Nobody Cares That You’re “Well-Traveled”

David Foster
Jul 24, 2017 · 6 min read

There’s this kid I don’t like.

Actually, he’s not a kid — of course neither of us are. He’s my age, but somehow not liking someone feels so high school that the thought still manifests as such.

He’s a friend of a friend of a friend, so I’ve thankfully only been exposed to his pretentious pontifications a handful of times. Each time is unique in subject matter, but consistent in its incidental rebuttal of all that I believe, and each time I bite my tongue because I wish to remain friends with said friends, instead rationalizing: This is what blogs are for! In our most recent crossing of paths he nauseated me with the following anecdote.

“So I get in this Uber, and there’s this black kid driving, nice kid, and we’re talking…”

Already I’m annoyed by his self-definition as being not racist.

“And I come to find out he’s never traveled anywhere,” and he delivers it as if he just told us the kid was dying of liver cancer.

“He’s 24 years old, grew up in the South Central area, does music, really intelligent kid (we get it, you like blacks), and has never been out of southern California! So finally I just couldn’t hold back and I told him: “Man, you gotta get out and see the world. You just… have to. Like, all you know is L.A., and there’s so much more to see. I mean at least get down to San Diego, right?!”

Wrong! I could barely refrain from vomiting into my mouth then spewing it into his just for the sake of closing it. Let’s dissect this awful bullshit one beat a time:

1. There are 24-year olds who are yet to fall in love, finish school or hold a full-time job, let alone travel the Goddamn world. The (black) kid’s 24, not 44! Can you at least allow all his chest hair to come in before failing to backpack across Southeast Asia becomes an existential crime?

2. Southern California is one of the most culturally rich parts of the world. It isn’t like he’s been trapped in the middle of Wyoming or even some generic suburb. Kids who grow up in SoCal are relatively exposed, especially those from the hood who apparently work outside it. I think he’s fine.

3. San Diego?! He’s gotta get to San — Diego?! I’ve been to San Diego, twice… and all I learned was that as much as I hate L.A. I would live there any day over San Di-fuckin’ -ego (no offense to beloved friends there).

On one hand I acknowledge the value in going to foreign places and observing other cultures. On the other I take exception to clichés such as “seeing the world” or being “well-traveled” as implied badges of “worldliness” or being “cultured.” While “seeing the world” is quite literally what you are doing, its allusion, and illusion, is that such trips dramatically enhance one’s consciousness and relationship with life.

First of all, being able to take off work and having the resources to travel is relegated to the top percentile, most extraordinarily privileged few. The reason most “well-traveled” folk don’t realize this is because everyone around them is equally privileged and their peanut-sized brains, suspiciously disproportionate to the quantity of stamps on their passports, can’t escape the tunnel vision of their own reality, ironically. They figure everyone gets (all the fuckin’ way) to Asia at least once, and if not they’ve surely “hopped the pond” to Paris or London a few times. I sometimes feel like it’s the adult version of losing our virginity, where “You haven’t done it yet?” is a passive aggressive synonym for: “I’m cooler/better than you.”

For the record, I’ve been places, bro’. I’ve been to Montreal, Holland, Spain, Costa Rica, Bermuda and San Diego — not the most impressive resume, but not the most shameful either. More important is the fact that I never felt like any of the aforementioned trips made me wiser, more worldly, or self-aware. I was in each place for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, which in my opinion allows you to get to truly know somewhere about as well as does dating someone for the same amount of time. If you haven’t engaged in a screaming match, been kept awake all night by each other’s storms of emotions, then cried in each others’ arms in forgiveness what the fuck do you really know about this person? Similarly, what can I know about Costa Rica from my privileged, resort stay, one-week romantic getaway, even in spite of having gone out a couple of nights with local surf bums? Nada. I lived in Los Angeles for over a year before I felt like I had a beat on the town at all, and even then it ultimately ate me alive. My opinion is if you’ve never held a job and/or spent at least one year in any place worth visiting then you can’t know shit about it. I’m sure a one-week stay in Arkansas would suffice.

My parents’ friends have been on vacation to the Dominican Republic over five times. I’ve never been. But my high school girlfriend was a Dominican from Washington Heights and the amount of time I spent chilling with her friends and family was largely what put my Spanish over the top to quasi-fluency (concurrent with high school honors classes). I used my Spanish to get in good with the weed dealers uptown. Later on I coincidentally lived in that same neighborhood for nine years and ate maduros, mofongo and pollo guisado like it was my fuckin’ job. Nevertheless, I’m yet to “see the world” of D.R… right? Sure I am.

This is why so many people pay so much money to live in such little homes in New York City. Because we’ve got the whole world in our hands, at our fingertips. When I die I’ll have spent way more time in Chinatown conversing with Chinese people than any world traveler has in Shanghai. And there is no amount of trips to Puerto Rico or any part of Latin America that will familiarize you with Hispanic culture as well as my many years working in the Bronx. I’ve got Africa on 116thSt., Greece in Astoria and Italy all over the fuckin’ place, fellas. Sure, I’d love to go see the actual places as well, but I live in New York. I can’t afford to.

I’ll never forget one day waiting tables in Beverly Hills, and some young, attractive but annoying regular walked in wearing a t-shirt: PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA.

Sure, I thought, so is sex. But not everything’s always on the table like that.

Wrong. For her everything is always on the table.

I wondered how many times she’d been to Paris. Maybe only once — maybe never. Maybe six times. This wasn’t the point. The point is she probably had been, as well as to other places that generally come up in the same conversation as “that time in Paris,” and judging from her demeanor, age, and quite frankly, her voice, there was nothing especially “cultured” about this chick. I believe you can often tell a lot about a person’s intellect by their voice and/or thickness of geographical accent. I don’t believe there’s an amount of times one can sip champagne overlooking the Eiffel Tower that promotes psychological frequency. This can only be done via life. In Instagram memes everyone seems to agree that life’s most valuable lessons are learned through suffering and failure, but then in competitive social cyphers of shit heads those experiences are replaced by leisurely 10-day vacations.

As the moron asked: What can you know about yourself if you’ve never been to San Diego? I ask what can you know about yourself if you’ve never been unable to afford a trip to San Diego, or anywhere for that matter? What can you know about the world if you’ve never flown past the islands of opportunity and made all the wrong decisions only to never see them again? If you’ve never walked the great line at the food stamp and Medicaid office only to be told you make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to eat three meals every day. If you’ve never swam in the ocean of heartbreak, climbed the tallest mountain of disappointment only to be thrown off into the valley of social isolation, or peeked over the great wall of physical illness only to be punched in the face by false hope and emotional imbalance, what can you know? Oh, you’ve been to Paris? Cool. What about jail? Ever been to jail? Ever had crazy sex in the projects in Harlem when it was still “Harlem?” Ever been bitch-smacked by probable murderers in the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal and robbed for your nickel bag of weed? No? Then how can you really know yourself, bro’? C’mon, get out there. See the world. Bitch.


Originally published at davidfostercomedyblog.com.