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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

When air travel became available, it was super expensive, which meant that only rich people could do it. Several decades later, it became cheap enough that middle-class people could travel occasionally. Because of that history, travelling got a shimmering magic aura in our minds.

It’s what rich people do, and most people want to be like them in one way or another.

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.

Capitalist culture creates any consumption a form of status. The more you consume, the higher your status. We see this in people buying status through Rolexes, Lamborghinis, and travelling.

There is some inherent value in traveling. It expands your horizons. It gives you new perspectives.

So it works for both capitalist and less capitalist culture.