Disclosure: I’ve traveled and I’ve lived abroad in two different countries and been dozens of places outside of my ‘home’.
But I don’t get this obsession people have with travel being the uber alles thing you can do and how if you don’t do it all the time or as much as possible you are a ignorant incurious person. I don’t see my travel as being this amazing thing… it was just a nice thing that I did and frankly I don’t remember very much about it and what I do remember I don’t think is a more important memory than lots of other things I did in life.
I don’t think I am superior or ‘worldly’ because of it compared to someone who has never traveled abroad. But it is an extremely common belief/attitude I encounter on a regular basis and it confuses the hell out of me. I’ve met plenty of people that just go on the attack when you don’t want to ‘exchange amazing travel stories’ with them or daydream with them about all the places you’d like to go. There are some places I’d like to go, but again, it’s not a big deal to me that I see it as some big important part of my life and I certain do not condescend towards people who aren’t as ‘well traveled’ as I am like it’s some contest or achievement.
When air travel became available, it was super expensive, which meant that only rich people could do it. Several decades later, it became cheap enough that middle-class people could travel occasionally. Because of that history, travelling got a shimmering magic aura in our minds.
It’s what rich people do, and most people want to be like them in one way or another.
I’m not anti-travel and I’ve enjoyed it in the past but I honestly think you pretty much nailed it. People try really hard to convince themselves that, actually, they’re not engaging in conspicuous consumption but instead growing as a person or whatever.
Travel has many facets, and growing, learning, and broadening your horizons are certainly part of it. Those reasons aren’t fake, but I’d argue none of them are the core reason why people think so highly of travel. Naturally, travel often involves conspicuous consumption, spending lots of money, polluting the environment, and general decadence. That’s why people feel the need to justify it—that’s why you hear so much about the secondary reasons.
I live 20 minutes from the French and the Swiss borders. When I visit Basel or Straßburg I’m not “being like rich people”.
It’s worth travelling to Straßburg just for the melty cheese goodness.
Attitudes have changed a bit since short distance flights aren’t prohibitively expensive any more. However, that’s still a bit of an exception. To many “air travel” refers to flying to a tourist destination once a year instead of attending a quarterly business meeting.