20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around the World for 3 Years

Gary Arndt is the man behind Everything Everywhere, the most popular travel blogs in the world, then one of Time Magazine’s “Top 25 Best Blogs of 2010.” Since March 2007, Gary has been traveling around the world, having visited quite 70 countries and territories, and gaining worldly wisdom in the process.

1) People are generally good.

Many people are scared of the world beyond their door, yet the vast majority of humans aren’t thieves, murderers or rapists. They can be people like you and me that are looking for ways to by, to help their loved ones and attempt living their lives. There’s no race, religion or nationality that’s exempt out of this rule. That they start living their lives could possibly be different, but their general goals are the same.

2) The media lies.

If you happen to only discovered other countries from the news, you’d think the modern world was a horrible place. The media will invariably sensationalize and simplify a story. I was in East Timor in the event the assassination attempts on President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão happened in 2008. The stories in news reports the following day were filed from Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, not Dili. It absolutely was all secondhand news. I was in Bangkok while in the political protests this year, but you’d never have any idea these were happening if you were not in the immediate area where the protests were taking place. The media causes us to be fearful of the rest of the world, so we shouldn’t be.

3) The entire world is boring.

If there isn’t a natural disaster or an armed conflict, most places won’t ever be also mentioned in the news. When was the last time you’ve heard Laos or Oman mentioned in a news story? The reason for good news are exceptional events, not ordinary events. Most of the world, much like your town, is pretty boring. It can be amazingly interesting, but to the locals, they simply go about living their lives.

4) People don’t hate Americans.

I haven’t found a single case of anti-Americanism in the last three-and-a-half years. Not any. (And no, I don’t tell people I am Canadian.) If anything, everyone is interested by Americans and would like to find out more about the US. This isn’t to say they love our government or our policies, nonetheless they do not have a problem with Americans as people. Even in places you’d think would be very anti-American, for example the Middle East, I was welcomed by friendly people.

5) Americans aren’t as ignorant as you might think.

There is a stereotype that Americans don’t know much concerning the world. Might some truth to that, nevertheless it isn’t as bad as perhaps you might believe. The main reason this stereotype exists is simply because many other countries on Earth pay very close awareness of American news and politics. The majority of people view our ignorance when it comes to reciprocity: i.e. “I understand about your country, why don’t you understand mine?” The truth is, if you quizzed people about third-party countries apart from the US, they are just as ignorant. I confronted one German man concerning this, asking him who the Prime Minister of Japan was. He had no clue. The situation with America is that we experience the same problem as the rest of the world: an obsession with American news. The quality of news I read in other regions on the planet is comparable to what will you hear on NPR.

6) Americans don’t travel.

This stereotype is true. Americans don’t travel overseas the extent that Brits, Dutch, Germans, Canadians or Scandinavians. You will find good reasons for this (big country, short vacation time) and bad ones (fear and ignorance). We don’t possess a gap year culture like they have in the UK and that we don’t are likely to take vacations over a week. I can’t imagine a single place I visited where I met Americans in numbers anywhere near to our relative population.

7) Everyone else in the world isn’t full of germs.

Many people travel with their own supply of water plus an industrial vat of hand sanitizer. I can say in full honestly that I have never used hand sanitizer or gone out of my way to avoid exposure to germs during my travels. It is true that in many places you can get unpleasant diseases from drinking untreated water, however I don’t think this means you have be a traveling Howard Hughes. Unless you possess a particularly weak immune system or other illness, I wouldn’t worry too much about local bugs.

You don’t need a lot stuff.

Condensing my life down from a 3,000 sq/ft house to a backpack was a lesson in understanding what really matters. I noticed I really could put up just fine without 97% of the things I had sitting around my house. Now, if I purchase something, I do think for a while about it because anything I buy I will have to physically carry around. Since I have fewer possessions, I am more prone to buy things of higher quality and sturdiness.

9) Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive.

Yes, if you require living in five-star hotels and luxury resorts, travel is usually quite expensive. However, it’s possible to visit many areas of the world simply spend $10-30 per day. In addition to traveling cheap, you can also make money traveling teaching English or working on an organic farm. I’ve met a lot of people who have been able to travel on a nothing more than $1,000/month. I met one man from the Ukraine who spent 30 days in Egypt on $300.

10) Culture matters.

Quite a few suggestions for rescuing other countries all rely on them having similar incentives, values and attitudes as people in the west. This is not always true. I am reminded of once I walked past a Burger King in Hong Kong that was complete with flowers. It looked like someone was having a funeral at the restaurant. It turned out to be people sending flowers in celebration of their grand opening. Opening a company was a reason to celebrate. In Samoa, I had a conversation with a taxi driver about why there were so few businesses of any type on the island of Savai’i. He said that 90% of what he made had to go to his village. He had no hassle helping his village, but they took so much that there was little incentive to work. Today, almost all of the GDP of Samoa consists of remittances sent back from the US or New Zealand. It is challenging to make aid policies work when the culture isn’t in harmony with the aid donors’ expectations.

11) Culture changes.

Lots of people go overseas expecting to have an “authentic” experience, which really means they want to confirm some stereotype they have in their mind of happy people living in huts and villages. They are generally disappointed to find urban people with technology. Going to a different place doesn’t mean going to a different time. It’s the Modern Day, and a lot people live in it. They are as more likely to wear traditional clothes as Americans are to wear stove top hats like Abraham Lincoln. Cultures have always changed as new ideas, religions, technologies sprang up and different cultures mingled and exchanged with one another. Today is no different.

12) Everyone is proud of where they’re from.

When you meet someone local in another country, the majority of people can be quick to tell you something about their city/province/country that they are proud of. Pride and patriotism are most often universal values. I recall trying to cross the road once in Palau, one of many smallest countries in the world, and a senior high school kid came up to me and said, “This is how we cross the street in PALAU!” Even crossing the street became an action to tell me about his pride for his country. People involved in making foreign policy needs to be very aware of this.

13) Americans and Canadians Basically Shares Common Cultures

This could irk Canadians, but we actually do share one common North American culture. If you meet someone overseas, it is almost impossible to tell should they be American or Canadian unless they have a particularly strong accent, or they enunciate the letter “z.” It is quicker to tell where in England someone is from than it is to tell if a person is from Denver or Toronto. We might probably be better off making reference to a “North American” culture than an “American” culture. What differences do exist (Quebec being the exception) are more like differences between states and regions of a similar country.

14) Most of us have a deep desire to travel around the world.

Not shocking, but every day I meet those who are fascinated with what I do and how I live. The drive traveling is there, but fears and excuses usually prevent people from doing it. I am aware that not everybody can drop what they are doing and travel around the world for three years, but traveling overseas even for several months was in the realm of possibility for most people at some point in their lives. Even on an island in the middle of the Pacific, people who would possibly never leave their home island spoke with me of wishing they can see New York or London for themselves one day. I think the desire to explore and see new things is fundamental to the human experience.

15) You can find the internet pretty much everywhere.

I’ve been surprised at where I’ve found internet access. I’ve seen remote villages in the Solomon Islands using a packet radio link to another island for their internet access. I’ve been at an internet cafe in the Marshall Islands that accessed the world wide web via a geosynchronous satellite. I’ve seen lodges in the rainforest of Borneo connected to the web. I once counted 27 open wifi signals in Taipei on a rooftop. We truly live in a connected world.

16) In developing countries, government is often the problem.

I have been shocked with the level of corruption that exists in most developing countries. Even if it is technically a democracy, most nations are run by as well as the benefit for the elites that control the institutions of power. Political killings, bribery, extortion and kickbacks are the norm in many places. There is little distinction between the Mafia and the governments in certain countries I’ve visited. The corruption in the Philippines was especially surprising. It isn’t just the people at the top who are corrupt. I’ve seen cops shake people down on the street for money, cigarettes or booze.

17) English has become universal.

I estimated there were at the least 35 native languages I would have had to have learned if I wanted to get in touch with locals in their own tongue. That doesn’t include all the languages found in Papua New Guinea or Vanuatu or regional dialects. It is not easy for humans to learn that many languages. English has become the de facto second language for the world. We are almost to a point where there are only two languages you should know: whatever your mother and father speak… and English. English has become very popular it has achieved an escape velocity outside the control of the US and UK. Countries like Nigeria and India use it as a unifying language in their polyglot nations. Other countries in the Pacific do all their schooling in English because the market just isn’t there to translate textbooks into Samoan or Tongan.

18) Modernization is not Westernization.

Simply because people use electricity and have running water doesn’t mean they’re abandoning their culture to embrace western values. Technology and culture are completely different. Japan and South Korea are thoroughly modern countries, but they are also thoroughly Asian. Modernization will surely change a culture (see #11 above), but that doesn’t mean they are wanting to mimic the West.

19) We look at other nations by a different set of criteria than we view ourselves.

On the left, people that struggle the hardest for social change would decry changes in other countries which they view as a result of globalization. On the right, people that want to bring democracy abroad would be up in arms at the suggestion that another country try to institute change in the US. In both cases, other nations are viewed by a different set of rules than we view ourselves. I don’t think most people around the world want the help or pity of the West. At best, they want us to do no harm.

20) Everyone ought to travel.

At some point in your life, whether it is after college or once you retire, everyone ought to take an extended trip outside of their own country. The best way to really have a feeling of how the world works is to see it yourself.

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