to think people who have travelled think they are better than others?

[MontagueCapulet]

Or perhaps I just know smug people?

I traveled around Asia in my early 20s - does anyone on here care? No.

Do I think I'm better than people who haven't traveled? No.

One guy I know traveled for a year maybe 7 or 8 years ago and is still constantly bringing it up.

I'm not saying all people are like this but some have a rather smug and better than thou attitude when it comes to how many countries they have traveled to.

I know what you mean - there is a certain level of smugness with some people no matter what they do, be it travelling, reading etc. A bit like the "oh, I can't bear people who don't enjoy reading" mindset etc.

I think the problem is that people who have 'travelled' (as opposed to visiting as a tourist) do feel their experience has 'changed them', they've 'learnt a lot' & given them a better insight into other cultures. This is probably true.

However if you are saying this to someone who didn't have that opportunity, you are effectively telling them that they are more ignorant of other cultures, have not learnt anything of equivalent value & have remained the same unenlightened person that they were when they left school. It makes you sound smug even if you actually aren't.

Shelby2010 Wed 16-Jan-13 09:21:32
"I think the problem is that people who have 'travelled' (as opposed to visiting as a tourist) do feel their experience has 'changed them', they've 'learnt a lot' & given them a better insight into other cultures. This is probably true. "

This.

My friend who had been to India was so full of how his experience had changed him that it didn't occur to him that as a foreigner who had settled, married and had a child in the UK, to a man speaking another language than my own and brought up in a different culture, I had probably had some pretty life changing experiences of my own and didn't need his pity.

I struggle to see the difference between 'travelling' and being a tourist? Except possible for the length of the holiday? I class myself as a tourist but that doesn't mean that when I visit a country I just sit on the beach (and so what if you do?)

There are many permutations : AI holidays, backpacking holidays, voluntary work abroad, year abroad placements, moving abroad with work, moving abroad just to live in that country etc. etc.

This thread does remind me of my year abroad. As I was coming to the end of my placement, the guy who had my placement the previous year came back to visit. He was wonderfully patronising and offered to show me around the small town I'd lived in for the past 9 months because he seemed to think he must know it better than me, having lived there for 9 months the previous year

I do encourage people to go travelling as my 3 years working and travelling abroad was one of the best experiences of my life so I do recommend it to people who are young free and single and not sure what to do next for example

Me and dh's favourite subject. Smug travellers.
We are we travelled in the holiday sense and now have a camper can so can do even more now but his db and my d sis love to harp on about their travels and how great they are. It makes me laugh cos they are two of the most conventional snobby people I know so it didn't change them.
I like to see a different country from a comfy hotel not a flea bag hostel and as for India! I'd never want to go to a place where women are so badly treated!

My brother went travelling twenty years ago and never came back!
He lives in a converted lorry and has lived in France, holland, Cambodia and South America. They work where they can and seem to have a great life.
Now that is travelling.
We have stayed with them twice with dds and love it but miss our home comforts after a few weeks.

I did a lot of travelling abroad and in the EU I'm not one bit smug but have learned a lot by doing so.

My BIL went to one country and hung out with British people taking drugs staying away from locals and he knows it all and I mean all. Tried telling my DD's all about how great drugs and booze are when she was 3! but his always been a twat.

Coincidentially watched a program on TV the other day re this very thing.

Apparently it gives them "Bragging Rights".

My DB has travelled the world extensively but he never mentions it unless someone asks him about a specific country.

Various - I see the difference thus:

A. goes to India and does homestays, staying with families, eating with them, getting to know them etc, travels on local buses blah blah

B goes to Goa and stays in a compound with other foreigners where all the Indians they meet are servants/hawkers/shopkeepers

Aah my chance to link to wonderful

I'm not so much of a traveller, but more of a "serial monogamist" when it comes to moving to other countries, so I've lived and worked in quite a few for the past 18 years.

I did notice that the gap-year type kids tend to be a bit like this and it gets tedious very quickly, bless.

Like TotallyBS, I had people lecturing me about my native country and even correcting my pronunciation of a local footballer's name. That amuses me.

mmmm, it depends on the person but, often, I think YANBU

I think I was a bit like this at university to be honest and it makes me cringe to think of it now. I had my first baby at 19, while I was studying at uni and in the long holidays during my 2nd, 3rd and 4th years I still continued to do what I'd done in previous summers - travelled around Brazil several times, South America once, India once and Southern Africa once. With a young baby/toddler in tow!

I was very smug and self righteous. I talked about babies just needing love not structure and any other hippy rubbish that I could use to justify the fact that I just wanted to be a student and wasn't mature enough to be a mother. I thought that people who dropped out of education to be teen mums and stayed at home were somehow less than me.

It wasn't a pleasant attitude.

Enjoyed Paul Foot too TalkingOnion - this thread is turning up a rich seam of comedy tales this morning

Wish I could live in another country again Poppy - your experiences sound very interesting - I'm fed up with boring Britain in January, though I guess at least the snow is creating a chilly change of scene ?

And I'm still impressed manic - with your travels with your baby !

cory arf at 'gentle pity'.

In the time that my mate went travelling I'd left my abusive husband, bought a house and lost 5 stone. Which paled into significance compared to scoring drugs in Goa, obviously...

Hm. Well, I think that travelling to different countries can change your outlook on like, make you appreciate your place in the world a bit more and so on, be a bit more sensitive about cultural differences etc.

I've never done "proper" travelling, you know, going and staying somewhere for months at a time living in a yurt as I've never had the time or money to do so, but done lots of vacations in various countries/continents and that has been an education. I don't think that makes me better than someone else, just more fortunate.

but then, of course, there are people who have travelled extensively and it did nothing to them (one of the most racist people I know has travelled all over Africa and Asia and is still a twat; clearly he learned nothing) either because of how they did it (Ethno Rah Raleigh organised gap year "volunteering" at a small Indian village, followed by piss up in Australia, as was in vogue when I was a univeristy or sitting in an AI for 2 weeks, your only exposure to local people and culture being a local cocktail served by a local person) or because of how they are.

I do judge people who have no interest in experiencing anything outside of their own environment.

I once worked with a guy who, never mind travelling abroad, had never left London.

'what for? Everything i need is here.'

Oh yes, and twatty racist guy also insisted on lecturing me about my own country (on the basis of a three week vacation he'd had there). As I said, TWAT

I have been lucky enough to have had lots of long holidays, and to have worked abroad. And in some of the comfortable and sunny parts of the world. Loved it. Saw lots of amazing things, had some great experiences; and am now grateful, every single day, for the roof over my head that I don't have to book, and the food in my fridge that I don't have to label, and the mosquito-free clean air, and the drinkable tap water, and many other wonderful things.

nothing more fun than winding up the Lonely Planet crowd by being a tourist, and proud of it. A 'traveller' is just a smug tourist. You're either a tourist or you live there. Nothing wrong with being a tourist, or a 'visitor' if you prefer.

I refer everyone to William Sutcliffe's 'Are you Experienced'.

The most irritating are those who travel to raise money for chariteeeeeee.
Not only is the bike ride to Timbuktu A-Maze-Ing, and a totally life changing blah blah blah BUT it is also to raise money for the local rugby club/hospital/ major illness charity, the same one that mums is on the local committee for the Christmas ball.

Why not take the money you are spending on airfares, travel, gortex kit and just give that to the charity and save us all from the endless face book vanity trip photos.

If you want to go to Timbuktu then go, if you want to give money to the charity of your choice then give, but I will give money directly to the charity not to fund a vanity trip.

I travelled a lot in my 20s. I didn't look down on people who didn't travel but I didn't get them, I couldn't understand why people were happy with a two week holiday in Magaluf when there are more exciting destinations to visit. If I'm honest a tiny part of me probably did look down on people but I'm happy to admit that I was being very unreasonable.

Now I'm middle aged my life is so far removed from by backpacking days that I forget I did all that travelling most days! I certainly don't look down on people who haven't travelled now. I never ask people if they have travelled and they don't ask me, it's something that happened a long time ago. I would love to travel again, I don't think the travelling bug ever leaves you but right now with young children and very limited finances the world is a much smaller place than it was in my 20s. As you get older you also accept that everyone is different and has different interests, not everybody wants to camp in a Mongolian desert and that's fine.

I'm often thankful for the peaceful and dry roof over my head, and the clean water "on tap" in my kitchen SS Also that my heating was fixed on Friday just before it turned really cold & the snow arrived !

I think there's no romance in the word "tourist" though. Being a "traveller" is so much more exciting, and can represent a different approach and mind-set eg. travelling independently and meeting and staying with local people - enjoying their often generous friendship and hospitality. And yes, truly grateful and thankful for that as well

I went travelling for a year in my 20s, with my then boyfriend, now dh.

It seems really adventurous on paper, but you soon realise that pretty much every backpacker you meet is doing the same route. We would quite regularly bump into people we'd met 3 countries ago.

Having said that, it was a fantastic experience and it broadened our horizons. I think it's made us cover greater distances since, we've always taken our dcs long haul.

I do think you miss out if you don't travel; I will definitely encourage our dcs to do it.