In my travels around the world I have met people from basically everywhere. I think one of my favorite experiences was when I ended up hanging around with a group of 20-30 somethings that were from Iran. We had a wonderful conversation and I found out that basically everything I have been told about that part of the world and the people that live in it is a lie or at the minimum, the bad aspects of the country have been blown out of proportion on purpose to keep westerners afraid of the middle east.
When I met those people I was so intrigued and interested in what they were telling me and all the wonderful photos whey were showing me that I applied, twice, to get a visa to Iran. I was denied both times because I am from USA - I presume - and when I contacted the Iran Embassy, they wouldn't even respond to me about my denial. So that kind of sucks and it is the fault of our governments, not the people that live in it, that it is that way. It kind of sucks when government screws over the people like this because the Iranians that I met told me that there are a TON of countries that they are not allowed to travel to because of this "beef" that USA and Iran have with one another.
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Had it not been for running into this group of friends that were traveling, I probably would have lived my life thinking that Iran is a seriously dangerous and unwelcoming place that hates Americans. This group told me that it is so rare that anyone ever meets Americans in that country that almost everyone is extremely welcoming of them going as far as competing with one another to see who gets to invite them over for dinner.
I have also met people from basically every country in Europe and learned a lot about those places, which was nice because even though I travel a lot, most of Europe is far too expensive for me to reasonably expect to travel to. When I talk to people from Sweden and especially Norway, they are able to explain to me that living in those countries is very cold as you would expect, and almost everyone makes what appears to be a very good living. However, when you dig a bit deeper, you can understand why so many people from these countries travel a lot because for them, traveling saves them money as opposed to being in their extremely expensive countries.
They get to learn from me that Americans are actually a very diverse group of people, and to lump us all into one category of not understanding Celsius or the metric system and that we all love American Football is not a fair way to categorize us. I don't know how many times I have heard the extremely untrue "statistic" about only 6-10% of Americans even having passports, but it simply isn't true. It's funny to me how these things become fact just because people decided that they are.
I've met plenty of people that are traveling because they do not like their own countries or more specifically, their government. This has recently been very true with Russians that I have met although they tend to stay quiet about it because they don't want to cause problems. The other nationalities that don't care for their own governments are probably Chinse, Australians, and of course Americans.
It's kind of nice to get the inside scoop from people that live in those countries because almost everyone has an untrue notion of what those places are really like. You get the truth from travelers, they have no reason to lie to you whereas the news and governments seem to want to keep us all deceived for some reason.
So while you are traveling take time to meet other people because honestly that is one of my favorite parts of the entire travel scene. The destinations are great and so is the scenery but the way that meeting people from all around the world will teach you so much about how the world really is... well, that is probably my favorite thing about all of it.
Traveling around the world.... is the real school of education to understand what life is all really about. Enjoying the company with others by sharing experiences, learning new things not familiar to you, and realizing that we as a human being there are no you and I... there is us. :) Great post man. Inspiring.
I think that it is very true. This doesn't mean that everyone should just abandon their families and friends and live on the road but I think that maybe a lot of people could benefit by putting off some superfluous purchases and putting that money towards seeing a bit of the world.
And soon they will realize as they travel what could have not been bought with money... seeing the world through your own retina, not through a phone screen. Now that.... my friend is priceless.
I had so many times where sceneries were so grand and vast I tried to take a photo and..... it totally did not capture the entirety of its beauty. Not even close... You probably know what I mean. hehehehe.
This is an amazing statement and something I completely agree with. I find myself taking fewer and fewer pictures as I travel and instead just take in the moment for my internal hard drive in my brain. Since I don't really use social media, who am I going to show those pictures to anyway?
All very true and you get to decide for yourself and not by what you read or hear. I think it is very easy to lump all people from one country into the same basket but as we know we are all very different.
On the flip side of things I think that we tend to become the stereotype of our nationalities if we do not travel. For example I was extremely, even annoyingly, patriotic before I started traveling and after just a little while I realized that I had been a bit brainwashed by my country and that everyone in the world is basically the same... There is no superior nation.