Juan Pablo Villarino: observation

Transcript context

…Getting past the trite and the banal, which may well be true. What will no one else tell us? The problem is that traveling, and even our role as bloggers, has fallen for some people only into promoting these nations, and you fall into the touristic aspect of it, while I try to enhance and stress the way travel can change the way you relate to the whole planet. This also is a responsibility because the more you travel, and the more you get out of the abstract tags, and the more you’re able to relate to real people, then you start feeling empathy for real people from Colombia, Albania, Iraq, wherever. Then you’re less prone to subscribe to any or to vote your own government in your home country, which is then going to declare war or sanctions on these countries. Traveling has this little twist that can make you a more aware person, and then you have this responsibility of transmitting this at home and in your own levels of influence. I think that’s the most interesting potential traveling has. If you’re going to visit a new country or region where you’ve never been, other than simply going, what kind of preparation do you do in advance?…

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