"What is this place? This is Heaven! Everything is perfect! I want to lose my passport!
"...do you express yourself or did you happen to hear someone express themselves in these terms? Yup? Follow-up question: how many trips did you / he / she have made, before the last one? Very often, it happens that that kind of comment comes out of the mouth of those who still see travel as that extraordinary occasion, an occasion in which you leave everything behind, including objectivity, for a limited period of time. Usually, exclamations such as those in the opening of the article are accompanied by others such as:
There is not a cigarette butt on the ground! Everything works better than in our country!
For real? In a week, probably spent on the beach drinking cocktails and making aperitifs with shrimp and salmon carpaccio, have you visited enough places to be able to report reliable statistics on the pollution of a country? Have you experienced on your skin any case you have experienced in your country relating to health, education, safety, environment, work, etc., in a week?!
Well, you had a very busy week then, and quite unfortunate too, I dare say.
Why do I write this article?
First of all, because I hate the superficiality with the summary judgments that it entails. Second, because, although I cannot call myself a patriot, I would like the country in which I live to progress and a superficially destructive approach, such as that of those who have just returned from their relaxing holiday, reveals an unproductive surrender to the state of things, rather than a desire to change and contribute to change. Third, because travel is wealth, it is an opportunity for growth like few others and seeing airline tickets being used in such an unprofitable way makes me scream for waste (and I hate waste).
Then? Can't I travel to relax?
Far be it from me to claim that every trip must engage you mentally. As far as I'm concerned you can travel (obviously) just to relax. It is your right and I am and I will be the first to defend it, also because the journey of relaxation is not something to which I myself am a stranger. But that arrogance of those who tell who knows what complexities of a country they believe they have "visited" is totally out of place and annoying, even more so if accompanied by blindly burying their own nation.
Do yourself a favor: shut up.
If you fall into the category and you feel that irrepressible urge to tell some bullshit as if you had carried out an in-depth anthropological study, lived the trench for years, as if Vietcong rained on you, jumping from the branches of the trees or as if you had been appointed Minister of Education, Health, Defense and so on and they had given you access to all the intricacies of the bureaucracy, do yourself a favor: shut up.
Have you ever thought that your interlocutor might know a little more than you know on the subject and make you fall into an immediate and blatant shit figure?
Travel is a very serious fun thing. Don't abuse it.
I acknowledge that I was a bit (?) of an Asshole in this article. It is a topic that particularly animates me not because I have to be the only one talking about travel, God forbid! We can talk about any type of trip, if we limit ourselves to what we could objectively see and experience. You can do the opposite too, of course, but if you do, you're a bit of an asshole too. Superficiality, this attitude that is strongly pulling the handbrake of our society has always been something I wanted to fight. In this blog we talk about travel and, therefore, I focused on the superficiality applied to the topic, so as not to dwell too much. Let me know what you think and, if you like, leave a like, a comment, share the article and / or subscribe to the NEWSLETTER. If you want to live with me, in real time, the experiences of my travels, follow me on Instagram and / or on Facebook.
