Seat of Our Pants

I’m an American.

I’m not an Australian when I’m in Indonesia. I’m not a Canadian when I’m in Vietnam. I don’t sew another country’s flag on my backpack in an attempt to conceal my nationality. (Yes, I’ve seen that happen)

I’m a traveling American woman and guess what? That’s OK. I don’t have to be anything other than who I am. You know why? The world doesn’t hate us. Yes, many people were frustrated by the Bush administration. Yes, some are still frustrated with Obama. As long as we’re a superpower, we will always generate some frustration in others. What I’ve never found, though, is that it effected my ability to travel. Quite the opposite, actually. People are more curious about America than they are frustrated or angry.

Actually, that curiosity has led to many of my favorite conversations. I’ve had to answer questions I wouldn’t normally have thought of. Suddenly things that seemed self evident before, when put into the light of a foreigner’s innocent questions, no longer seemed so obvious: things like…So…why are we in Iraq, again?

It’s the flow of information – that cultural exchange – that makes travel so interesting and it would have been missed had I not been honest about where I was from. So to my fellow Americans, next time you think the world is too scary to travel in, turn off Fox News, book your tickets, be honest about where you’re from and treat the world as the amazing place that it is.

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