traveller, traveling

If you like traveling, you for sure have already been asked, how many countries did you visit? Do you know that by heart or you always find yourself counting?

I must admit, I have never really been interested in how many countries have I already been to. I counted them once for an interview, so I know it is more than 50, but honestly, I cannot really tell if that is now 55, 58 or maybe 52. I have never had the number of visited countries for a standard of being a real traveler.

When we got Ren, I first did count how many countries he has visited, but after a while I just stopped. Who cares if you visited 100 countries and all you did, was ticking them off and not even had the time to travel around them?

I think I will never understand people who want to visit as much countries as possible having less and less time. I just don’t see the point in it, as looking back at the race, there will be no experiences and memories. Don’t we like to travel to meet the local people, talk to them, learn about their lives, cultures, traditions, food… If you ask me, the possibility to be able to have the time to know the real life should always be your first priority when traveling.

I do know several travelers, who spent months in just one country, region or a city / village (not necessary on the other side of the world), or they keep coming back to. Being able to travel slow is priceless and many travelers who do that can count their visited countries on one or maybe two hands, but they always take time for each destination and their people.

Well for sure, not everyone can afford long-term travelling, but that does not mean anything bad. Travelers should not be marked just with the number of visited countries or length of traveling, but more for its way of travelling. If you visit a foreign country open-minded and are interested in learning something about others and about yourself, leaving as little impact as possible, you are definitely doing something right.