When Travelers Compete

One of the things I find oddest about traveling is the competitiveness between travelers. In one category you have the "been the most places". In this category you have the (usually Australian) backpackers. They been to  so many places they can't even remember them all and they did so many "bad-ass" things there that there is no way you could possibly be as cool as them. In the other category you have the "been here the longest". These expats have been living abroad for a year, 5 years or 10 years and in that time they accumulated enough arrogance knowledge to tell you everything about that country. It's their mission to defend their chosen homeland against criticism and offer 'helpful' advice to keep you from making a cultural faux pas. The one thing these two groups have in common: they think they are better than you, nay, they know they are and will not bat at an eye at imparting wisdom on topics they know nothing about or sharing some 'cultural insight' which they could have as easily found on google. The worst part of all this, is I'm exactly the same. I have my opinions about Ireland, Spain and anywhere else I've lived or visited and I certainly don't mind sharing them.  I, too, make little "pshaw" noises to myself when someone tells me they're just here for the weekend. Why are we like this? Sometimes I wonder if people who travel are inherently unhappy. The truth is, I think most people are unhappy with some aspect of their lives. Unhappiness motivates us; being discontent with a job motivates us to go to school, for example. We constantly change our homes, our clothes, our appearance in hopes that it will improve our situation, by changing one thing we want to change everything. This is true about travelers too, at least some of us. We hope that by changing the location we will change how we feel, we will be happy at last but it doesn't work. Living abroad means all your problems are still there but now you're in a strange country where daily activities like buying groceries and paying the rent are stressful enough that perhaps our problems are pushed away, but they're still there underneath. Maybe that's why we are all so competitive; we want to justify our existence and why we made these choices. On the other hand, maybe we are just arrogant.