I’m starting this off with the title ‘unpopular opinion’ because I feel like I’ve argued this point many times. Let me just start off by saying – please lower your typing fingers, keyboard warriors, and keep reading so that you can see the point that I am trying to make.

I’m in my mid-20’s, I’m fairly social and I work in a call centre. I think those three things give me a good stand point to view what is going on with trends and people in their late teens or early 20’s, or as I like to call them – the ‘newbie adults’. Especially the call centre part, I get to see and meet a lot of people with that, and boy oh boy do we hire some interesting people in that age bracket.

I want to say straight off that I am not a travel-snob. I actively encourage people to travel, and I’ve routinely helped others plan their trips overseas. But the rise in cheap airfares to Thailand and Bali lately has me really pissed off. The reason behind this is it means everyone can go. That should be a good thing, everyone needs to experience another country, so making the airfares cheaper in theory is a brilliant idea. But when its put in to practice, the people around my age group or lower are just doing it wrong. What could they possibly be doing there that pisses you off enough to write about it, I hear you ask?

Well that’s the thing. They are not doing anything when they get there. Or nothing new at least, and that’s my issue. Those cheap overseas trips have become so accessible these days that people in my age bracket are jumping on a plane and flying over there for the sole reason of getting drunk with their friends. They aren’t exploring, they aren’t talking to locals, they aren’t giving back to communities. They are pretty much treating their overseas opportunity as a night out in Fortitude Valley, and spending their whole time in westernized bars, which is basically just full of Australians.

I honestly think that is such a waste of a trip. Why would you go all the way to another country just to do what you do at home on a Thursday or Friday night? If your plan for Bali or Thailand is purely to paint yourself in glitter and write yourself off, please stay home. Save your money. At least save it until you can open your eyes wide enough to realise what an absolute joy being in another country is. Until you can understand that little happy feeling of learning something from a local that you’d never even thought about. Until you grasp that a trip is more than an Instagram opportunity.

There’s my rant over and done with for a Monday night lol. This was not what I had planned on posting today, but I’ve been home all sick and cranky, and social media just decided to set me off! To the millennials (like myself) who actually travel to travel – I tip my hat to you, and please keep doing what you’re doing 🙂