The Thursday Ramble: Culturally Open Minded Travel

 

About three months ago, Angus in Scotland posted a link to an article about first impressions of life in the United States. The article talked about how visits to the United States impacted the thoughts of visitors from Iran, China and Russia.  Reading the article made me think, about how travel changes us. Timely as I am headed out on a grand adventure. 

People live differently in different places. The biggest differences are in international travel, though even from region to region within your country you will find differences. Differences in culture, in norms of behaviour, differences in language, the way homes are built, in the way that people live. 

There is much to be learned from the differences in culture.  To benefit from travel, I need to be culturally open minded. To expect that things will be different. To accept that what is different is normal. 

When I travel I suspend judgement. I remind myself that no one way is inferior or superior. This is the hardest thing for most people to do. When I judge another culture against my norm, I fail to understand the culture. 

I have learned many things when traveling, that have improved my life. I have tried not to try to change cultures, when I travel. I suspend judgement, and travel with a culturally open mind. 

What will I learn on this grand adventure?  

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

My World of Wonders April 22nd 2026

 

Where have I been this week? If all has gone to schedule, we flew to Ft. Lauderdale over the weekend, and went to sea on Monday, we should be nearing Bermuda. 

What have I been up to? Exploring the ship, relaxing, reading, taking a few photos. 

Who I have I talked to? My sweet bear and strangers.  I always talk to strangers. 

What am I enjoying? A change of pace, a change of scene, the grand adventure of travel. 

What can I see out of my window? Water-Water everywhere. 

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Travel Tuesday: Sea Views

I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May. 

Monday Mood: Retreat from a hyper connected world

I remember my first email account, I started law school in the late summer of 1996, and the University assigned me an email account. To access it, I had to go to one the terminals at the University and log in; later there was remote access; I opened my first personal email account that fall. A couple of months into graduate school, I bought my first cell phone, 30 minutes a month of calls in a limited area, for $30 a month. School was 82 miles from home, it felt better to have a connection on the road. That fall I bought my first desktop computer and we had dial up internet access at home. A few years later, I bought my first "smart phone" a blackberry. The salesman lied, he said in a week they wouldn't be able to pry it out of your hands, it was only couple of days until I couldn't leave home without it. And it had good international phone service. 

Today the easiest way to reach me is email, text is a second choice, I am hard to reach by phone as I often leave my phone in the other room and don't hear it, and if you don't show up on caller ID, I don't answer. I check email on my desktop computer, my phone, an Ipad, and a couple of Chromebooks.  I spend several hours a day connected to the web, YouTube is my primary media for entertainment. 

I probably spend far to much time being connected. And it is hard to get away from. 

Starting late this afternoon, I will be disconnected to varying degrees for a month, a retreat from my hyper connected world. In the first couple of weeks there will several days of complete retreat, interspersed with four days when I will be connected for a few hours, but only a few. After that I will have phone service, and WiFi in hotels. Last year we did WiFi at sea and found it disappointing, the service was really not very good, and it didn't provide a break from the connected world, it just moved it a new venue with crappy service. We are not doing that this year.  I will have phone and email when we are in Port (my phone plan includes 36 days of year of international service) and on the land based part of the trip.  

Just before the sun sets today, my retreat from the hyper connected world begins.  Worry not, there are posts scheduled for your reading enjoyment.  I will reply to comments when the retreat is over. 

My digital detox. 

Our Sunday in Ft. Lauderdale

 

The Sunday Five: Travel Dreams

1: If there were no limits, where would you go today? 

2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to? 

3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home? 

4: Where have you traveled to the most times? 

5: How would you like to travel across the continent? 

My answers: 

1: If there were no limits, where would you go today? Italy - that is where we leave for tomorrow. 

2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to? Japan.  

3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home? London. 

4: Where have you traveled to the most times? Florida, several times a year when my parents were alive. 

5: How would you like to travel across the continent? I would like to drive it, but in very short travel days, maybe 100-150 miles a day average. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: Let Change Feed Your Creativity

There are few things that bring more change to our lives than travel, I use travel, and the changes it brings, to feed my creativity. I try to travel with an open mind, looking for what is different, or new to me, and letting that feed my creativity.

This is most notable on grand adventures, but it applies equally to every time we get out of the house, or out of the place we work. Examine what is around you, look for what is changing, what is new, and what is disappearing. Pause for a few minutes and watch a building being torn down, and you will develop new understanding of how buildings are built. What elements stand the strongest, what elements are the most fragile. 

I am headed to the airport today, off to feed my creativity. 

An update 

35000 feet and headed south this afternoon, check in and security were a breeze. Lots of lakes and rivers down there.

Friday Features: Dinosaurs

This is not written by AI. Any mistakes or misstatements of material fact are my own. I was recently asked to provide a statement of AI usage for a book chapter that I wrote on identity theft and cybercrime (the book should go to print this summer.)  Other than spelling and grammar tools in Google Docs, I used none. The editor seemed surprised by this. Maybe I will learn to use those tools, but I learned to write the old fashioned way. 

I am a dinosaur. I bought my first electronic typewriter when I was working on BA, a Panasonic with spell check and about a 20 page memory. I could edit and retype a chapter with the push of a button- what a huge step forward. I started law school just as online legal research was becoming the norm. I think I was the last class at the University of Louisville that had to master legal research in the print books, before being given access to the online databases. And I am glad I was trained that way, though I will never use Shepard's Citations again - ever! 

Computers have become a part of our daily lives in little more than 30 years, smartphones in less than 20 years.  There is more computing power in my phone, than NASA had to land men on the moon when I was growing up. It is not that the dinosaurs couldn't get the job done, but it took longer.  We can do so much more, so much faster today. I still believe that understanding the underlying process of research and writing, of capturing an image, makes a difference in how I use the tools to do it faster. In a way, I am the last of the bridge generation, between digital dinosaurs and digital natives. 

I struggled with this post. The Muses seem to have left on the grand adventure a few weeks ahead of me.  Inspiration has been hard to find. I had this post written, and left it to fester for a couple of days, and it hit me that the best part of it, was what was buried in the middle. I can hear a long ago editor shouting across the room, "don't bury the lead, put it first." I am so glad I learned from writers who knew how to write, even if it took 50 years for me to apply some of the lessons.  (Dave Snoffer, you made a difference in your far to few years.)