Its certainly better than nothing. But leaving your home country, especially to see and try to understand a culture different from yours, requires a type of humility that helps make a person more complete. I know many Americans struggle with work life balance which makes it not so feasible so I agree that exploring other cultures at home is a reasonable compromise. But a compromise nonetheless.
You can be exposed to an Americanized version of that culture, absolutely. Its not the same as going to its source.
Being able to explore different geographic landscapes is nice but traveling outside of your country is necessary to broaden one’s worldview.
But even travel alone isn’t enough. You need to have a genuine curiosity about the world. About humanity.
I watched Eat Pray Love with my SO recently. I can’t think of a more narrow minded approach to telling this type of story. Using other nations and their people as a backdrop to one’s own half baked self discovery. It was poorly done and thankfully even the core audience of americans identified its issues.
I can’t imagine a life only seeing one nation’s people, worldview and lifestyle. It seems incomplete to me. I know for many Americans there are financial challenges (and not a lot of PTO) but I agree with you that its often to an individuals benefit to broaden their horizons.
Agreed. I’d add that I don’t think experiencing a diaspora culture in the US is the same as going to another country and experiencing a culture on it’s home turf. The latter requires a sense of humility that I think the vast majority of Americans struggle with (or shy away from for other reasons). Overcoming those holdups leads to oppurtunities to have a more complete sense of the world and self.
I genuinely think many in America (also generally the West and wealthy people) see the world as a commodity that should offer a degree of “user/customer experience” which leads to some problematic world views and is part of why they may treat travel as a checklist. They want to go as far as possible without actually leaving home and wear it as a status symbol.