Travel Tips

What exactly is the point of going around places, often with very little time on your hands, and often without seeing even half as much as you had expected? Do we try to find the "genuine" in the most remote and exotic places? Is that why we are so sorely disappointed when we find that even the smallest native village somewhere has a kiosk serving one famous soft-drink brand...?
Trying to capture the genuinity of a place, really getting to know a place - is this something we really want? Because if so, then a two week trip is not nearly enough. Nor is a six-month trip. A lifetime ought to de devoted to each village, each turn of the road.
Still I think this "getting into the spirit of the place - going beyond the touristic crap" is an honest and beautiful goal of many of us travellers of the world.
However futile it may seem.
Travelling is also a way of defining yourself. How can you tell someone what "Swedes are like" if you didn't, at least have a hint of what the Finnish are like, or the Germans, or perhaps even the Taiwanese..? You learn about yourself as you are being exposed to another culture, not just about your own reactions towards that culture, but through your reactions, about your own background.
Getting to know yourself can be one goal of travelling.
However futile it may seem.
Travelling can also be a way of getting high, it is, like many other things, not least VT, addictive. You have seen this, and done that, now you must venture even further, another native people, another jungle, another city jungle. Another anecdote to bring home. To get the feeling that youdid something in life. That you didn't waste it, that you got around, got to see things.
As long as you don't forget that your life isn't really about all the things you saw, and briefly got to know. Travelling doesn't necessarily involve physical movement, it can also be done into yourself and involve discovering how lovely the natives on your own backyard are.
Happy travels!!

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