Episode 05: There is No Inherent Value in Seeing the World

[00:00:00] Seth: Hey, I wanted to talk about travel a little bit. You know, growing up I had I had the opportunity to travel probably more than a lot of kids. Throughout my life I've traveled a lot. I've been out of the country many, many times. I've done a lot of travel in my life. I even lived in another country.

For a couple of years and I lived in yet another country for a semester while I was studying. So I've definitely had some benefits from travel. See that being said over the last several years, I've started to. Developed this opinion that there's not actually that much inherent value in traveling.

Now that's a little bit of a loaded statement. There's, there's more to that. But so many times we all see someone just pushing to get to some obscure place in the country. And they're there for a week and then they're back. And they manage to, you know, maybe run by some museums. Maybe take some good photos, and I'm not, I'm not gonna disagree that it's fun, but where I do, you know, have some thoughts on it, is that we treat it like it's this, this deep, inherent good, and I think it has the potential to be that, but in reality, that's not how we travel.

When we travel, we go and we, we get our little samples from our carefully curated opportunities that are made available to us. We do all of the same touristy things. We try all the same things. We tell our friends about it. Our friends. Our friends then go and do the same thing, and then they tell their friends about it, and on and on goes the cycle.

Kids from Australia end up in Southeast Asia. It's like a rite of passage for them, at some point. And they go and they do all of the Southeast Asia things that Australian kids do. Is it much of a Southeast Asian experience? I honestly don't know that it is. But you know, it's fun. I guess it's a way to, to break away from their parents a little bit.

But When I was a kid, my grandparents had the means to take us on some, some nice vacations. And and we often did go to some nice vacations and we did some cool things. We saw some cool places. And I think my grandfather really insisted on doing and making these big trips because he felt that there was this deep, inherent benefit to traveling and to going and visiting someplace.

And I had a great time. It was fantastic. I loved those trips. I got to see my cousins. We played. We saw cool places. But at the end of the day, he probably could have just Taking us to a campground somewhere in the U S and we would have had just as much fun. It was really, it was about the fun. It was the, it was the joy of getting out there and doing something with people that I liked.

And that is, that's the value I got from it, but he insisted on trying to get us to some very exciting places. And we did get to go to some exciting places. I. You know, I was extremely fortunate that way as a kid, being able to travel to some amazing places. This whole idea that there's this inherent good to traveling, I think, has fueled this.

This approach to travel that doesn't really benefit people outside of fun. If you're going for fun, then, you know, that's an honest reason to, to go. But I see these people sometimes that scrimp and they save and they, they work so hard to have this opportunity to go abroad and they're there for maybe, I mean, max, like three weeks.

Most of the time, I mean, usually much less, maybe like a week or two weeks. And what do they do while they're there? They do all of the tourist things, which are, you know, they're fun. They're not, but they're not necessarily getting you a taste of that country and fun is a perfectly legitimate reason to travel.

That being said, the fun is not a good reason to spend your life savings. It's not a good reason to go into debt. It's not a good reason to, to put yourself into a situation where you're gonna be in trouble at some point. It's And that's where the rub is. You know, these vacations are amazing. They're, they're fun.

They're exciting. I completely understand the idea that you want to invest in yourself to some degree. And I think that investment that we sometimes think we're making when we're traveling is this one that assumes that we're going to get this, this cultural dose. That's going to expose us to how other people live.

That's going to impact us in some way. I think we sometimes go on these trips, imagining. Oh, it's gonna change me, especially when you're younger. I think, I think the illusion that Travel is going to be super important in your life. Changes probably for a lot of people as they get older, but I'm speaking mostly from the attitudes of people that I knew when I was still going to college years ago.

And it was the appetite for travel is strong, including in myself. I just, I remember, and that's a largely where this is driven is because I had this attitude that like I needed to get out, get out there and see the world. And I needed to, to do this stuff. I remember I did a study abroad too. And I went out there and I also, I planned this other portion of the trip before I got there to go to Rome and I had a bunch of friends that were going to go with me.

And anyways, ultimately they all, they all bailed out. So I ended up going to, to Rome by myself. And it is amazing how fast you can get through all of those tourist attractions when you have nobody to talk to. I mean, arguably, I could have tried to make friends, but I was feeling a little shy at the time, so I, I didn't push that hard.

But, and I was only there for a few days. But, I went through there, I saw all the sites. I got to know zero Italian people, zero Romans, outside of attempting to order gelato. That was, like, the worst. And in order food, I mean, that was pretty much my, my only exposure to Italian people. And so as far as getting a dose of that country, I got to do something very novel, something very exciting, something I could have seen all those things in a book and I could have read about all those things in a book.

And was it impactful? No, not really. It wasn't. I had nobody to talk to about it. If someone was there would it have been impactful? I don't know. I don't think so. I think it just would have been fun. I would have enjoyed it. I would have had a blast. But that's not what the motivation was. The motivation was I need to go.

I need to see the world because there's some deep inherent good to it. Just imagine, imagine some, some young girl sees her friend in Spain or China and taking some great pictures. Great pictures and her life is kind of mundane at the moment and she's like, oh, I gotta go do this It's gonna change me.

Somehow. She gets on a plane. She flies to the next place and Goes to Africa or something get some great photos comes back home. She's seen the world now, you know What's changed in her? Probably nothing. You know, the thing is I believe that travel can provide those kinds of experience, but if you really want that kind of an experience while you're traveling, I think you need to stay and I think you need to do things that are not tourist things.

If you want to get a different perspective on the world, I think you need to know if you're going to Italy, I think you need to get to know Italians. If you're going to Southeast Asia, I think you need to get to know Southeast Asians and not just the ones that you're paying to do services or whatever. A couple of experiences I had traveling that were pretty good.

So I mentioned that, that Rome trip that wasn't necessarily of any lasting value to me. Other than it was kind of fun, actually, not so much cause I had no friends, but I did that on the way going to the Middle East and I was in the Middle East for three months. And you know, the point was to try to learn the language and to get a heavier dose of what it is.

The Middle East and try to understand the place a little better. You know, there was some value to that, you know, three months, wasn't quite as much as I would have liked to really deeply get to know that place, but it was a good dose. As far as what I got out of it, I got something out of that. I got to know, I got to know Arabs.

I got to know people from the region. I got to become familiar with their problems and their Culture and, and, and not in any depth, cause even three months is, is pretty limited. I got something out of it and I'm grateful for that. You know, I came out kind of being able to speak the language. Don't ask me to say anything now I've lost it completely, but the best travel experience I had was when I went to the Philippines, you know, I was there for a couple of years and I got to know Filipinos.

Extremely well. I got to know the language where I was at really pretty good and I can even still speak it. Good enough that I can still speak it, you know, 16, 17 years later to a limited fashion. I've lost a lot of vocabulary, but I got to know it really well. I got so comfortable with the culture. You see, the thing is, I was there long enough to learn to hate it and then to learn to love it again.

And I think that's where you really get the growth is when you actually have to struggle. And I got to know Filipinos and I was around Filipinos. I got a different perspective of the world. I got exactly what people are trying to get when they travel. But unfortunately, it takes more than a week's vacation.

So, I mean, is it worth it to save your pennies so you can go travel to Europe? It's certainly fun. But if it's really gonna, if it's gonna ultimately cost you anything down the road, it's a poor investment. Is it worth it to, to find some way, some sustainable way to, to live? abroad for, for years or a year or for some longer period of time, I would say yes, absolutely.

Because that way you're going to get to know the people that are there. You might learn a language while you're there. Overall, you're just going to come to a deeper knowledge of those people. You're going to get, like I said before, the exact thing that everybody is hoping to get when they travel abroad.

And you know, what else can you hope for? The rest is all novelty. Getting to see the place of a famous battle that you read about. That's just fun. I mean, you learned about the battle when you read about it. Getting to Have an experience seeing an opera in Italy. I mean, that's, that's just fun too.

I mean, maybe if you're, I guess you could make the argument if you're an opera singer, that that experience would be a little more impactful and more of like a pinnacle of your education. If that's something that you were studying. But for most of us, All these experiences, all these things are ultimately amount to fun.

So should you travel? If you can, I think you should. But I don't think you should travel. It's gonna put you in an uncomfortable place. I really just don't think it's worth it. Okay, so here's a couple, here's a few reasons I, that I think you should travel. To see loved ones. Seeing people in person that you love and care about.

It's, it's always significantly better than seeing them. Through a video or something. Being face to face makes a lot of sense. That's a good reason to travel. Traveling to learn a thing that you couldn't learn otherwise. That's a good reason to travel. Traveling to help somebody. If you're going on some trip to do some service that is actually needed.

More on that another time. I think a lot of people go out intending to help. And accomplish absolutely nothing. And if you have the means to do it without putting yourself out, you know, fun is a good reason to travel. And then finally personal growth, which I think only comes from extended stays from overcoming fears, managing challenging scenarios.

as you navigate your way in a world that you don't really know. More than for just a week or something, or, or two, that you might be someplace abroad. Yeah, so just that cultural awareness that you can gain from time. From, from getting to know people. Oh yeah, I didn't really emphasize that The, at the end of the day, the biggest reason I think a lot of us travel is novelty, but there's usually, there's so much around us that we haven't done.

Have you ever tried to be a tourist in your own city, in your own town? A lot of people granted have done all of the things in their town, but you'd be amazed at how many people have not gone to go see that river, however many miles away from where they live. Or how many people have never gone to go see that river.

Famous building in town. All of the tourist things. I mean, if, if that's what you're into, exhaust what you have available to you in the first place. Travel is really nothing more than novelty and novelty is fun. And there's nothing inherently wrong with novelty, but novelty is not inherently worthwhile.

There's a million things that we can do with our time. There's a million ways we can do something novel and traveling across the world and spending. Our life savings on our nice vacations is probably one of the worst ways we can spend our money.