21Jan14
Familiar or foreign. Which is better? That’s what we’ll tackle in this week’s Travel Tip Tuesday.
It all comes down to why you’re traveling and what your goals are. We’re traveling because we want to experience things that are totally different and out of our comfort zone — that will give us perspective and memories to last a lifetime.
But what is memorable? How can you find something totally different when U.S. culture and commerce, for better or worse, extend everywhere? We ask ourselves questions like this nearly every day.
Some things are familiar, but with a twist. Like going to the grocery store. Here in Chile, you get your produce weighed and tagged before going to the register. It’s the same at some produce stalls. And it’s something we learned after rolling up to the register with 12 different kinds of unweighed fruits and vegetables and were turned away.
But otherwise, going to a grocery store is the same. The dairy is on the back wall, the Coca Cola is lined up next to the Coke Zero. Not particularly different or memorable.
In La Paz, there is a strip of land that juts into the water called El Magote, where all the high-rise condos are. They’re just to the right — I always made sure to keep them out of our photos.
My dad would always say that what frustrated him about the people who live in those condos — and many of the Americans and Canadians who go to La Paz — is that they’re not actually there to see Mexico. I tend to agree. They surround themselves by things that are like being in the U.S., and scoff when things are different from what they’d expect in the U.S.
But in the U.S., it’s normal to have access to hot water 24 hours a day, for example. That’s not the norm everywhere. Is living without continuous access to hot water what makes travel different and memorable? Is it more authentic? I don’t think it’s that simple.
In the end, I actually think these are the wrong questions to ask. They can actually contribute to some major FOMO and angst about your itinerary. Besides, you can make yourself at home anywhere after a while. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for, maybe not. Who cares?
I think the real questions are: Are you learning? Are you facing experiences in your travels, big or small, that initially overwhelm you? Does that sense of being overwhelmed eventually turn into understanding?
As long as the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.
