Dear People,
Millennials are obsessed with travelling.
They fill themselves up with wanderlust by ogling at beautiful places that pop up on their Instagram feed. They create travel bucket lists on Pinterest. They constantly check for cheap airfares on the Internet. They save up religiously for their next big vacation. And they do all this because they’ve somehow managed to convince themselves that travelling is a necessary investment in themselves.
Quotes like ‘The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page’ justify their choices to travel. They travel to faraway lands in order to find themselves (whatever that means) and become better people. They brag to others that travelling has broadened their minds and opened up their perspective on life. They immerse themselves in foreign cultures in order to experience a more enriching life. In short, travelling is no longer deemed a luxury, it has become somewhat of a necessity for millennials. And because of that, I seem to be the only millennial who thinks travelling is super over-rated.
The truth of the matter is, millenials need to stop kidding themselves. Travelling can be enlightening yes, but not in the way most millenials are travelling. The way most millenials travel is merely just a form of hedonistic escapism.
I never quite understood what people meant whenever he or she proclaims that they are travelling to ‘find themselves’. Honestly, how does one even find themselves? The person you eventually turn out to be is heavily shaped by all of your accumulated life experiences. Travelling is not going to make you any closer to finding yourself because there is no self to be found. Travelling will merely give you a different set of life experiences that may or may not play a factor in determining the person you eventually turn out to be. So seriously, people need to stop making such ridiculous statements. You don’t sound deep, you just sound silly.
There is also nothing immersive or life-changing in the way most millenials are travelling. Millenials are too busy trying to take the perfect photo to post on Instagram to actually soak up the foreign culture. Travelling for most people isn’t some sort of journey towards self-enlightenment. It’s more of a form of hedonistic escapism. We don’t travel to broaden our minds or experience foreign cultures. We travel to escape our mundane lives, to run away from the harsh realities of our responsibilities. We don’t live through profound experiences in our travels; we merely indulge in hedonistic pursuits ranging from eating at fancy overpriced restaurants to partying with foreign lustful strangers. We don’t even actually truly explore, since we depend on urbanspoon and tripadvisor to determine our itinerary.
So while there is nothing wrong with travelling, people who travel extensively need to get off their high horses and stop acting like their travel experiences somehow make them superior to others. Because honestly, travelling is overrated, just like how most of the touristy spots that you’ve visited overseas are.
So millennials, maybe it is time to stop investing in yourself and maybe start investing in a house.
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