Stop Calling Traveling Around Just "Experience"

Now I have personally meaningful experiences and career-relevant credentials. While traveling around for fun won't boost my resume, I still think it counts as experience. You learn things, you have realizations. Sure, you can't list it on your CV, but when you're dealing with unfamiliar situations in unfamiliar places—those sudden curveballs—looking back on them later, they become fun and enriching memories, or lessons on what not to do. It's all experience. Plus some stories: 1. Got scammed at a safari company in Kenya's Maasai Mara, called a friend in Nairobi and we literally had to fight to get our money back 2. Took an ambulance ride and got hospitalized in Uzbekistan—something I'd never experienced in Korea 3. Indian grandmother next to me on a plane passed out, we had to find a doctor on board, emergency medical care, emergency landing 4. Got strong-armed into buying CDs by scary dudes, paid with all my cash 5. Being grateful Korea's trains run on time—really it's a great country, etc. All of it's entertaining and become life lessons.

Travel experience is like GPA for humanities majors—nice to have but not really useful... though some people do succeed with it.

Everyone has different values. Don't try to force things into your frame—I'm like this, you're like that. I respect your opinion, please respect mine too. Just live like that. There's no one right answer in life. People who got lucky and rode the wave of their era don't guarantee the same success for everyone else—that's just how life is.

I see comments like 'what experience in just a few days?' or 'can't you get experience in Korea?' but even escape travel or studying abroad counts as experience, yeah for real. Nothing in this world is meaningless experience—just different degrees of good or bad. But people who show no passion for work or studying, then suddenly go on escape travel or study abroad talking about experiencing a wider world? Yeah, they probably won't actually do much when they get there. So I'm naturally skeptical. But some people genuinely do come back changed, and it's still a catalyst for experience and growth, so it's not wrong. Anyone saying this is wrong is just a closed-minded know-it-all idiot regardless of age or gender, real talk.

I travel to make memories, spend money, eat good food—I don't need some grand reason like 'learning' or 'broadening my perspective.' That's not why I go.

A guy born rich who got to enjoy everything and then lucked into becoming a comedian? Just let that go in one ear and out the other.

Work, people, getting criticized, getting praised, job skills—it's all experience. People grow and build ability through experience. So what's this career talk? Just call it undervaluing travel instead.

Even if it's the same 'travel,' quality makes a difference. 1. Package tour where you just pay and watch what's already set up > hard to call that experience 2. Real backpacking where you find lodging yourself, make bookings, clash with locals and get things done > that's experience. Sure people say 'how is booking a hotel experience?' but if someone's never even ordered delivery chicken before, they can't do it (and yeah some people really can't), so dealing with those kinds of rookie mistakes in your first years out is definitely experience.

That's the real answer! Individual differences. And even in the image, Park Myung-soo doesn't say don't call travel experience. He said 'traveling abroad is experience too, but the biggest experience comes from work.' How does that turn into 'don't call casual travel experience'? That's just misreading content, and fighting over this stuff is how you become terminally online.

Usually when people give that kind of advice, they genuinely believe it—but they're tailoring their response to fit the person's specific situation, so by general standards it looks a bit off. But when people clip just that one part without context and post it, only the advisor gets flamed.

If you obsess over value for money and efficiency, life becomes unhappy. I used to think clubs, travel, volunteering were all time-wasting, and I should spend that time getting certifications, TOEIC scores, and prepping for jobs. But life is weird—you get opportunities from random things, and that's when you find your actual values.

Everyone just experiences things differently, you know? Not everything meaningful has to be about grinding hard work or survival. The values behind 'experience' are just different—and separately, this whole thing is heavy-handed editing.

Been to a lot of places and the more I travel the more I realize Korea is just a damn amazing country to live in lmao.

People who know how to play know how to rest, and people who know how to rest know how to play.

literally everyone on instagram is out here flexing their 'transformative journey' when they spent 2 weeks in bali taking the same sunset photos lmao

finally someone said it!! traveling is cool but it doesn't automatically make you enlightened or whatever people keep claiming

the way people use 'finding themselves' as an excuse to just party in different countries is actually hilarious i can't 😭