Where have you been lately?
That is commonly asked when meeting friends old and new. Listening to travel stories can offer a look at places one has not yet visited. I wonder if some people cling to their passports as crutches for their own inner character.
It is easy to rattle off a list of destinations with exotic names and the journey may have offered new opportunities to work on a sun tan (I admit I have some bias against the whole tanning trend, but that's not central to today's discussion).
A tourist by nature only gets small samples of local culture. You don't know what residential life is like because you are intentionally steered to the "visitors' section" of town.
Maybe it is safer and I am not encouraging anyone to go looking for trouble in unfamiliar territory. But the smug way I hear people speak of places they have visited really irritates me. The glamour of travel is ostensibly the reason for many journeys. No one markets tours to landfills.
Based on the shallow self-centered accounts I tend to hear, people often miss the relevance of the ground they stand on. They may as well be eating a candy bar. After the wrapper is disposed of and the contents devoured, the experience will only be remembered for the sugar-induced rush.
It saddens me when I hear people talk elaborately about recent destinations yet their own character has not evolved.
That is commonly asked when meeting friends old and new. Listening to travel stories can offer a look at places one has not yet visited. I wonder if some people cling to their passports as crutches for their own inner character.
It is easy to rattle off a list of destinations with exotic names and the journey may have offered new opportunities to work on a sun tan (I admit I have some bias against the whole tanning trend, but that's not central to today's discussion).
A tourist by nature only gets small samples of local culture. You don't know what residential life is like because you are intentionally steered to the "visitors' section" of town.
Maybe it is safer and I am not encouraging anyone to go looking for trouble in unfamiliar territory. But the smug way I hear people speak of places they have visited really irritates me. The glamour of travel is ostensibly the reason for many journeys. No one markets tours to landfills.
Based on the shallow self-centered accounts I tend to hear, people often miss the relevance of the ground they stand on. They may as well be eating a candy bar. After the wrapper is disposed of and the contents devoured, the experience will only be remembered for the sugar-induced rush.
It saddens me when I hear people talk elaborately about recent destinations yet their own character has not evolved.
