"He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices"

Carlo Goldoni’s observation that one who never leaves his country is full of prejudices speaks to the profound influence travel has on the human mind and character. When confined within a single geographic and cultural setting, individuals often absorb and accept the prevailing attitudes, customs, and beliefs of their immediate environment as universal truths. Without exposure to different ways of life, there is a tendency to see one’s habits, values, and solutions as the only correct ones, causing misunderstanding or skepticism toward those who are different.

Travel serves as a catalyst for empathy, allowing people to experience firsthand the diversity of thought, lifestyle, and tradition that exists in the wider world. Encountering foreign customs and traditions challenges preconceived notions and forces individuals to reassess the validity of their assumptions. The foods we find strange, the languages that sound unfamiliar, and the customs we may at first find perplexing, these all become windows into the myriad ways humanity expresses itself. By stepping outside familiar surroundings, travelers often develop humility, realizing that their own cultural perspective is but one thread in the vast tapestry of human experience.

Remaining stationary, both physically and ideologically, may allow prejudices to go unchecked and unexamined. Myths and stereotypes about other cultures thrive in environments where firsthand knowledge is absent. The antidote is exposure: a journey abroad disrupts the comfort of insularity, compelling an individual to engage with difference, and often, to be changed by it. Over time, these experiences create a broader, more nuanced understanding and appreciation of humanity, diminishing the rigid boundaries set by ignorance. Ultimately, Goldoni’s insight suggests that crossing borders, literal and figurative, is essential to the cultivation of tolerance, wisdom, and open-mindedness, qualities that are stunted when rooted exclusively in one’s native soil.