I've been long-term traveling and running my startup at the same time for the past few years (in fact just today I set up an incomplete map of my travels for the past few months at my site, turkeysandwichindustries.com), and I can attest that everything in this article is true.
What makes me sad sometimes is that traveling the world for a few months to a year doesn't even cross the minds of many of my fellow Americans. But doing just that is extremely common for almost any other wealthy country. The number of Americans I meet in a place can be counted on one hand; the number of English, Australians, Kiwis, Germans, etc. etc. are always huge. After some thought, I think it comes down to the fear that's being slowly baked in to our culture. People (and I mean Americans) are afraid of what happens if they don't work, of finding a new job when they come back, of insurance, of germs and war in foreign countries, of insanely improbable disaster striking, of getting lost, of running out of money, of bed bugs, of missing friends and family, of anything. Some of these are valid worries; most aren't.
Having grown up in just such a fear-based culture (and having a worrier gene run in the family), I struggle against those fears myself every day. It isn't easy. But the most important thing that traveling has taught me is this: that everything will be OK. You can be out of a job, get a terrible injury (I myself had an accident requiring surgery while in New Zealand), get lost, miss your flight, have your wallet stolen, lose your passport, or worse, and... everything will be OK. Your family will be there for you, your friends will be there for you, other travelers you've met will be there for you, the locals will be there for you. You'll find a job when you get back, and your old friends won't have forgotten you. As long as you've got the will and the spirit, everything will work out.
So get out there. See the world. It's a beautiful, fascinating, scary, wondrous place. Don't be afraid of taking a year off. Everything will be OK, and it will make you a smarter, more even-headed, tolerant, and curious person. And you'll make friends from all over the world that you can visit on your next big trip.
Yes, the proportion of US residents traveling overseas is probably lower than other developed nations. UK residents for example made 47 million[1] air trips in 2009 vs. 39 million[2] for US citizens. However the argument that fear is the primary cause is misguided. Consider:
1. If you live in the UK and you want sunny weather or a ski trip, you'll need to go elsewhere in Europe. If you live in the US, you can probably get away with a local flight.
2. It's easier to justify and amortize the time to travel to a far-off destination for Europeans who have double the number of vacation days. South Africa is a 22-30 hour trip from the US, the number of US tourists is on the low end[3]#, while US tourists to Brazil are 2nd only to tourists from neighboring Argentina[4].
# Anecdotally, I notice more North American tourists in Cape Town than other nationalities, although this may have more to do with the volume of the average American voice.
Your first point is a big one - the US has an incredible variety of places to visit. I'm from the UK, and while there are some amazing places to visit in the UK, there is a lot less variety than there is in the US. I spend 10 days driving from Denver to Vegas and saw far more scenery than I ever have in the UK. If I lived in the US I could easily imagine not leaving it for years (when I lived in the UK I'd go abroad at least twice a year).
Maybe. You're doing the UK a bit of a disservice. You're right that there's lots of nice scenery and the place is littered with castles and ruins. I'm a Kiwi who moved to Edinburgh and even after 5 years here I still love catching site of the big you-can-fuck-right-off castle in the middle of town. I'm still discovering lots of cool things right on my doorstep too.
New Zealand has plenty of amazing scenery and it's all within a rather small country too which makes it pretty easy to get to and see. But that doesn't stop hordes of young Kiwis heading off on their Big O.E. every year. Actually it's bit sad to meet some of the young Kiwis and find they haven't seen much of their own country before they spread their wings and head overseas.
Very true, the historical architectural/cultural side of the UK (castles+ruins+very old stuff) is incredible. Going around old towns like Cambridge and York, and seeing stuff like Stonehenge is a pretty stunning experience the first time around. Of course, having lived in the UK for most of my life I completely take all of that for granted!
Well, if you have a family and a mortgage, then your responsibilities are to them, not to indulge yourself in a year off. But my point is that many Americans who have the opportunity and position to do this kind of traveling still don't seem to do it.
And if one has a mortgage but no family responsibilities, then things can almost certainly be arranged to be rid of the house, or rent it out temporarily, etc. to make this kind of travel possible. But often that fear comes back: what if I sold it too low, what if I can't find another house, where will I put my belongings, what if in 30 years when I retire I wish I had kept the house, etc. etc.
Being an American who reads this board means one is probably at a certain station in society where these things are possible. Regardless of what one does or doesn't do with their life, in 30 years you'll still be alive, probably with a roof over your head, probably with enough food to eat tomorrow, probably with some sort of job, and probably with friends and family who love you. Long-term travel is just another choice, and if you choose it, things will be still be OK.
I hear ya, but I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the more robust social safety nets that exists in the other countries you've mentioned. It's almost there between every line you write.
I think that the U.S., despite the existence of Social Security and Medicare, is more like China than a northern European country. We have a dog-eat-dog social structure and economy. One of the only reasons we have such a high standard of living is Brenton-Woods and it's subsequent replacement system, which heavily favors the U.S. because T-Bills are the most liquid place for the world to park their cash. So my point is: Sure, some of American's fear of extended foreign travel may be driven by unreasonable fear, but I'll bet a lot of it is driven by reasonable fear -- the fear of falling behind and not being able to catch up.
Yes, but to catch up to whom? Your neighbor with the bigger house and fancier car? People who play games of catch-up are never winners. This is exactly the kind of fear I think is _un_reasonable, and that holds us back from doing things like this, things we often claim we want to do but excuse as being "out of reach."
I think the truth is that taking just one year off (if it's within one's immediate means) will not set you back in the 30+ years you have left to you. One can save up with a trip in mind, quit their job, travel and return, and the world will still have turned, and for the most part, one can pick up where they left off. Maybe you'll be a rung or two down on the corporate ladder, but a resourceful and willing person (like those on these boards) will always make it happen for themselves.
As for social safety nets, I'm a born and raised American who works for himself and is uninsured (self-employed with pre-existing conditions). That hasn't stopped me from travel. If medical tragedy were to strike, I have money saved, my family would help support me, or worst-case is credit cards and medical bankruptcy. As I mentioned tragedy _has_ struck me while traveling: I was in an accident in NZ that required surgery, hospital time, and two months of physical therapy. Life goes on. That's just the ball game we play in America, but it doesn't mean (healthy) people should sit at home for fear of breaking a bone in a foreign country.
Anyway sorry to expostulate for so long on the topic, but it's one that's near and dear to my heart. Hopefully something of what's in this thread will inspire others to see the world while they can.
The fear of falling behind and not being able to catch up is unreasonable. The more cultured and experienced, with people of a different mind, you are the more dynamic and "out-of-the-box" your psyche is; I would argue that getting away from the social meme of not wanting to fall behind will get you further ahead than you think.
It has for me. Not just with travel too, it goes for other life experiences people aren't willing to let themselves have because of this action-oriented notion that in order to continue growing (whether it be personally, in business, or whatever) you must be doing something to meet a given end.
World travel is an action, but it's a sort of "pointless" action in the sense that there is rarely any end goal one is attempting to meet by aimlessly wandering about and experiencing what life has spawned. Sometimes I feel like it isn't "worth" my time when I think about backpacking (with no money) down to Argentina; but then I look back at my two months backpacking through India, or my year living on a commune in Kentucky, or being raised on my family ranch, or my month in Costa Rica and realize that all of those life experiences has turned me into an open-minded, dynamic, and powerful individual. I would NOT have accomplished what I have if it hadn't been for my "aimless" life experiences.
Also, many countries do not have more robust social safety nets than any other - that is a pagelong argument I won't get into ATM, but I will say this: compare the amount of freely available resources and recourses for help available in any developed country (if you're thirsty in the US, visit a gas stop bathroom and drink some tap water; can't find a place to stay, spend the night at a homeless shelter or in a park) with that of a developing country. You'll quickly find that any sort of travel is, really, about relying on yourself regardless of the country's technological status. The safety argument is an empty one.
Not everyone can afford it, otherwise a lot more people would. Germans, Kiwis, the English, and Australians probably also generally have more secure employment and higher wages on average.
It's a farce to say you can't afford it. I backpacked through India for two months and spent a total of $1,534.00 (excluding airfare to and from the country). I was well fed, sheltered, and had a blast. Many occidental countries and developed countries in general, can be pricey if you resort to convenience.
What's really funny, is, a hippie german couple I befriended in India came to travel through the US a year later; they stopped in my city and we spent some time together reminiscing. They told me they were spending less money in the US then they had in India, primarily because they adhered to little or no convenience and used what free resources are actually taken for granted here that aren't available in a developing or crowded country. Water was a big one, they said they got all of their drinking water from bathroom sinks instead of purchasing it (which you have to do in India because of sanitary issues, or you purify it).
The trick with going on a backpacking trip is to leave your job and pick up some under-the-table jobs in the countries you are staying in (if you run out of money and have no recourse, or want to stay longer than you saved for). This is the point many cultured US citizens are trying to make about our fellow "home-locked" brethren: the excuses made are vapid - you either want to go or you don't. There is, obviously, nothing wrong if you're a person that doesn't want to travel; but if you do, all it takes is some clever thinking and embracement of the dynamism of life (you will find a job when you get back, it might even be better than the one you're leaving).
I think you missed the part where he said to leave your job. I've done most of my longer-term (one month) vacations after getting laid off or quitting.
It is, I'm now my own employer - for a very good reason (I'm a programmer, can easily do it, and I realized self-employment > employment on many fronts). When I went to India, though, I quit my job teaching personal self-defense and got a job working at an Italian restaurant when I came back (restaurants are excellent sources of short-term income and have many social/physical benefits that trump jobs in the software/knowledge industry).
From what I understand, wages and jobs are about even, given that Germans, Kiwis, English, and Australian pay much more tax than we do. Kiwis and Aussies do get more time off, but only a few weeks more than us; many take a year off to travel anyway. Come to England or Germany and talk to the locals who feel that outsourcing and foreigners are taking their jobs away; I met a Swedish person just yesterday who was talking about how it would take at least 2 months for him to secure a new job as a seasoned mechanical engineer, because since it's so hard to fire people there, it's super hard to get hired. We have it amazingly good here in America, for a lot of things.
Travel is surprisingly cheap, provided you don't spend your time in 5-star hotels. This month in Belgium will cost me about 850 euros including food and rent, which isn't too far off from living with a roommate in Los Angeles, my previous home. Go to Vietnam and you'll live like a king on $500/month. Oftentimes the most expensive part of the trip is the plane ticket. Of course still not everyone can afford to do this; but if you can, then you'll find that doing so will be a landmark in your life, even if it seemed very scary at first.
>given that Germans, Kiwis, English, and Australian pay much more tax than we do
They pay more taxes but get more for their taxes (free health care, education, more unemployment protection, etc.).
>who was talking about how it would take at least 2 months for him to secure a new job as a seasoned mechanical engineer, because since it's so hard to fire people there, it's super hard to get hired.
But being unemployed in Sweden for two months is a completely different world to being unemployed in the US. Further, if he's working then he'll have a 2 month notice period anyway, so he probably wont have any time off at all.
One thing is not fundamentally better than the other. They are just trade offs. Personally I find the Swedish one a hell of a lot less stressful in bad times.
And more importantly they generally don't have high university tuition bills that need paying. Since most people do this sort of travelling either just before or just after university, I imagine that is a pretty big factor.
Not always. Sometimes is something cultural. English people for example, they take a "Gap year" right after they finish high school and before they go to college. Most of the time they work during their last year of high school in stores, supermarkets, bars, etc. during the weekends to earn money so they can go on their "Gap Year" traveling to Africa, Asia or Latin America... where cost of living is much lower than in the UK and the money they have earned is enough to spend many months!
Careful, this is one is true until it's not, and then you're fucked:
> 7) The rest of the world isn't full of germs. Many people travel with their own supply of water and an industrial vat of hand sanitizer.
As a rule, yes, you'll be fine in other countries. But especially in third world countries, only eat food that is served in a sealed package from a trusted company or served hot - food that is served hot will be generally cleaner and safer to eat. The big danger is food that sits around all day half-warm: that's where you get sick from. Also, don't drink the tap water in places the locals don't drink the tap water. Don't worry about ice/teeth brushing/etc, it's incidental, but don't drink tap if the locals won't drink it.
/did research on this after getting violently ill in Cambodia, luckily the expired medicine I bought from the untrained pharmacist did the trick.
- Street meat. Unrefrigerated meat spoils very rapidly. Bacteria build up toxins in the meat that don't go away even if you cook it. This can make you very sick and even kill.
- Cut fruit. You don't know if clean water was used to wash the knife or that the knife was not used to cut raw chicken or the like.
- Raw vegetables. Many places use human feces to fertilize the fields. You don't know if it was washed properly.
I lived recently in China for several years and got sick a lot and learned to become very particular about food. There seems to be a common perception among travellers that we're weak soft westerners and just need to toughen up and be like the locals who don't get sick. This isn't true, the locals get sick and die with alarming rates. Hepatitis, diarrea and various food born illnesses kill huge numbers of people globally due to poor sanitation.
Yeah, I'm really glad I brought antibiotics to Peru with me, and Peru isn't even particularly bad. I wouldn't say I got violently ill there, but I did get a case of Gringo's Bane (aka Machu Poopoo) and was moving my bowel 10-15 times a day. Other than that I felt fine, but not being able to leave the proximity of the bathroom cost me two days.
From my experience, you can not avoid getting ill. Sooner or later (probably sooner) it is going to hit you.
Therefore my advice is, to jump right into it. Eat what the locals eat. Do what the locals do. By this you have at least a bit fun until you have to spend your time sitting and sh*ing.
The human body is great in adapting to those situation. On my first visit to an development country I took more pictures from the window of my toilet than anything else. But since my body got somehow got used to the new environment, I have not been ill on my last few trips.
Final advice for third world travel: Have toilet paper ready. Always!
This is not a good strategy. Besides the other good comments, consider the following:
If you're traveling from place to place, you'll be exposed to a parade of regional bugs that locals, who have more stable habits, will not be. And your schedule (reservations, plans, etc.) may not be able to afford the downtime. Finally, you don't know the health care setup, so you won't always be able to sense if something is substandard.
I spent a day in a hospital in India with a very high fever (delirious) and dehydration due to a bit of uncooked chutney that none of the locals (whom I knew) had problems with. They had to give me an IV to rehydrate me. My main goal was to try to keep it together enough to ensure that the clinic was using a sterile needle for the IV.
Thought this would be obvious: I was not talking about stuff that makes everybody ill. The body does not adapt well to many other things, but still you can get used to many things that make people ill on first contact.
Why do so many travellers get sick first time they enter a country with different hygienic standard, where the local population has no problem?
btw: I lived 2 years in central Africa, just returned from a 'local meal' in Luanda/Angola.
The point is that you don't want to try to be like the locals. The locals in developing countries are not healthy and do suffer from poor sanitation (diarrhea alone is responsible for 8% of all deaths in Asia -- WHO stats). You need to be sensible and avoid certain things.
I just got back from a month in China and didn't get sick despite eating many things that'd make a typical westerner puke. I lived in China for several years previously and had learned the hard way about food safety.
For example: Buying meat in India may make you violently ill. Drinking tap water in Mexico is guaranteed to do the trick. While for a colleague of mine (who is used to it): no problem at all.
That said, I generally agree with the fact that health hysteria is totally over the top.
I just returned from Peru where I ate at places, which would be shut down in a heartbeat here (no ginnypigs running through the kitchen allowed, let alone cooking on open fire) with not even a stomach upset whatsoever.
Heh, when I went to Peru (Macchu Picchu, one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited), they ate Guinea Pigs (called "cuy" locally).
Odd they left them around the kitchen.
Agree with your recommendations. Also, watch out for ice cubes... often people make the mistake of buying bottled water... and then putting ice cubes made of tap water.
I've had the good fortune to be able to travel quite a bit in both my professional and personal life. And I really have to echo everything the author says. But three points in particular:
"The media lies" is something everyone should take to heart. It's an astonishing thing to be in a place where the #1 story of the day is happening and not see anything even remotely representing the reporting on it at ground level.
Also, as an American, I can vouch for "people don't hate Americans". Individual people may be rude, or behave poorly, but they're likely rude and poorly behaved to everybody. It's amazing how that one simple act of understanding can completely change the lens you view the world with. There's an old American adage that the French (Parisians) are rude to Americans. Not so! Parisians are rude to everybody, it's just like New York! If you understand that, and get into the vibe, places with rough social interactions like Paris or New York actually become very navigable and pleasant.
And finally "Everyone should travel". I can't express this enough. There's absolutely no substitute for actually spending time in a place. Reading about the Urals is one thing, eating dill laced food from local farms everyday is another. Talking about how South Korea is modern but different than the West's version of modern is one thing, taking the Seoul Subway to a Korean bar and meeting up with a dozen friends for a night of laughter, drinking, eating and otherwise having a good time is simply a different kind of experience than doing the same in the states. All the broad brush strokes are the same, but the particulars...the texture of the event...are all different.
'"The media lies" is something everyone should take to heart. It's an astonishing thing to be in a place where the #1 story of the day is happening and not see anything even remotely representing the reporting on it at ground level.'
For what it's worth, that's not unique to international news. Anyone who has been involved with a national scale story can tell you about the disconnect between what the news reports and the truth. My involvement was being home-from-school during a school shooting, and the news reports were seriously doing well to simply spell the names of those involved correctly. Most everything else just came from a pre-canned "disaster in small town" template without any sort of checking for truth or anything.
This was 1993, too. The media hasn't been worth the paper it's written on for a while now, the Internet just let us collectively discover the rot.
Parisians are rude in the spring and summer, when Paris is overrun by tourists. I can't say I blame them, I found the tourist situation in July insufferable. In the fall I've found Parisians as nice as anyone else in a huge city. I've never found New Yorkers particularly rude, especially nowadays.
I'll second that, as a New Yorker who works in midtown I see tourists all the time. Mostly people ignore them, often we give directions or advice (like don't stop in the middle of the sidewalk, don't leave your purse on the subway seat, this train doesn't go west 4th).
Most visitors aren't used to having so many people around them. Just be mindful of your surroundings. Probably good advice for any city.
I have lived in 3 continents (Africa [Nigeria], Asia [India], and North America [US]) and vacationed a few times in Europe [mainly England and Switzerland]. This, IMO is good advice.
Contrary to popular belief, people around the world are good. They are willing to help you out and are less likely to take advantage of the fact that you are new there. There is also a sense of curiosity - about who you are, where you are from and what you think of their lands of origin. It often gets a little tiring answering all those questions. :)
On the other hand, governments and officials especially in third world countries tend to be corrupt and agenda-driven. It's amazing how much money changing hands can do, and this I believe is a big deterrent to foreigners in many lands. You need to be a little street smart and know how to work your way out of a potentially sticky situations.
I agree with other comments on HN that you need to be careful of germs. I spent a year in the US before heading back to India to visit family, and I had food off of a street-vendor. I was sick for the next 3 days (God help me now that I have been here for a decade :D). Living in a very sanitary environment like the US can (potentially) weaken your immune system [1]. Ensuring that the food is sealed, or at the very minimum hot is a good way to avoid some of the pitfalls. On the other hand, I have eaten at locals homes in Nigeria, and don't remember having any issues (it's been a while since I was there).
This article makes me want to drop everything and take off for a few months. Sadly, that won't be happening anytime soon. But if you were to take away one thing from this article - it is that you should travel. Going to most countries in the world does not have to be expensive, and it will give you a good way to find out about other cultures, and potentially give you a new avenue into your own [2]
[1] - I am not a doctor, but this has been my experience. I tend to be susceptible to unclean water and food - even the pollution in big cities like Bombay affects me way more than it did when I lived there.
[2] I was raised in a western culture - watching NBA and CNN, listening to pop and rock music, and reading Archie and Mad magazine. But after coming to the US, I have come to realize that there is a lot of things the Indian and American cultures have in common - even more, that there is a lot they can learn from each other.
"Living in a very sanitary environment like the US can (potentially) weaken your immune system."
There are lots of vague hypotheses like this floating about, but IMHO[1] they're pretty flimsy. The fact that you don't have immunity to various foreign bugs doesn't imply (at all) that your immune system is "weak".
There's better evidence that sanitary conditions could increase allergy, which is an overactive immune system, not a weakened one.
Pollution, which you mention later in your comment, has nothing at all to do with immunity.
All that aside: boil it, peel it, cook it, or forget it!
[1] - Also not a doctor, but I am an epidemiologist.
This is purely anecdotal and may also be related to the two-page long list of vaccinations I received, but I've rarely ever been sick since being back from India (where I did get sick a few times, pretty badly) and when I am sick, it's usually something very mild I get over within a day or two.
I got sick a few times from street-vendor food in 3rd world countries. It turned out that they often reuse oil for too long. I now avoid deep-fried food, dirty or tap water, and things like ice-cream. I've been fine on my travels since.
This is a mild suggestion. Could we stop using the term 3rd world to refer to relatively poor countries? I think in a modern, globalized, and rapidly developing world, '3rd world' is unnecessary and carries a derogatory connotation to it, IMO. I can't speak for others from a so-called third world country, but it offends me.
My apologies. You are right. I will certainly refrain from using that phrase now on. It is a little ironic that I don't use that phrase in normal conversation, but that I used it today in my comment.
It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'. There's an awesome Hans Rosling ted talk [1] about that. Here's an quote from it:
"I find my experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible. Africa has not done bad. In 50 years they've gone from a pre-Medieval situation to a very decent 100-year-ago Europe, with a functioning nation and state. I would say that sub-Saharan Africa has done best in the world during the last 50 years. Because we don't consider where they came from. It's this stupid concept of developing countries which puts us, Argentina and Mozambique together 50 years ago, and says that Mozambique did worse. We have to know a little more about the world. I have a neighbor who knows 200 types of wine. He knows everything. He knows the name of the grape, the temperature and everything. I only know two types of wine -- red and white. (Laughter) But my neighbor only knows two types of countries -- industrialized and developing. And I know 200, I know about the small data. But you can do that."
>It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'
Of course. These are just useful categories. Humans like to put things into categories so we can make statements about ideas. Saying it's "not so simple" is a strawman as I don't think anyone is claiming that a country is a data structure with the capacity of 1 bit (developed or developing).
Maybe if you said or quoted something about how the act of using this categorical construction in analysis when performed too often is the physical cause of some sort of injustice.
I've heard the tip before that you can eat anything in the world that is thourghly cooked and be ok, but anything raw is super risky. In practice this means if the street meat is steaming, it is safe to eat, but cold meats and even vegatables are out. This is the first I've heard about someone getting sick from cooked food, but it makes sense if the oil was bad. Thanks for the heads up.
My wife and I took 4 months off to travel around southeast asia (Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand), and had a great time. Managing to stay just connected enough to read and keep up with goings-on back home, and disconnected enough to not worry about our eMail gave us a great change of perspective and energy about coming back to San Francisco, ready to go build something.
Favourite travel tips:
- Kindle's International Roaming plan is $5/wk for subscriptions, so you can get your NYTimes, FT, Economist, etc. while on the go... even in places w/o paved roads and ATM's
- The Kindle is also great generally because you can be less diligent about charging it, and read it anywhere from the beach to an airport lounge without any eyestrain... It also beats a stack of books (but an iPad would do so as well).
- Taking Pepto Bismol prophylactically changes the PH of your stomach, making you much less likely to suffer from food-borne illnesses. That said, the effects become detrimental to your body as a whole after a few weeks, so we slowly weaned ourselves off of it, to give our immune system a chance to slowly adjust to the local flora/fauna.
- An unlocked iPhone is your best friend... whether it's for maps to find your way, a travel guide for a city, downloading a podcast to teach you the local phrases you need, finding/booking a hotel, or making that Skype call back home.
Ick! That'll give you all sorts of unpleasant side-effects - it's much better to eat raw garlic or raw onions every morning. You'll adjust to the local organisms better and you won't get sick at all.
To each his own on taking electronics/phones/etc... When I go backpacking I prefer to take the "no itinerary" approach, leaving technology at home so I'm not in the Western Bubble wherever I go.
Mentioned in the article, you can get free room and board in some amazing places in return for your labor. Check out http://www.wwoof.org if you're interested.
My folks have spent a month Italy each of the last 7 years, at virtually no expense beyond the airplane tickets. They work on an olive farm, and stay in buildings constructed in the 1300s.
I used to travel. Africa, Australia, Japan, Europe, Mexico, etc.
His point about Americans not traveling is valid. I wonder if part of the reason is that North America is so far away from everywhere else. It takes 11 hours to fly from Berlin to Thailand, but it takes 25 hours to fly from NYC to Thailand. Most Americans probably have to get to NYC or LA to get anywhere else in the world, which can be another 3-5 hours of flight time. The long distance is the main reason I don't travel as much as I once did.
However, in Mexico, the default foreigners are usually from the US.
Canadians travel, so you can't excuse the distance.
I think the problem is (I say this as a Canadian) that the US has a very insular streak to it's fabric that is manifested in ways such as this. This same streak that caused the US to join both world wars when they were half over.
My guess is that it stems from the individual nature of the founders, along with the split from England. This isn't as strong in Canada and Australia because those countries remained extensions of the Empire and thus were automatically and continuously connected to the larger world.
The US spent a better part of the 1800's focusing exclusively on North America.
Another alternative hypothesis for you to consider: there is already so much beauty, novelty, and interesting diversity in the US that it takes a slightly bigger push to get past this local maxima. No offense, but if you chopped out and stitched together all of the interesting bits of Canada you would have a land mass that was about the size of California and with a similar population; in the US we have 49 other states to tool around in as well that present a much greater diversity in terms of environment and inhabitants. We get all that without needing to use a passport, exchange currency, or try to learn to speak like a tourist in another language. It is not the same thing as real international travel, but it is a close-enough approximation for some people that it serves as a reasonable substitute.
there is already so much beauty, novelty, and interesting diversity in the US that it takes a slightly bigger push to get past this local maxima
That statement though is illustrative of my point, though. Canadians and/or Australians will either view their country as boring or too large, and so they head overseas. Americans don't.
I don't think this speaks so much to the actual fact than it does to the way one looks at the situation.
Another aspect is that I don't have to travel to the other side of the world to learn about other cultures, necessarily; I just start talking to my neighbors or coworkers. Is it the same? No, but it's not worthless and you can get up close and fairly personal. I won't learn enough to blend in with that culture by any means but that takes months anyhow.
Central (in particular) and South America (to a lesser extent) have way more American travelers than anywhere except Europe (at least this has been my anecdotal experience with nearly a year in Mexico/Central America). Costa Rica is practically the 51st state and south Nicaragua is well known for it's cheap land and American surfer ex-pats. Of course, flights to CA are super cheap from the US and this probably explains it.
The other thing that I've noticed is that Americans from the West Coast are much more likely to travel (of course, I'm from the west coast so this might be some confirmation bias).
(opinions based on a little more than two years or so of ongoing travel and probably something like 30 countries)
It might be that west coast goes to south/central America more often and ease coast goes to Europe, becuase I know a lot of people who have gone to Europe from here but few that have gone south. It makes sense, if I have a week off getting to Europe is only 5 or 6 hours each way, which is roughly the same as california. Flight time is not the big time suck though, it is waiting in airports for connections. A direct flight to central Europe is a lot shorter than a hop from NYC to LA or TX and then a connection to a flight going to south America.
I feel like you're making the excuse. You don't have to go to Thailand, there's plenty of different cultures/destinations near the US (Europe, Southern Americas and possibly even Japan). Instead of comparing Berlin to Thailand with NYC to Thailand, try NYC to Berlin.
This is coming from someone living in Perth, who has to travel forever to get anywhere, including having to go through Sydney or Singapore to get anywhere distant.
Everyone needs to do something like this at least once.
It's a lot harder to believe the bullshit peddled about other nationalities when you've toured through their country and experienced their hospitality.
Personally, traveling for a year changed me and the way I approach people...I was and still am an introvert, but I'm a lot more confident in social situations.
Also, if you're a Bible belt type, prepare to come back a lot more liberal and tolerant in your outlook, not a bad thing.
If nothing else, you'll also discover what the author discovered, how little you actually need to achieve a base level of comfort, and how embarrassingly high your six figure salary actually is, comparatively speaking.
I don't get the point of traveling all at once (months at a time or more). It seems to me that most people that do so, visit dozens of countries back-to-back in a relatively short span of time.
I would think that everything ends up being rather similar.
I travel ten days at a time, with 6 months to a year in between international trips. Most trips only include one or two countries. Anything else would be a cognitive overload.
For the most part, the most expensive part of travel is the fare. It ends up being cheaper to start in one country, travel through the others, using cars, trains, or low-cost airlines, and then finish up going home.
And usually when you do these things you've broken free of all your commitments; sold the house, finished the lease, sold the car, etc. This leaves you with more money available down route.
Doing 2 trips a year still costs plenty. You're still paying for your house even if you aren't in it as well as paying for wherever you are. You're still paying for that car to sit in park, your still paying for cable, mobile phones, electricity, etc.
When I traveled I firesaled everything that wasn't going with me, sold the car, sublet the apartment, and cancelled my phone. I stayed with my parents 1 week and worked right up until the day I left. No more bills meant I had more disposable income.
And even when things are at their worst, everything still manages to work out.
I think you mischaracterize most long term travelers. I've been traveling for a little more than two years and I'd estimate that, unless I don't particularly enjoy a location, I spend closer to a month in most places.
I've spent four months in Guatemala and over six in New Zealand. Most of the people I know who travel long term do the same thing. The only time I hear about people going to many countries in a short period is when countries are dense (central america and europe) or when they're only gone for a couple months and trying to get as many stamps (pokémon) as possible.
It's a fun thing to have done. The whole travel experience is very different from shorter trips and it becomes at least as much, if not more, about the actual travel experiences as the places you visit. Sure places do get blurred and looking back I often get confused about which events happened in which country, but that's kind of part of the charm.
All that being said, I'm really happy to have done it a couple of times, but have no real desire to do it again. Now I much prefer shorter (4-14 days), more frequent, trips within a more limited geographic region and a higher level of comfort.
You are exactly right. Towards the end of 2008 I took off for two months, and traveled to East Africa, Israel, Jordan, East Asia, England, and Hungary, 13 countries in total. Towards the end, I really started to grow tired of the constant moving and need to be out exploring. Being home at my favorite bookstore started to sound better than ever. Even though it did get a little tiring towards the end, it was one of the best things I have ever done, something I'll never forget.
Pretty sensible article, except for the health concerns. Don't be afraid, just prepare like you are.
Glad the author is in robust health, but be prepared with antibiotics, anti-diarrhea medicine and remedies for whatever you are prone to getting, say, allergies. Worst case planning makes the trip more fun. For example, my friend got malaria in Kenya.
You just don't know what kind of medicine or care is going to be available.
If anything it's the other travellers that are anti-American (but not to their faces). The natives of countries don't seem to have a preference really except some country specific issues (Wars, long standing disputes etc.)
As for point #2, the media lies. The point is, really that you can't get a balanced point of view about anything from the news, since it only reports the unusual and abnormal otherwise it's not news and that's typically bad news too.
American culture seems to dominate the world particularly in that movies and T.V. seem to be everywhere.
"You don't need a lot of stuff" really resonated with me. I'm currently taking this mindset and applying it to my startup lifestyle. That, and learning how to connect with many different kinds of people, were two of the biggest takeaways from my six months of traveling.
I personally wouldn't try to run a startup while abroad, since living in a foreign city takes up so much energy (both to enjoy my surroundings and to figure out how to do day-to-day things).
As a Canadian living in the US, I have to take exception to his remark that Canadian and American cultures are the same. The differences might appear subtle, but I'd say the differences are huge. They just run deeper beneath the superficial similarity. I'm speaking of English Canadians BTW.
I'm an American who has never been to Canada, but I think I get what the author meant. He compared the difference between American and Canadian culture to the differences between states or regions. There is a huge difference between Northern US culture and Southern US culture, East Coast and West Coast, etc. But there are a lot of similarities and those similarities make up "American Culture."
As another former Canada / U.S. transplant I agree there is a difference, but it's less extreme. It's almost intra-national, really.
The 'culture shock' between Toronto, Ontario -> Montgomery, Alabama won't be much different than if you were moving from Los Angeles instead. In contrast, the culture difference between Toronto, Canada -> Cairo, Egypt or Bangkok, Thailand will be pretty danged huge.
Canadians are proud to be Canadian. Traveling around has shown me that people often don't know much about Canada, but they recognize the people are nice. That alone is enough to be proud of.
The whole 'Canada identity crisis' is because Canadians are too concerned with their international appearance and place. We need to just embrace the core identity we already have instead of looking for a new one.
The Olympics was an example of Canada trying too hard on the international scene. The closing ceremonies had this horrid 'comedy' portion designed to show that we don't take ourselves too seriously. That in itself was just trying too hard - you don't need an intentionally lame comedy sketch to show that.
Anyways Daniel - I recommend you travel more. The further I get from Canada the more I realize it is only a few Canadians and Americans that see it as a US vs Canada issue - we already have our own distinct identity.
it is only a few Canadians and Americans that see it as a US vs Canada issue
No Americans see "it" as a "US vs Canada issue" because "it" is an exclusively Canadian concern. What Americans think of Canada is (a) nothing and (b) (when pressed) that big cold-but-friendly blank space at the top of the map. That doesn't stop them from being warm and fuzzy when they find out you're Canadian.
I would amend your statement to say that ignorant Americans believe their country is supreme, because the TV tells them so. Ignorant Canadians receive the same messages, but don't have much to counter them, and thus default to such spite and envy.
I'm a Canadian and I've lived in the USA for years. This has made me acutely aware of how different our cultures really are, and how they both have different virtues.
To someone in Tanzania or Laos do you think they know what that subtle difference is? Face it, you get lumped in with Americans because the overall culture is similar.
I'm an Australian living in a town with a pretty high level of immigrants, including a lot of Americans and Canadians, and I can't tell the difference between an American and a Canadian at all. I'm not entirely convinced the difference between a Canadian and an American would be any bigger than the difference between Texans and Californians, for example.
The difference between a Canadian and an American is about the same as the difference between a Kiwi and an Aussie. Likewise, the difference between a Texan and a Californian is similar to the difference between someone from Geelong and someone from Sydney.
What got me is that his only justification for this (#13) is that our accents are the same. And based on #10 (culture matters) I thought he actually understood what 'culture' meant.
Slow down now. Aren't (usable) electricity and running water both Western inventions?! I think that it's not so arrogant to suggest that if people adopt those things that they have a bit of Western in their culture.
I would equally say that we have some Chinese culture in our fireworks displays. It goes both ways. We are abandoning our non-fireworks culture to embrace theirs, just as others abandon their non-electrical culture to embrace parts of Western culture.
"Three and a half years and 70 countries later, I've gotten the equivalent of a Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth."
I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but possibly an explanation to the downvoters: a Ph.D. is a specialization; "specialization in general knowledge" doesn't compute.
What makes me sad sometimes is that traveling the world for a few months to a year doesn't even cross the minds of many of my fellow Americans. But doing just that is extremely common for almost any other wealthy country. The number of Americans I meet in a place can be counted on one hand; the number of English, Australians, Kiwis, Germans, etc. etc. are always huge. After some thought, I think it comes down to the fear that's being slowly baked in to our culture. People (and I mean Americans) are afraid of what happens if they don't work, of finding a new job when they come back, of insurance, of germs and war in foreign countries, of insanely improbable disaster striking, of getting lost, of running out of money, of bed bugs, of missing friends and family, of anything. Some of these are valid worries; most aren't.
Having grown up in just such a fear-based culture (and having a worrier gene run in the family), I struggle against those fears myself every day. It isn't easy. But the most important thing that traveling has taught me is this: that everything will be OK. You can be out of a job, get a terrible injury (I myself had an accident requiring surgery while in New Zealand), get lost, miss your flight, have your wallet stolen, lose your passport, or worse, and... everything will be OK. Your family will be there for you, your friends will be there for you, other travelers you've met will be there for you, the locals will be there for you. You'll find a job when you get back, and your old friends won't have forgotten you. As long as you've got the will and the spirit, everything will work out.
So get out there. See the world. It's a beautiful, fascinating, scary, wondrous place. Don't be afraid of taking a year off. Everything will be OK, and it will make you a smarter, more even-headed, tolerant, and curious person. And you'll make friends from all over the world that you can visit on your next big trip.