20 things i’ve learned from traveling around the world for three years

7/28/2019 20 Things Ive Learned From Traveling Around the World for Three Years

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20 Things Ive Learned From

Traveling Around the World for

Three Years400 CommentsWritten by Tim Ferriss

Topics: Travel

Gary Arndt is the man behind Everything Everywhere, one of the most

popular travel blogs in the world, and one of Time Magazines Top 25 Best

Blogs of 2010. Since March 2007, Gary has been traveling around theglobe, having visited more than 70 countries and territories, and gaining

worldly wisdom in the process.

Today, Ive asked him to share some of that wisdom.

Enter Gary

On March 13, 2007, I handed over the keys to my house, put my

possessions in storage and headed out to travel around the world with

nothing but a backpack, my laptop and a camera.

Three and a half years and

70countries later, I

ve gotten the equivalent ofa Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth.

Here are some of the things Ive learned

1) People are generally good.

Many people are afraid of the world beyond theirdoor, yet the vast majority of humans are not thieves, murderers or rapists.

They are people just like you and me who are trying to get by, to help their

families and go about living their lives. There is no race, religion or


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nationality that is exempt from this rule. How they go about living their lives

might be different, but their general goals are the same.

2) The media lies.

If you only learned about other countries from the news,youd think the world was a horrible place. The media will always

sensationalize and simplify a story. I was in East Timor when the

assassination attempts on President Jos Ramos-Horta and Prime

Minister Xanana Gusmo occurred in 2008. The stories in the news the

next day were filed from Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, not Dili. It was all

secondhand news. I was in Bangkok during the political protests this year,but youd never have any idea they were happening if you were not in the

immediate area where the protests were taking place. The media makes

us scared of the rest of the world, and we shouldn t be.

3) The world is boring.

If there isnt a natural disaster or an armedconflict, most places will never even be mentioned in the news. When is

the last time youve heard Laos or Oman mentioned in a news story? What

makes for good news are exceptionalevents, not ordinary events. Most ofthe world, just like your neighborhood, is pretty boring. It can be amazingly

interesting, but to the locals, they just go about living their lives.

4) People dont hate Americans.

I havent encountered a single case of anti-Americanism in the lastthree-and-a-half years. Not one. (And no, I dont tell people I am

Canadian.) If anything, people are fascinated by Americans and want to


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know more about the US. This isnt to say they love our government or ourpolicies, but they do not have an issue with Americans as people. Even in

places youd think would be very anti-American, such as the Middle East, I

was welcomed by friendly people.

5) Americans arent as ignorant as you might think.

There is a stereotype that Americans dont knowmuch about the rest of the world. There is some truth to that, but it isn t as

bad as you might believe. The reason this stereotype exists is because

most other countries on Earth pay very close attention to American news

and politics.Most people view our ignorance in terms of reciprocity: i.e. Iknow about your country, why dont you know about mine? The truth is, if

you quizzed people about third-party countries other than the US, they are

equally as ignorant. I confronted one German man about this, asking him

who the Prime Minister of Japan was. He had no clue. The problem with

America is that we suffer from the same problem as the rest of the world:

an obsession with American news. The quality of news I read in other parts

of the world is on par with what you will hear on NPR.

6) Americans dont travel.

This stereotype is true. Americans dont traveloverseas as much as Brits, Dutch, Germans, Canadians or Scandinavians.

There are some good reasons for this (big country, short vacation time)

and bad ones (fear and ignorance). We dont have a gap year culture like

they have in the UK and we dont tend to take vacations longer than a

week. I cant think of a single place I visited where I met Americans in

numbers anywhere close to our relative population.


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7) The rest of the world isnt full of germs.

Many people travel with their own supply of water and an industrialvat of hand sanitizer. I can say in full honestly that I have never used hand

sanitizer or gone out of my way to avoid contact with germs during my

travels. It is true that in many places you can get nasty illnesses from

drinking untreated water, but I dont think this means you have be a

traveling Howard Hughes. Unless you have a particularly weak immune

system or other illness, I wouldnt worry too much about local bugs.

8) You dont need a lot stuff.

Condensing my life down from a 3,000 sq/ft house to a backpackwas a lesson in knowing what really matters. I found I could get by just fine

without 97% of the things I had sitting around my home. Now, if I purchase

something, I think long and hard about it because anything I buy I will have

to physically carry around. Because I have fewer possessions, I am more

likely to buy things of higher quality and durability.

9) Traveling doesnt have to be expensive.

Yes, if you insist on staying in five-star hotelsand luxury resorts, travel can be very expensive. However, it is possible to

visit many parts of the world and only spend $10-30 per day. In addition to

traveling cheap, you can also earn money on the road teaching English orworking on an organic farm. Ive met many people who have been able to

travel on a little more than $1,000/month. I met one man from the Ukraine

who spent a month in Egypt on $300.

10) Culture matters.


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Many of our ideas for rescuing other countries alldepend on them having similar incentives, values and attitudes as people

in the West. This is not always true. I am reminded of when I walked past a

Burger King in Hong Kong that was full of 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 business was a

reason to celebrate. In Samoa, I had a discussion with a taxi driver about

why there were so few businesses of any type on the island of Savai i. He

told me that 90% of what he made had to go to his village. He had no

problem helping his village, but they took so much that there was littleincentive to work. Today, the majority of the GDP of Samoa consists of

remittances sent back from the US or New Zealand. It is hard to make aid

policies work when the culture isnt in harmony with the aid donors

expectations.

11) Culture changes.


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Many people go overseas expecting to have an authentic experience,which really means they want to confirm some stereotype they have intheir mind of happy people living in huts and villages. They are often

disappointed to find urban people with technology. Visiting a different place

doesnt mean visiting a different time. Its the 21st Century, and mostpeople live in it. They are as 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 traded with each other. Today is no different.

12) Everyone is proud of where they are from.


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When you meet someone local in another country,most people will be quick to tell you something about their

city/province/country that they are proud of. Pride and patriotism seem to

be universal values. I remember trying to cross the street once in Palau,

one of the smallest countries in the world, and a high school kid came up

to me and said, This is how we cross the street in PALAU! Even crossingthe street became an act to tell me about his pride for his country. People

involved in making foreign policy should be very aware of this.

13) America and Canada share a common culture.

This may irk Canadians, but we really do share acommon North American culture. If you meet someone overseas, it is

almost impossible to tell if they are American or Canadian unless they

have a particularly strong accent, or they pronounce the letter z. It iseasier to tell where in England someone is from than it is to tell if someone

is from Denver or Toronto. We would probably be better off referring to a

North American culture than an American culture. What differences do

exist (Quebec being the exception) are more like differences betweenstates and regions of a similar country.

14) Most people have a deep desire to travel around

the world.


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Not shocking, but every day I meet people whoare fascinated by what I do and how I live. The desire to travel is there, but

fears and excuses usually prevent people from doing it. I understand that

few people can drop what they are doing and travel around the world for

three years, but traveling overseas for even a few months is within the

realm of possibility for many people at some point in their lives. Even on an

island in the middle of the Pacific, people who would probably never leave

their home island talked to me of wishing they could see New York orLondon 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 almost everywhere.


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I have been surprised at where Ive found internet access. Ive seenremote villages in the Solomon Islands with a packet radio link to anotherisland for their internet access. Ive been at an internet cafe in the Marshall

Islands that accessed the web via a geosynchronous satellite. Ive seen

lodges in the rainforest of Borneo hooked up to the web. I once counted 27open wifi signals in Taipei on a rooftop. We truly live in a wired world.

16) In developing countries, government is usually the

problem.

I have been shocked at the level of corruption thatexists in most developing countries. Even if it is technically a democracy,


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most nations are run by and for the benefit of the elites that control the

institutions of power. Political killings, bribery, extortion and kickbacks are

the norm in many places. There is little difference between the Mafia and

the governments in some countries Ive visited. The corruption in the

Philippines was especially surprising. It isnt just the people at the top who

are corrupt. Ive seen cops shake people down on the street for money,

cigarettesor booze.17) English is becoming universal.

I estimated that there were at least 35 native languages Iwould have had to have learned if I wanted to speak with locals in their

own tongue. That does not include all thelanguages found in Papua NewGuinea or Vanuatu or regional dialects. It is not possible 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 youneed to know: whatever your parents speak and English.English has become so popular it has achieved an escape velocity outside

of 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 doall their schooling in English because the market just isnt there to translate

textbooks into Samoan or Tongan.

18) Modernization is not Westernization.

Just because people use electricity and haverunning water doesnt mean they are abandoning their culture to embrace

western values. Technology and culture are totally different. Japan and

South Korea are thoroughly modern countries, but are also thoroughly

Asian. Modernization will certainly change a culture (see #11above), butthat doesnt mean they are trying to mimic the West.


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19) We view other nations by a different set of criteria

than we view ourselves.

On the left, people who struggle the hardest for social change would decrychanges in other countries that they view as a result of globalization. On

the right, people who want to bring democracy to other countries would be

up in arms at the suggestion that another country try to institute changeinthe US. In both cases, other nations are viewed by a different set of rules

than we view ourselves. I dont think most people around the world want

the help or pity of the West. At best, they would like us to do no harm.

20) Everyone should travel.

At some point in your life, whether it is after college or when youretire, everyone should take an extended trip outside of their own country.


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The only way to really have a sense of how the world works is to see it

yourself.### You can subscribe to Garys blog, or follow him on Facebook.###

Odds and Ends:

Vegetarians vs. Meat-Eaters:

My recent guest post from Robb Wolfcreated something of areligious warbetween meat-eaters and vegetarians. The comments 816and countinggot ugly fast.Whether youre a die-hard meat-eater or plant-eater, I highly recommend

watching the below video of Jonathan Safran Foer, author of EatingA

nimals. He is a brilliant writer, and we were actually in the same class atPrinceton. Take some time or let it run in the background as audio thefollowing discussion is worth it:

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20 things i’ve learned from traveling around the world for three years

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