Why do millennials need to travel the real world?

There is no way I can say this without keeping my biases aside, but Millennials are the best. This generation is the most miserable and magical set of humans that live across the planet.

There is something about this generation that makes it so fabulous. It has a spontaneous consciousness, a tendency to live in extremes, and a want to change the world but to also stay in bed. It can find humor anywhere at all, and face the biggest crises around the world with a smile on their face.

This generation is also lucky enough to have the fastest forms of communication and information transfer that were ever created, and can easily be in touch with the globe whenever it wants. As a result, traveling is something that this generation is getting more and more obsessed with.

The concept, fantasies and ideas about traveling have become so much more accessible now, that Millennials end up thinking about traveling a lot more than anyone ever did. So much so, that more than 113 million posts on Instagram have used #wanderlust since it was coined.

Wanderlust though used very loosely everywhere, has a lot of emotion and desire to it shared by multiple generations. The desire to go to every little corner of the world, experience the spectrum of realities that exist on this planet at the same time.

At Localites, we often speak about traveling the real world. The real wanderlust. What it means is to travel the real world is to be on a journey of discovering people and streets the local way. All cities hold powerful stories and none are found near the mere tourist spots.

Millennials often lose out on this real experience. Born in a world of social media and speed, we tend to simply replicate a trip we saw on someone's stories, or at best what our internet friends planned it out for us. In our rush to take the cliché vacation pictures, we lose out on places that bring the actual fulfillment from traveling.

Too often we wait for money and time, travel thousands of miles, only to eat in some café or stay in some hotel. We go to the most popular beach or the monument, and forget about everything else that the city could offer.

Millennials can and should go beyond this. They are more woke, socially sensitive and aware than any generation before. Them traveling the real world can have an actual impact on the places around them.

Traveling in the older days was different. There was no way for you to know about the city in advance, and not much option except to visit the monuments and the regular sightseeing itenary. Millennials on the other hand, with the rapid widespread of information, already know what it is. They have access to so much more information than the mere tourist sites. They can actually connect with locals, learn about the streets, the culture , the education, the politics, the festivals, the rituals, the struggles and the wins of any regular day for the people in the city.

The possibilities are endless, and it is in the true spirit of being a millennial to actually explore these possibilities. During a recent conversation with my friends, I realized that all technological advances came with the promise to save human time and effort. The transport and communication were supposed to save us all our time. And yet we have only become busier and busier. We forgot to use all this time that we had, to explore and know, instead just filled it up with more work. To truly use technology would be to use it to help you save time and take you to the corners of the world.

The real question now is - how to travel the real world?

Well the first step is to meet the people. Traveling places will only take you to buildings and mountains- the topography of a city or a town. It is the people who make a city what it is. Your first step should be to meet a local. Someone who can tell you what the city means to them. Where is it that they find peace, and what food comes to the rescue after a long day at work.

The other is to find places that are not necessarily tourist spots, but important to the locals of the city. These places will differ from how big or small the city is. Places used for friends to come together, for couples to go on dates, places where people come together to celebrate a festival and so on and so forth.

There is also a lot of value in visiting schools and artist groups in the city. If your localites can take you to places where artists come together to share their creations or even co-create the piece, you will experience so much more of the city. The way schools run and a day in a child's life will tell you so much about what values are most important to this culture.

If there is a social movement in progress, find how this city is participating - is it protests on the grounds or powerful conversations that happen within the houses.

You can go on long walks with your localites, and if in the right place you will find art, little shops run by locals, the trees that children play on and who knows what.

All of this is the real world. What makes a city come alive?!

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Team Localites