Don't apologize for sharing your thoughts. This is not a platform where people are easily offended or needlessly oppositional. You're not offending anyone, I think I speak for most people when I say we'd like you to be better. Even if I don't believe what you wrote is the truth in your heart, the system has failed you.

To add, travel is significantly inferior to embedding yourself completely in a state for at least six months. Travel can not replicate such experiences. I would never count my travels - no matter how off the beaten path - as experience comparable to living in a different cultural framework. Those instances, especially during formative years, are much more valuable.

Re: travel, indeed - context is king. I’ve lived in six countries for years at a time over the years, and am now six months into a new one - still learning the language and getting to grips with everything, but it’s great, even if our house flooded and our car washed away - escaped with our lives from the raging torrent, so it’s just been an exercise in patience, mopping, and masonry.

We travel for long periods, ambling around a corner of the globe - the last few years have seen four months in Uruguay, six months in the stans, six months in the Balkan states, and six months pottering about the indochinese peninsula. This is why I view most people’s idea of travel with some disdain - showing up somewhere and banging around the sights isn’t travel, it’s stamp collecting.

I find it helpful, as it all provides context - and the different biases and beliefs people hold are just fascinating - particularly when you find them beginning to rub off on you.