I’ve traveled to 50 countries and lived in 7.
I don’t think being well traveled is about distance or number of countries visited… For me, it’s more about whether you’ve traveled independently and built some skills of adaptability and resilience to deal with new situations. That can happen with as little as one new foreign country.
For me, a well-traveled person is someone who can deal with all the stress, uncertainty, and chaos of travel. That can be as simple as ordering food in a language you don’t speak, or deciphering an alphabet you’re not familiar with to get on the right bus. Heck, it can happen in your own country, some times.
But once you’ve done something like that, the kind of travel skill you develop is pretty universal. Not to say no place in the world will ever throw you a curve ball, but once you accept not everything works like it does in your country and you learn to stay cool under pressure when nothing makes sense, you’re well on your way to being able to thrive anywhere you go.
This is spot on. I would add one little wrinkle: you not only have to accept that not everything works like it does in your home country, but also that not everything should.
You can be the kind of expat who spends all day griping about how much worse things are in your new home than your old one, or you can be the kind who shifts their mindset such that the new country’s ways become second nature.
I think you’re close - someone well travelled is someone who has a broader view of how the world works than just the one country they were brought up in.
That happens when they go to countries and actually experience them. I’ve just been to the Canary Islands for a week - I went airport to hotel, sat beside the pool for a week and then went home again. This was lovely and relaxing (which I needed) but did nothing for expanding my cultural horizons.
I see it as a state of mind. Because a “well traveled” person typically have a good understanding or appreciation for culture not their own. They can see both sides and form opinion based on the world as a whole and not just the country they live in.
I think it’s why people say to go travel to broaden your horizons. It helps make you a better person.
I’m US based. I’ve been to Mexico, Italy, and Ireland. I still feel like a dumb American that thanks of Europe like Disney land. Like it’s just a place to take vacations and not a place where hundreds of millions of people live and work and have complete lives.
I don’t feel well traveled at all.
A lot of it is perspective, especially if you know people that are very well travelled. I’ve been to the US, a couple countries in Europe, 5 countries in Asia and I don’t feel well travelled at all, but I tell people some of the places I’ve gone to and are often impressed when they are the type where traveling is going to an all inclusive in Mexico or Cuba. Just different ways of travelling and different opportunities for that type of travel (Asia’s a lot easier when your employer is paying for it).
It’s not distance, it’s more frequency.
In a lot of the US, you pretty much just have to have visited virtually any country where the predominant language is not English or Spanish. “Well traveled” is a much lower bar here than it would be in other places.
