be where you enjoy going.

Two very dear friends of mine love doing Disney… I don’t get it, but I accept that they love it..

Me, I love going to New York City. I take a train. I get off the train at Madison Square Garden jump on the subway drop my shit off at the hotel and then I have the most powerful amazing city in the world to play in.

I’m an indoorsy kind of guy

My in-laws has a touch of autism in their veins and very happy with their routine and 5 stores they go to. Anything beyond seems to be quite stressful and the opposite of fun

I think there's people who look at 'traveller' as an identity, much like a lot of folks do with other interests. I'd argue there's some classism involved as well, as travel is a status symbol. However, there's also the (frankly true) idea that travel can broaden your perspective as you meet people from different cultures living life slightly (or dramatically) differently than you do at home.

Ultimately, people who deride people with little travel experience are rude. A better approach is to encourage people who voice an interest in travel but seem uncertain. There's also something to be said about a solid knowledge and appreciation of one's own backyard and community.

It's a mixture of "fancy" escapism and trying to signal being "cultured" (they just got wasted and fucked random people in a different country, perhaps with a museum visit in the middle of it all, lol). It's nice to travel, just like it's nice to go to a nice restaurant, but that's it. Sometimes it does open up your mind because you lived in a racist, weird bubble your whole life, and in that case yeah, it's definitely more transformative than just having good Indian food in a nice restaurant. And I've been around the world besides Asia and Africa, basically (but Morocco and China are my future destinations so that's gonna happen too at some point), so it's not like I'm just sour-graping over here.

I would hate to die knowing I've never once met a friend outside of where I live. Some of my best friends, were actually ones I met online who are a bit of a ways away. If I can even see them once or twice in my lifetime, I'll be good.

But the reason traveling is such a big deal because, well, would you feel content being in the same spot for all of your life? I wouldn't.

Travel is the perfect product.

It can be luxurious, yet is affordable enough for most people in some form. People love to tell everyone the places they've visited; some people, given the chance, will talk about nothing else. It's endlessly novel and requires little physical investment. It's literally impossible to run out of places to visit. There are practically no limits to how much money you can spend on travel.

That is to say, it's consumerism dressed up as virtue.

The sentiment you describe is based on a true story but as with most things taken to an extreme.

In general, people tend to only understand that people are different by direct experience. Actually traveling and seeing other cultures or even just other slightly different ways that people live is eye opening leads to both understanding and empathy for people different than themselves. City folk going to the country and country folk going to a city frequently causes them to reevaluate their assumptions. People having experiences with people other than themselves often makes them question their prejudices and what they have been told. It doesn't always lead to a positive outcome, but the odds are higher!

That of course leads to people thinking that there are specific experiences that people must have to reach those points on a personal level. They think anyone who hasn't been to all of the places they think are important to experience won't be able to understand things or that not having certain experiences is a negative thing, which is basically the travel version of gatekeeping.

It is kind of founded on something real, but taken to an extreme because a lot of people are vocal about things. I was a rural white kid in a city that was 95%+ white as a kid and barely met anyone who wasn't white as a kid and Sesame Street was enough for me to understand that people who didn't look like me were also people and that where they lived had a bigger impact than skin color. Watching was still an experience, but not quite the same thing, and some people just think that everyone needs to literally experience something to 'get it' despite the fact that a lot of people who do experience something still don't 'get it'.

Travel is great and all, but it also isn't the same as living somewhere and to be honest people are people and while significant cultural differences exist people everywhere tend to be pretty darn similar except when they are conforming to social norms.

I'm on a weird spot on this. I like the travelling part, the doing tourist stuff at the end not so much. I don't feel the need for visiting places but for some reason I like the idea of my trip taking me through them, so I'm more open to a week long road trip than a four hours flight and spending a week somewhere. That makes planing a trip with someone else almost impossible and being quite shy myself doesn't help to go alone.

If you have read it yet, you may find The Case Against Travel interesting.