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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

“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.”