A Privileged Position

I can remember when I first started traveling overseas. It was on company trips, and I was on an expense report to pay for all my travel. Of course, I would eat out at restaurants every night. Many times I would eat with the people I work with overseas.

In most cases, the salaries for comparable jobs in Europe pay less than the counterpart in the USA. I can remember eating out at the restaurants and thinking that it was rather expensive even for me. I commented that one time to one of my peers in Sweden. He Informed me that going out to dinner at a restaurant in his country was only for special occasions. Typically birthdays, anniversaries and the like.

I can remember thinking how common place it is to go out to a restaurant to eat in the USA. And how we have even a more privileged position than our economic counterpart in Europe. Although I rarely go out to eat at restaurants when I'm home in the USA now, it used to be quite commonplace for me years ago, and I never really thought much about it. But when I began to travel, I began to realize more what a privilege position we have in the world.

When I began to travel to less developed countries, this became even more pronounced. If I was to visit the nicer inside, sit down type restaurants, it would be mostly western travelers like myself that would be there. Locals would eat the less expensive street foods, or they would not go out to eat at all.

I did notice that some of the hotels where I stayed that it was not all foreign travelers who stayed there, but also many locals. Now, of course not everybody is poor in developing companies, and there are many people who can afford to travel. but there are also a number of regular people who are not rich, who still travel within their country. I can remember thinking at one time, how can they afford it?

But I came to realize at least one of the answers eventually.

When I would travel to some of the less expensive hotels like this hotel at about $40 per night, I would notice large groups of local people sitting together at breakfast in the morning. Many of the locals vacationing in their country, do so in very large groups

I would also notice, when the locals left the doors open, or when they were exiting their rooms, there was a very large number of people in those rooms. Many rooms in the less expensive hotels have three, four or more beds in them. I can understand better how locals travel now, as they can share the cost of a room across several families.

This is certainly a different type of travel than most of us are custom to in the USA. Witnessing this makes me again appreciate our privileged position in the world. I know I travel more than most people, but still most people in the USA take at least one, or often more than one nice vacations each year. And they are eating out in restaurants much more frequently than our counterparts across the world.

It makes me realize our privileged position that we have in this world.