Well, it seems that I’ve been on a philosophical kick of late. I’ve been rather dormant these months, and I’m still compiling a few other guides. Because of that, I’ve had time to dwell upon an echoing sentiment that repeatedly reared its head while I was on the road. It boils down to this simple point: understand what kind of experiences you got while traveling.

This is far from being a long gripe session. Rather I wish to point to our own awareness and help make us more informed and better travelers rather than plodding along aimlessly from one country to another all while praising how ‘woke’ traveling makes us become. And I’m definitely not saying this while sitting in my ritzy glass house as I’ve committed this cardinal sin many, many times.

So what do I really mean by this?

Without a doubt, most people set out to not only see exotic locales and sample fantastic foods, but also to meet the local people and become more enlightened by the virtue of gaining shared experience and empathy. And that’s what many people achieve, spending ample time in a country and truly learning more about their culture and gaining wisdom in the process.

But far too often I have seen travelers zip through a country, spending just a few days there, and somehow believing they have fully grasped a complex culture in that minuscule amount of time. I’ve once met  a backpacker who whizzed through Vietnam in only a week, yet insisted that I must run into issues being an American. Another traveler espoused the beauty and the progressiveness of the Czech Republic, but in all actuality, he’d spent his half week solely in Prague on a wild bender.

The club scene in Prague is a pretty wild beast admittedly. Can’t blame the guy.

These stories all have one thing in common: they simply don’t do the country and its culture justice. Part of our due diligence as a traveler is to have the awareness to know what we truly learn from a country. An American on Spring Break in Cabo San Lucas probably learns as much about Mexico as you would watching 22 Jump Street.

If we are to truly become these progressive individuals that we claim ourselves to be, we should give the cultures the respect they deserve without letting our egos get in the way. Too often we try to exaggerate our experiences. Whether we are doing this to make them profound or to justify our travels, we should take a step back and think about what we actually experienced.

Only then can we confidently take our growing experiences and better gauge our own existence or share our profound journeys with others and not spread alternative facts. It’s how we accurately represent others and add more to our collective knowledge and experience. I’m absolutely not advocating that everyone needs to spend a year in each country to win your right to assert your opinions about a place. I’m simply saying that we should have the awareness to know how much we actually learned.

For example, during my trip to Thailand I spent almost two weeks lounging around a pristine beach, enjoying daily swims and smoothies. Did I learn anything about Thai culture? Hell no! But did I find the best smoothies in Koh Lanta? You bet your ass that I went and tried a dozen smoothie stands to find the best. I enjoyed the hell out of my beach bum experience and treated it like a tropical getaway. Not every trip has to be a fact-finding mission on the inner workings of another people or culture. But if you did what I did, simply say you found an awesome beach to enjoy some crisp beers while trying to get the sand out of your bum. There’s nothing wrong with that and don’t let anyone judge you for it.

Not a lot of culture hidden in that dive spot

Why should this matter to you?

Because it’s truly a disservice not to our own self-growth but to the country. Imagine this: you’re abroad and just met a Slovenian tourist. He finds out you’re American and quickly tells you about his previous trip to America; how much he loved it, but that he found Americans to be rather abrasive. Turns out he just spent three days in New York City.

Damn straight you’re probably a bit offended! What a disservice it is to the 325 million Americans to be represented by New York City. How could anyone scrape the surface of a truly American experience without seeing authentic southern hospitality, or the majestic Rocky Mountains, or a large salmon being thrown around like a football at the local market?

And that hypothetical scenario plays out all the time. That was a real conversation I’ve had and I’ve had others where I’ve been the guilty offender. I met a couple of Germans and was quick to exclaim my love of their lovely country. When they inquired where I went, I told them about my trip to Nuremberg, Munich and the German Alps. Their faces quickly soured when they realized I judged their entire country based on a short visit to their overly conservative brethren. They answered with a sneering “You mean you went to Bavaria….” I might have well as told a San Franciscan how great America is by visiting Texas.

So the next time you go to Italy and do a whirlwind tour of Tuscany, simply say that the food was divine, the coliseum is huge, and that the few Romans you met were understandingly inundated with tourists and rather curt. Or if you if you spent ample time in Poland, feel free to elaborate on the politeness of the Poles and the complexities of their modern political situation. Just try your best and be honest with yourself.

Until next time.