#19 Traveling
January 23, 2008 by clander
White person travelling can be broken into two categories - First World and Third World.
First world is Europe and Japan, and man, this travel is not only beloved but absolutely essential in their development as white people.
Every white person takes at least one trip to Europe between the ages of 17-29. During this time they are likely to wear a back pack, stay at a hostel, meet someone from Ireland/Sweden/Italy with whom they have a memorable experience, get drunk, see some old churches and ride a train.
What’s amazing is that all white people have pretty much the same experience, but all of them believe theirs to be the first of its kind. So much so that they return to North America with ideas of writing novels and screenplays about their experience.
Upon returning home, they will also find an affinity for a particular beer or liquor from a country they visited. They use this as an excuse to mention their travels when at a bar. “Oh, I’ll have a Czechznlishiyush Pilsner. You see, that was my favorite beer when I was travelling through Slovenia and the Czech republic.”
The second type of white person travel is Third World. This is when they venture to Thailand, Africa or South America. Some do it so that they can one up the white people who only go to Europe.
But like with Europe, white people like to believe they are the first white people to make this trip. As such, they should be recognized as special and important individuals.
That’s right, by going to a country, riding around on a bus or train, staying at a hotel or hostel and eating - they are doing something important for the world.
If a white person shows up in your country, you can make them feel fantastic by saying how you’ve never seen a white person before, and that you are amazed by their iPod - “a device that plays many songs? impossible!”
They might give it to you, then you can sell it for profit. Repeat as necessary.
some of those ppl look italian or mexican, do they count as white?
another question, black people count as white people if they are from US and are traveling to Europe and South America? Or they just behave totally different… ?
Up until the Civil War, I wonder if slaves in the South were charged only 60% of the train or ship fares charged to their owners. You know, the 3/5 count in the census of those days. That is, if they had any money at all…
(partially snark and partially being sick of the politics of race, the current Dem primary being relevant. I’m an Obama supporter and he’s worth at least ten, or a hundred, Bush 43’s!)
This whole site is hysterical! I am white, and I can’t believe how many people are offended! All of this is supposed to be funny. You know why it’s funny? BECAUSE IT IS ALL TRUE!! Gotta go. I need to make more coffee and pet my child…oops…I mean my dog. My husband can’t write a post right now…too busy looking at asian porn.
I pooped my pants
I am Italian and caucasian. There is no need to ask if we are white. Thank you.
I went to Argentina. Does that count as South America?
They love dirty hostles more than travelling. I think they travel to stay at dirty,funky hostels. what do you think?
Too funny…as I TOTALLY agree with this after coming home one night to find that just about every person in the hostel had no intentions of doing anything other than getting p*ssed AT the hostel.
I just love sitting on my porch!
This blog is hilarious, but also bonus funny for people like craiggers who just show how true it is!
Ergh, I ran into a Nazi demonstration held in Munich. 10,000 riot police swarmed the streets in attempt to stop those who were throwing Molotov Cocktails/ napalm. I’m sure every white person witnesses this event every once in a while on their journeys… : /
Yep.
My friend told me about that happening in Prague… sorry to burst your bubble
Yes, actually it’s a festival held every year around that time, repeated thrice each day. Just like a Chinese visiting Ghettosburg stumbling on a civil war reinactment.
Munich is just the best for the neo-Nazi demonstrations!
“when I was in Africa…”
becomes the intro to every story, sentence, thought upon returning from their trip, too. It’s quite charming.
Some of my favorite moments in life have been while traveling in Latin America and Africa.
probably because all you did was fuck black and spanish men you couldnt get with in north america while you were there
I had a friend who once went AROUND THE WORLD, from London to the continent across asia to Thailand and Japan. like 8 months.
He wins.
“the continent?” Africa has a name you know
‘The continent’ is Europe (ie Continental Europe) you ‘tard.
ROFL
Machu Picchu…the Ace of Trumps for WP travel.
I am very proud of myself for going to Machu Pichu on my 15th wedding anniversary. I really just love saying Machu Pichu lots and lots of times. I even get more points because I am over 40 and slept in a tent instead of a sheshe hotel.
Agio knows.
Anybody can do Paris. What White People really like is eco-friendly adventure travel to mildly exotic third world destinations.
In that way, they can demonstrate their commitment to the environment, support the economies of poor and oppressed peoples, and wear their MEC clothing.
The most prestigious destinations are:
1. Machu Pichu
2. Galapagos
3. Angkor Wat
4. Antarctica
The most prestigious way to travel to these locales is with G.A.P. Adventure Tours, because G.A.P. plants a tree for every white person who travels with them. With G.A.P., you can be guaranteed to meet a wide variety of fellow travelers, ranging all the way from white young people from Australia, to white seniors from Sweden.
Even if you can’t afford one of the big four, don’t throw in the towel and head down to the Dominican Republic for seven days lying on the beach and drinking from the open bar at an all-inclusive. No! No! No! There is no prestige in a holiday spent kicking back and relaxing.
Cash-strapped white people can up the envy-quotient of any holiday by touring anywhere on a bicycle, since such a holiday is even more environmentally correct, and involves even more discomfort and suffering than a trip to the third-world.
Wouldn’t the most eco-friendly way to travel be not traveling at all?
Why don’t I just watch the Travel Chanel from the comfort of my environmentally friendly green couch - made from timber run-off harvested from the Brazilian Rain Forest and stuffed with mink pelts - on my 65″ plasma TV I keep plugged in and running 16 hours a day.
Somewhere, there’s gotta’ be a bracelet for this.
Because THEN you’d really think you were so well traveled you’d be sure you could author any kind of book with travel or a destination in it!!! Ugh and Barf!!!!
As a retire travel agent, who has spent a good deal of time listening to people come in and ask for a job because they are sure they would be an excellent TA because they’ve seen two or three foreign cities, I’m here to tell you that you are deluding yourself if you think travel means the slipcover on your couch moves you from the seat to the floor.
“the continent” refers to continental Europe, as in, not the British Isles, which is also part of Europe and happens to be where London is. Which is the starting point in dbt’s story that went nowhere.
but yeah even though you’re basically just describing university educated, urban liberals of any ethnicity . . . this stuff is hilarious. Scrolling through them all quickly i probably fit 2/3 of them. But so do my 3 asian friends and my one black friend.
People need to stop taking themselves (or this site) so seriously.
When you’re so rich that you’ve been to all of the good countries by the time you’re 20, so you need to go to Goa or Hong Kong to feel like you’ve been somewhere. If you’re really hardcore you go to Nepal or a village in India, where you just piss off the villagers because you won’t take them with you.
You beleive Hong Kong is 3rd world. Wow your a moron. Detroit is 3td world, maybe even L.A. Hong Kong is NYC times 10. And yes i am white and have to been to all those places
Your a moron? You’re a moron.
It didn’t say Hong Kong is 3rd world, reading comprehension anyone?
The people who come back from Goa all hippy-trippy and “enlightened” and therefore superior to absolutely everyone, they are the most annoying.
Hey, I’m from Slovenia, and we don’t have that beer. But we got Laško beer
One white I met takes her travels bragging rights even higher and says she likes to stay with people she knows in other countries and really absorb the culture. And of course, she loves to share that info with everyone she meets.
this one i felt was badly written. of course traveling does good: some places make a good bit of dough on tourism.
white people that i like go to third world countries to fuck tons of cheap hookers.
white people that travel to find themselves are fucking retarded.
No, those are pedophiles who go to Bangkok
A white co-worker of mine just invited a group of us to view a slideshow of her Africa trip photos. She actually scheduled a conference room for this during company time! I could barely get in the fact that I also went to Africa.
Also, I noticed that when white people visit Africa, they NEVER visit the civilized, citified places. No, just safaris where they can almost get eaten by wild animals and meet some natives.
Meanwhile, when I visited South Africa, I spent most of my time on the beaches and in the cities. Safari = 3 hrs of my time there and that was enough for me.
“. . . and my one black friend.”
I know we’re a minority, but dang, does every white person only have “one black friend”???? Does said black friend have any other black friends that he can introduce you to? some cousins? LOL
I’m overseas in Brazil right now. I feel so bad for the WP cause they’re like walking theft targets . . . although, it might help if they:
a) weren’t all dressed in the J.Crew/AmericanEagle/Banana Republic/Abercrombie spring collection
b) tried not to speak English so loudly since Brazil does have tall, blond, pale people of their own
c) stopped asking the shadiest looking people on the street for directions (i.e. the creepy guy on the corner playing the illegal lottery instead of the bank’s security guard, WTF?)
d) didn’t keep their ipod, digial camera, wallet, in their front pocket and pull it out, display its contents prominently
e) attempted to blend, just a little bit
LOL for real!! although i may be guilty of being someone’s only black friend, she is my best friend and has definitely met my other friends/family.
Ha, you’re so right about white people in Brazil!!! i saw my white friend get robbed right in front of me…i told him they were going to do it LOL, but in the end, he was so rich that it didn’t matter, he had insurance and he was almost happy those kids took his brand new $500 watch…
I think that there’s a third category who travel to Cuba, the DR, and Mexico. This category consists of “just out of highschool”ers who “need to get away” (from parents, home towns, ect) and cannot afford European or African plane fare.
stuffblackpeoplelike - eating watermelon! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - pumping oil! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - gang warfare! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - eating beans! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - shooting heroin! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - welfare! hahaha!!!
stuffjewishpeoplelike - keeping money! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - eating rice! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - kissing goats! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - sniffing glue! hahaha!!!
aren’t i funny and clever!!!
don’t you dare call me a racist!!!
but let’s talk about what happens when white people meet a black american who is not in the military, does not play sports, didn’t rap or dance his or her way around Europe, you might find some funny responses to this dilemma
There is no such person!
There is a such person me. I grew in England. Have white friends. Have white friends in America who rather talk to african americans(black americans) in my neck of the woods. Because american blacks dont travel but go south. I vacation back home to England every summer and go to the caribean in the winter. White girls love me even though they want to make sure they are not stealing me from a black girl (american) to be exact. If the american black girl normally wants to visit the caribean the white girl wants to go both places. The black american girl is scared of england because she thinks its all white when theres 20 million of us live there excluding pakis. Oh well my point is if theres a black person who travels and own homes overseas he will never let u know thas why u think there is no such person. ps I’m not biracial nor abducted and adopted.
I’m white and the furthest I’ve been was Niagara Falls, Canada. I wish I could travel more, so help me out as to whether I’m cool or lame.
Lame and poor
Know what I like? People who can spell “traveling” correctly.
Oh, well . . . . and your site, sort of. It makes me feel white as hell, but it’s hilarious.
More stuff white people like, I suppose: Feeling cool for reading a site bashing other white folks. (God, is there any way out?)
Liz, I’ll keep asking if there’s a way out for you.
Cut the white and black shit, man. I’m in IRAK, and we gots diversity here, ok? There’s everything a young person would dig. Action, sunshine, exotic foods, illicit sex, rape, robbery, and the latest terror film. DIG IT.
holy shit Raymo! WTF?
RAYMO, please refrain from criticizing Americans. We don’t take anything seriously, especially ourselves. In fact, we hate ourselves and cover it up with humor about the unimportant minutiae in our lives, such as this blog. We’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that we can’t be as important as the historical figures we celebrate, and it depresses us. So when your backwards culture makes it to that level, then you can have a place at the table. Until then, keep ignorantly believing you live in a materialistic bliss. You’re luckier that way. Next.
I currently live in India and can’t wait to get back to the states so I can brag and tell of my adventures of the encounters with the not so fortunate and destitute. “One day I was eating and a man at the next table threw a bone and the ground. All of a sudden, a man and a dog came over to the bone and stared to fight over it!” Oh how cool everyone will think I am, being so cultured with all my travel experiences!!!! Now where did I put that journal……..
I love this blog!
Remember to talk about “when I went to Europe” like it’s one country.
Well lately Europe acts like it’s one country, and i understand saying that too since it’s so small, and many countries can be reached easily by train or 1hr flights…but i love how anecdodes about trips to Africa sound even more generic and pointless then globe trekker. I mean damn, can’t you at least get regional like sub-saharan africa, west- africa, etc if you can’t manage to remember the actual names of the countries you visited…
I spy an Inca Kola shirt. Are they in Peru?
Maybe, but you can get Inca cola in other places in South America.
I got it right here in New Rochelle, NY
When I go abroad, Europeans make fun of Americans that we don’t travel ENOUGH. I don’t blame them. Perhaps if more people were interested in the world, we would elect better leaders and have a more enlightened foreign policy (aka dispelling the naive notion that people around the world truly care about democracy).
In fact, Asian Americans, who are usually to busy earning money/buying status symbols or polishing their resume/academic credentials, never travel abroad.
African Americans and Hispanics don’t travel either, mainly because they have neither the curiosity nor the money to do it.
And so some white people travel to third world countries. But remember that the majority of Americans don’t even have a passport. So, this is one of the many positive attributes of white people that’s being framed as something we have to feel stupid about. Who cares if white people like to brag about travelling? At least they actually meet some locals. If you see Japanese tourists, they all stick to themselves on a tour bus and say less than a word to the locals.
“African Americans and Hispanics don’t travel either, mainly because they have neither the curiosity nor the money to do it.”
just stop it…you may be right about the money issue, and let’s not go down that road…but stop assuming we don’t have the curiosity or the interest. i had to always fight with ignorant (yet rich and uber educated) white girls in high school that used to say stuff like that. it’s ridiculous and false.
Well no wonder, european’s can walk a few miles down a road and be in another country before lunch time.
As for the Japanese, agreed, they treat a trip overseas like they are looking into a fish bowl.
We have one Japanese tour operator over here in australia who take the japanese tourists for dinner to an all you can eat japanese restaurant!
When I go abroad, Europeans make fun of Americans that we don’t travel ENOUGH. I don’t blame them. Perhaps if more people were interested in the world, we would elect better leaders and have a more enlightened foreign policy (aka dispelling the naive notion that people around the world truly care about democracy).
In fact, Asian Americans, who are usually to busy earning money/buying status symbols or polishing their resume/academic credentials, never travel abroad.
African Americans and Hispanics don’t travel either, mainly because they have neither the curiosity nor the money to do it.
And so some white people travel to third world countries. But remember that the majority of Americans don’t even have a passport. So, this is one of the many positive attributes of white people that’s being framed as something we have to feel stupid about. Who cares if white people like to brag about travelling? At least they actually meet some locals. If you see Japanese tourists, they all stick to themselves on a tour bus and say less than a word to the locals.
[re: 27 and 28]
it appears RAYMO is speaking as a soldier stationed in Iraq rather than an Iraqi (no?)
in which case, i can totally get behind his statement. bear in mind, i’m definitely not for the war, but if you’re looking for the most salient example of people resisting the deplorable cliches written about here, troops win: americans, of any race, and of (typically) lower economic status, seeing the world and having much more opportunity for introspection given the do-or-die, breakneck pace of their mission.
as far as traveling’s concerned, troops have you hipsters WELL BEAT for bragging rights.
Ha! This is too funny. I’m SO one of the white people that has traveled to Europe between the ages of 17-29 (four times to be exact), and ya…my experience was WAY different than anyone else’s
Your site rocks. Seriously- some of the funniest reading I’ve come across in a long time. May I suggest “blogging”, “Oprah”, and “camping” as future topics?
Whitey no.11…”Your one black Friend”?
How very WP of you
This is so me, but I am West Indian-black.
This is my favorite post. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, white people love talking about more than their travels.
your_other_black_friend, nicely put. Active duty has taken me to (in order, through the years) Australia, Japan, Spain, Nassau, Sicily, Qatar, Djibouti, Norway, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Iraq, and England. And all on taxpayer dime! It’s tough to “blend in” in places like Qatar, but a little Spanish goes a long way in most places. Except when you’re drunk and try to talk to a Filipino in Spanish because the islands were once owned by Spain. Oops.
…if white people stopped traveling so much, would this blog satirize their tendency to stay secluded in their own countries for ?
This one is funny because it rings true (why the hell do we -all- think we’re the first person to get off our ass and take a trip outside the country?) but misses the mark a bit.
To my fellow white people, I think the gist is that the standard of living happens to be higher in caucasian countries and the middle/upper classes eventually have nothing better to do but go abroad, and that well they’re there they have a tendency to treat everything they see as somehow existing for the sole purpose of their momentary enjoyment.
I am Chinese (the kind that grew up in China) and my boyfriend is a white boy grew up in the US. Ever since he came back from South East Asia a year ago, he cannot stop talking about his travel experience there (like riding on the back of a truck on mud roads and meeting people from New Zealand). Every time when we go to a Thai restaurant, he has to order a beer Charn - the cheapest beer you can get in Thailand (kinda like the indie music affinity) - and he cannot stop talking about him getting a beer Charn on the Sky Train after running for it train. Man, I have heard that story for a million times by now and he’s talking to someone who actually grew up in SE Asia.
I’m an Asian and can be considered to be moderately travelled…
I think that some of the whites I’d seen abroad behave as if they’re superior as they’d cros