I’m genuinely puzzled by Nick Kristof’s bizarre column from this past Saturday’s Times. While the guiding thought behind it—that we should encourage students’ wanderlust and push them to see worlds far outside their own borders—is a good one, didn’t at least one editor read this, scratch his or her head, and consider that Kristof’s 15 tips for avoiding bandits abroad are self-indulgent and silly? And I’m generally a Kristof fan—his China writing, including his column yesterday on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, is top-notch. But here he is, either trying to scare travelers into being safe, or shame them into believing that if they haven’t been in a serious bus crash, roofied, or robbed at gunpoint, then they haven’t really had a true experience abroad. Either way, it’s just not productive.
I’m all for self-awareness and keeping it real when you travel—you should absolutely know into what kind of place you are stepping and how to keep yourself safe. I also agree that “authentic interactions with local cultures…enrich a journey and life.” But the kind of authentic interaction most people seek when traveling—and the kind we should probably be encouraging young people to look for—is not catching malaria and getting robbed, the kind of thing that unfortunately does happen but in which I don’t think it’s healthy to revel as deeply as Kristof seems to.
