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Travel Is Not Education
41–50 of 70 posts
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#42I can't but feel that there's a second, complementary point here. Will you learn something about the place you visit? Probably. But, sure, not always. It's possible that reading the web might be as effective. However, there's also the other side. To travel is to become educated about you . This experience cannot be replicated by reading the web. There's nothing quite as instructive as being blown away by the foreignn…
It seems like these days most places in Earth have become simply different versions of each other. How people dress, what they eat, what they know, their interests, and other such things are very similar almost wherever you go.
Maybe traveling to central Africa or North Korea, or other very remote areas, would be radically different, but most travelers go to places where cell phones work and a portion of the public speaks English. Now traveling to another country is how traveling to another city was 60 years ago.
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#43When I went to London, I went to the British Museum, the Wallace Collection, the Tate, the Tower of London, ...
You can also say "reading comic books is not education".
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#44The person reading Wikipedia and the person who visited the place are both beaten by the person who read Wikipedia and then visited the place. Reading about a place can point you to unique experiences that you would otherwise have missed. A deeper point, I think, is about being the kind of person who would read about a place. I know a few people who get excited about going on holiday, and excitedly tell you about it…
Or you visit and then read the Wikipeida article. I mean even better as a double-decker wikipedia sandwich, but good as long as you read it.
I spent my last 3 hours in Hungary reading about the 1957 revolution [1]. The whole city was out celebrating the anniversary with funny-looking flags. I felt like an ass for not knowing about it before, but I learned.
The author is right that you don't magically become cultured by traveling. But you also don't become a Shakespeare expert by reading all his plays. That doesn't mean you should read the Shakespeare Wikipedia article instead.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#45I can't but feel that there's a second, complementary point here. Will you learn something about the place you visit? Probably. But, sure, not always. It's possible that reading the web might be as effective. However, there's also the other side. To travel is to become educated about you . This experience cannot be replicated by reading the web. There's nothing quite as instructive as being blown away by the foreignn…
It seems like these days most places in Earth have become simply different versions of each other. How people dress, what they eat, what they know, their interests, and other such things are very similar almost wherever you go. Maybe traveling to central Africa or North Korea, or other very remote areas, would be radically different, but most travelers go to places where cell phones work and a portion of the public s…
Learning is effortful. People can travel and not learn anything, but people can not learn from many things they should learn from. Travel is something you can learn from no matter where you go, but you typically have to put in the effort.
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#46You may claim, but it is not true.
That would be an interesting point, if it was.
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#47> To test this theory, try the following experiment. Ask someone who just spent 10 minutes on the Wikipedia article for Turkey for an interesting fact about the country, then ask someone who just came back from a 10 day vacation to Istanbul. Probably both will tell you something equally interesting, with the former being more generally relevant and the latter being more charming or topical. Of course this is wildly u…
Interestingly enough, I've been to Turkey twice. I know the taste of the food, the gentleness of the people, their hospitality. I got a haircut both times - I lived their style. I had lunch with some of them. I sat and listened to them talk. I toured their houses and walked their streets.
I know a couple of interesting facts about Turkey, but I know things that I can't describe in a Wikipedia article, too.
10/10 would recommend a trip to Turkey
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#48At risk of offend that genuinely reads like a post by someone who has never left their home country. Wikipedia and streetview is in no shape or form comparable to experiencing something first hand. Nor is the assumption that people do one or the other correct. Ideally you first do the online research to plan travel and then go.
I agree. To be honest, this kind of justification (TFA) is often written by people who don't enjoy travelling. I have a family member like this, they claim they don't need to go abroad (or anywhere outside their city, really) because "everything is there in Google and Wikipedia". I find it very sad.
Some time ago, about 25 years ago, I realized that travel had become a status symbol. Wearing gold bracelets and flashy clothes, driving a fancy car, and doing other showy things was no longer cool. Telling someone that you went to Budapest last month was now the thing. And those that didn't go to Budapest were very sad that they didn't. Maybe that's why you're also sad for those that didn't travel?
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#49I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.
I've been to the Sistine Chapel, and yes it has a lovely ceiling, but it's also jammed full of other tourists who are also craning their necks and not looking where they're going.
While the Vatican has a lot more loot and bling to look at, I'd say looking at the pictures on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_the_Sistine_Chapel_... is the superior experience.
The same goes for the Mona Lisa, which is the least interesting painting in the Louvre. Either see it in a crowded room full of tourists, behind a glass case, or see every last brushstroke at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa (7k x 11k pixels in uniform lighting)
Personally I liked seeing the brickwork of St. Peter's dome more, but each to their own.
Re: Travel Is Not Education
#50We visited Florence over the summer. It was a total shitshow. I’ve never seen anything like it: hoards and hoards of people just looking at their phones / taking selfies / not engaging at all with the actual art or majesty around them. The queue for the Duomo was maybe 4 hours. Everyone in the queue was on their phone. We didn’t wait. The Uffizi was appalling - rammed busy, everyone running into a room to snap a pic of Venus or do some utterly bizarre selfie thing which required weird poses, those involved totally unaware at the disruption they were causing. No moments of engaging with the art, no reading the labels or soaking it up, just a completely bizarre “check the box, I was there” thing going on with - I presume - Insta or whatever the equivalent is. Outside the centre things were a little better but not much. We escaped to Bologna as soon as we could and that was a whole world apart.
My point: I’m not sure “travel” as I understand it (educational, beautiful, soaking up of local culture, taking time to stand and understand as much as possible) is the same as the “travel” that others understand it.