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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

74 replies

MontagueCapulet · 16/01/2013 00:46

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.

OP posts:

Absy · 16/01/2013 11:08

I think the stereotypes are why people refer to themselves as "travellers" rather than tourists

Tourist
Traveller

SpicyPear · 16/01/2013 11:10

Some people think this some don't. When I met DH he was still a travelling bore and I wound him up no end about it. There are many reasons why I have never wanted to go travelling but none of them involve me being ignorant of or disinterested in other cultures and differing standards of living.

Rosa · 16/01/2013 11:14

I only comment when asked . I have been fortunate to visit many places some on a budget others not. I also worked in the travel industry for many years and that does have an advantage. Often I help people source a holiday but I don't see my self as superior - fortunate yes to have been able to see many places in the world ,some people might only ever dream of. I enjoy hearing about friends holidays . I hope in the future to do more serious travelling but for now with 2 young dds I am very happy with 10 days in Fuerteventura and Cornwall in the summer.

KellyElly · 16/01/2013 11:14

I wish I'd gone travelling and 'found myself' as I'm still looking

NiniLegsInTheAir · 16/01/2013 11:15

I think YANBU to a certain extent. I know several couples who 'went travelling' after we all graduated from uni, mostly with loans or money from family. OH and I didn't, we got jobs, and saved our money.

Flash forward almost 5 years and these same couples are now complaining that they can't afford to buy homes as they're still paying off their travelling loans. So not only do some of them still expect me to listen avidly to their travelling stories because 'you didn't take the opportunity' (), they now want my sympathy because their little jolly abroad means they can't buy their own house.

Of course this isn't applicable to everyone, but it is my experience. It really pisses me off.

msrisotto · 16/01/2013 11:21

It pisses you off? Really? 'cos you sound smug that you saved money and they took out loans.

NiniLegsInTheAir · 16/01/2013 11:27

Yep, I am smug. Having had my nose rubbed in their 'great experience abroad' while poor little me stayed in the UK and worked, I think I'm entitled to feel that way.

Hullygully · 16/01/2013 11:42

Does it make you happy Nini?

NiniLegsInTheAir · 16/01/2013 11:44

Not as much as chocolate does.

msrisotto · 16/01/2013 11:46

Ok now you just sound bitter.

I don't understand why people can't be happy for other people?

stargirl1701 · 16/01/2013 11:48

What Richman said.

ThinkAboutItOnBoxingDay · 16/01/2013 11:51

I travel a lot. I love travelling. I bang on about my travels because i love them and they are some of my happiest memories. And i learn a lot and then bring it into conversation. This is more to do with me being a boring geek than smug.

I do sometimes feel that people who haven't travelled have a bit of a narrow view. It always makes me smile when people who have shied away from travelling do finally succumb.

My aunt and uncle went to the same caravan park in Robin Hoods Bay for about 20 years in a row. Then one of their best friends emigrated to Oz and they went to visit her. Honestly to hear them go on you'd have thought they DISCOVERED australia! It was so sweet and slightly sad that they realised the world beyond North Yorkshire was actually quite fun too late to really enjoy it all.

Allaquandry · 16/01/2013 12:16

I do think that those who have fully immersed themselves in other cultures (not the same as gappies, not the same as people on package tours and all-inclusives) are probably quite right to feel themselves 'better' than those who express no interest whatsoever in experiencing anything other than their own narrow lives.

Just as I think those who read widely, and who seek out to understand the views of those to whom they are ideologically opposed, and who refuse to accept something as fact because it is reported as such within a politically motivated setting (tv or print) are also 'better' than those who do none of these things.

Those who harp on about it are forgiven if they do so from a point of fighting for more tolerance or against ignorance. They are not forgiven if they do it simply to establish their own delusions of superiority. In my experience true travel has been a mirror to my own prejudices and ignorance, and a humbling experience more than anything, not something I see worth boasting about (although I do of course see the irony in adding this viewpoint as a postscript to my earlier comments...)

JugglingFromHereToThere · 16/01/2013 12:26

I guess there's a difference though in seeing that travel has broadened your horizons, and perhaps made you a more interesting possibly better person than you were before (though surely more mature is a better phrase ?) and thinking or saying that you are therefore better than others who've not had the same experience/ opportunity ?

Shelby2010 · 16/01/2013 12:31

It's like when you have a baby - for most people it's a fantastic, life changing experience. But if I kept banging on to my unintentionally childless friend in her fifties about how you don't know real love til you hold your newborn or that having kids makes you less selfish and more tolerant mainly about mess or that I can't understand why everyone doesn't do it etc etc Then I would rightly deserve her to get bored & pissed off pretty quick. I'd probably end up hanging around on the Internet talking to strangers cos no one in real life would talk to me......

LittleAbruzzenBear · 16/01/2013 12:33

Everyone's different, you get smug travellers, but equally you get annoying people who 'crossly' declare that you 'can have just as good a holiday in Britain'.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 16/01/2013 12:55

"hanging around on the Internet talking to strangers" Ooh, harsh Shelby

Tis cold outside !

theodorakisses · 16/01/2013 13:09

I lived in Iraq pre invasion and have been back for recruiting post invasion. I also spent 3 years in Libya years ago. Does that give me more perspective? Not completely. But it does stop me making sweeping political statements that I have seen on GMTV or Fox News. Ignorance is not always deliberately offensive but is just as dangerous. The smallest minded people I know, however, are not British.

neriberi · 16/01/2013 13:46

I got into a row at a wedding with someone about my lack of travel, apparently "I will new fully understand what it is to live until I've traveled".

Allinonebucket · 16/01/2013 14:10

Lots of things can open your mind and make you mature mentally.

A death in the family, travel, having children, caring for someone sick, falling in love, out of love, taking acid, finding God, losing faith...

I think if something changes you, it's easy to get a little stuck on it. It can probably get boring to those around you, whatever the topic.

IvorWindybottom · 16/01/2013 14:13

What pisses me off is when they say things like " we found this amazing cafe that only the locals go to " and other such bullshit

AntsMarching · 16/01/2013 14:37

YABU & YANBU

I was sent by my job to live and work in another country where I didn't speak the language and where, as a Caucasian, I was in the minority and the attitude to women was much different to what I'd grown up with.

It was eye opening. It gave me a newfound respect for what women/minorities had had to go through to get to where they were in my home country. That experience has never left me, it's made me a much more sympathetic person.

I don't normally tell people about it though because I find it hard to articulate without sounding like a total wanker.

That's why I'm not sure if its unreasonable or not. It could be that some of the people are just trying to express their feelings and can't find a really good way of saying/doing it. And it could be that they are smug, pretentious gits. Hard to know really unless you know them really well.

ilikefestivitea · 16/01/2013 14:42

Actually YABU and making a rather big generalisation.

I had this thrown at me by my brother - he told me thatI thought I was better than the rest of the family because I had travelled and moved away from my home town. He'd been waffling on about how awful benefits were and what a disgrace it was that claimants weren't forced to move hundreds of miles to get a job.

When I pointed out that as he had never lived more than 10mins from my parents; they had helped him buy his first flat and my parents and his in-laws were already linedup for fre child-care; that he didn't actually understand what it was like to move away from friends and family support network and maybe he should consider it before talking shite, he told me I thought I was better than everyone because I had "travelled".

By your argument, from my experience, I could conclude that everyone who has never travelled is an ignorant bigot." - clearly not true and mass generalisation.

EverybodyisdeadDave · 16/01/2013 16:05

Oh I know someone like this.

Someone on his Fb must have said they saw a lovely sunset in Ibiza or something, because then we had a full essay on his status about how a sunset in Ibiza cannot possibly compare to somewhere somewhere in Thailand where he lived for a couple of years, and how you have not lived unless you have seen this etc etc etc......He was very derisive about a Sunset in Ibiza....I felt the need to point it is actually, you know....the same Sun!

However, he is being all smug about something else right now, so smug people are just smug people no matter what they do.

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