I’ve traveled to 50 countries and lived in 7.
I don’t think being well traveled is about distance or number of countries visited… For me, it’s more about whether you’ve traveled independently and built some skills of adaptability and resilience to deal with new situations. That can happen with as little as one new foreign country.
For me, a well-traveled person is someone who can deal with all the stress, uncertainty, and chaos of travel. That can be as simple as ordering food in a language you don’t speak, or deciphering an alphabet you’re not familiar with to get on the right bus. Heck, it can happen in your own country, some times.
But once you’ve done something like that, the kind of travel skill you develop is pretty universal. Not to say no place in the world will ever throw you a curve ball, but once you accept not everything works like it does in your country and you learn to stay cool under pressure when nothing makes sense, you’re well on your way to being able to thrive anywhere you go.
This is spot on. I would add one little wrinkle: you not only have to accept that not everything works like it does in your home country, but also that not everything should.
You can be the kind of expat who spends all day griping about how much worse things are in your new home than your old one, or you can be the kind who shifts their mindset such that the new country’s ways become second nature.
I think you’re close - someone well travelled is someone who has a broader view of how the world works than just the one country they were brought up in.
That happens when they go to countries and actually experience them. I’ve just been to the Canary Islands for a week - I went airport to hotel, sat beside the pool for a week and then went home again. This was lovely and relaxing (which I needed) but did nothing for expanding my cultural horizons.
Agreed, which is why I spoke about the chaos and uncertainty of travel. If you’re traveling as part of an organized trip, whether it’s business or a travel package to a resort, you’re basically isolated from this aspect of travel.
Nice answer!
I see it as a state of mind. Because a “well traveled” person typically have a good understanding or appreciation for culture not their own. They can see both sides and form opinion based on the world as a whole and not just the country they live in.
I think it’s why people say to go travel to broaden your horizons. It helps make you a better person.
I’m US based. I’ve been to Mexico, Italy, and Ireland. I still feel like a dumb American that thanks of Europe like Disney land. Like it’s just a place to take vacations and not a place where hundreds of millions of people live and work and have complete lives.
I don’t feel well traveled at all.
A lot of it is perspective, especially if you know people that are very well travelled. I’ve been to the US, a couple countries in Europe, 5 countries in Asia and I don’t feel well travelled at all, but I tell people some of the places I’ve gone to and are often impressed when they are the type where traveling is going to an all inclusive in Mexico or Cuba. Just different ways of travelling and different opportunities for that type of travel (Asia’s a lot easier when your employer is paying for it).
It’s not distance, it’s more frequency.
In a lot of the US, you pretty much just have to have visited virtually any country where the predominant language is not English or Spanish. “Well traveled” is a much lower bar here than it would be in other places.
I’m going to just pluck this out of the air and say “been to more than three other countries” is well travelled - for someone in the first world that’s not difficult and is an important thing to do for broadening the mind. Some people might say that’s a low bar, but there are enough that would say it’s too high as well which makes me think it’s probably about right.
I’m not sure if that would be considered well travelled from a European perspective. For example if you live in the Netherlands, you could drive to Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France all within 3-5 hours. A quick Google says the average European visits 8 countries within their lifetime. Geographical proximity and culturally dissimilarity definitely need to be considered.
Also exposure to the country. Just driving through it (or sitting in an all-exclusive resort for that matter) is not what I consider travelling/exploring.
I’d say it’s not as much about how far as how many different places.
This is a very objective question, but I’m going to say you must travel to 4 countries, 2 of which must be across an ocean, and 2 have to be to countries that speak different languages than your native language. Feel free to mix and match.
with these constraints, i wonder what the minimum travel distance required would be to meet these requirements. probably starting in indonesia or something. everythings across the ocean and there’s lots of nearby linguistic diversity.
Til I am well traveled. I didn’t even know it was a saying
