In New York the other week I had beers with a friend – Matt was the Frugal Traveler for the New York Times – who told me he had had an argument recently with a woman who claimed, not very originally, that travel broadens and opens people’s minds.
“More people are traveling now than ever before in history,” Matt told her, “and around the world there is an increase in authoritarianism, nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and racism.”
Of course, there’s always the possibility that all of those things would be greater if people didn’t travel. Evelyn Waugh was once approached by a woman who had witnessed his famously curt behavior and expressed surprise that someone who called himself a Catholic would act so rudely.
“Imagine,” Waugh told her, “how much worse I’d be if I weren’t a Catholic.”
