Most everyone says they enjoy travelling. If you ask them why, they will usually say that they enjoy discovering new places, some will say they enjoy the sun and/or the shopping, and a few will say that they enjoy it because it is great time spent with their friends.
Now, if you ask me, you should spend at least a month of your life to discover a new culture, a new way of life, a new friend, a new place, a new outlook on life, or at least a new dish. Everyone should do that at least once.
At the same time, meeting people is sort of like sub-atomic particles: you can't really observe them without ultimately changing them. Upon increasing the amount of travel, discovery and observation, eventually we will end up with a world lacking a cultural gradient. Except for, of course in a few, very isolated places. Like I heard yet another time a few days ago, it's a small world. And the world is shrinking with the increasing possibilities of travel we experience in a more and more internationalized and ultimately normalized world.
Just like you assimilate some of the hand gestures, vocabulary and behaviour of people you encounter and spend time with, entire cultures assimilate some of each others' traits as they blend through an unbounded stream of tourists, backpackers and visitors, all expecting, wanting and hoping for something different. And this is what is killing culture.
As some of the local community tries to accomodate the visiting horde, and large international companies arrive with new standards, conventions and ways of doing things, a culture is gradually watered out. You can now buy a big mac in a whooping (no pun intended) 119 different countries, and it will sprobably taste the same in all of them.
Now, perhaps what amazes me most about all of this is how happy everyone seems to be to find something familiar on holiday to the other side of the World. The last time I asked around, well over half the people surveyed named discovering and experiencing a new culture and way of life (or something similar) as the most significant reason for travelling abroad. At the same time, a great deal of the same people will opt for McDonald's over a local restaurant, or at least eat spaghetti and meatballs at the local restaurant rather than trying something different.
Has travelling become something many do just because everyone says that it's cool? Something some do even though they actually prefer the comfortably safe spot in a café or the sofa at home because 'obvilously', a vacation is something which has to include travelling and culture? Is it just a matter of conformity, social norms and the need for validation? I hope that is not the case.
Myself, I love travelling to meet new people I've never met before, to talk to the owner of a cozy tea- and tobacco-shop on the corner, to eat things I can't name, to use a hole in the ground as a toilet, to climb in forests and mountains and playgrounds I've never been to before, to view life and learning from a new perspective, to stare at a different sky, to breathe in heavy and moist as well as dry and thin air, to smell coriander or tarragon through the window of a local kitchen, and to live life a bit differently for a while.
I am currently looking forward to going back to Leh in northern India next summer, perhaps revisiting the family I stayed with for a few days a whole 6 years ago, and staring at the World's most beautiful night sky in the middle of the Himalaya mountains.
Next time you are on vacation, ask a local where thay would go out to eat, and when you are eating there, try asking those who work there what they prefer off of the menu, and then take that so long as it's not the most expensive iten (then they're probably just trying to earn money). Discover something genuinely new to you, that you haven't already learned through lonely planet. Try bargaining just a bit more at the local bazaar, even if the price already seems reasonable, be a bit naïve and adventuous (but try not to do anything stupid of course), be sure to actually spend your travelling days discovering all the nooks and crannies of the amazing world in which we spend our daily lives. Be that on the other side of the planet, the other side of the country or the other side of town.
It's all out there, yet to be discovered; so what are you waiting for?
Sieze the day, pack a bag, tie your shoes, and discover a new bench, playground, coffee house or view point – I know I will today.
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