What means "Get outside and travel the world!" Why?

[Jazoni89]

Unless you have a Scrooge Mcduck style moneypit, i don't think traveling the world is a viable option for most people, especially for younger people, who haven't had many years of adult life to truly have a huge income. It's most likely a stupid unintelligent insult from some other young dude who hasn't probably been that far in his life anyway. Evident for the fact he had time to cause an argument on the internet in the first place.

However I did hear about a guy who traveled for four years visiting every single country without using a plane, living on a hundred dollars a week, so it's possible if you know where about's you are going, and you spend years of planning out ahead.

Though in England, it feels like we don't even have to leave our own country to experience different cultures. We have many immigrants from India, Spain, China, Thailand, Pakistan, and Poland (amongst other countries) that come over here. So you do get a nice balance, and you are not culturally isolated like you are in America, which can be a problem as it promotes stereotyping, racism, and xenophobia.

 

[AngloDoom]

I found people who live in the same place end up having similar traits. In the town I'm in now everyone knows everyone else and a lot of people hold pretty similar views. I was considered really strange, almost alien, in some of my views when I first moved to the town but where I used to live (not 100 miles away) I wasn't some kind of deviant.

Travelling the world means meeting different people, seeing new perspectives, and experiencing new things, why would you not want to travel around the world?

 

[thesilentman]

I think it means stop being ignorant. Little ironic whenever someone tells me to do so as they sometimes they have no idea what they learned by travelling the world. I've been to India couple of times (where I was born, but I grew up in the US) and I clearly like the fact that I know how fortunate I really am. I just don't get why a good chunk of America can't understand...

 

[Alandoril]

When I see the phrases "travel the world" and "help the poor" what I see is "go and waste loads of money getting drunk in tourist traps" and "build a school that will just get torn down in the next civil and/or pointless ethnic/religious war."

All this so that rich people can tell themselves and of course their prospective employers that they're knowledgeable and interesting, when in fact they are the exact opposite and tend to be some of the most vapid, self-involved people you could ever meet.

Far better to actually force our governments to unite and help the world as a whole, rather than putting out "brush fires" as it were. But in this day and age, where politics is driven by corporate capital and headline chasing fools, that is alas beyond any of us.

I KNOW how terrible things are out there, and we in the west are all guilty by association for the crimes being committed against entire populations in the pursuit of power and money. Going and seeing it wouldn't magically make me anymore enlightened.

 

[Akytalusia]

going on adventures, if nothing else, gives you memories and stories to tell when you're too old to -have- adventures. you may not think about it, but you aren't going to be young forever, and you may regret all the things you didn't do when you had the chance to do 'em. that's why i personally would recommend people go outside and travel. has nothing to do with expanding your mind or anything.

 

[2xDouble]

Traveling the world, by itself, is not a cure for ignorance. Life experience is. The best way to gain life experience is to venture outside of your comfort zone, your "home", and see how the world "really works".

Like it or not, the internet is not a sufficient substitute for life experience.