Round The World Tickets
Anti-TV snobs are really missing something on a RTW
I’ll admit it. I like TV, and that doesn’t always make me popular with other travelers. So many of my fellow road warriors are part of that cult that swears they don’t even own a TV, that I actually believe a few of them. And that’s fine with me. When you are living at home if you choose not to own a TV at least you know what you are missing. But while on the road you might actually consider trying to watch some boob tube in certain locations, for the reasons I’ll describe below.
Television can give you a more honest look at culture than anything else
When you travel to a city and then stay in the historic center you are seeing an idealized view of how life in that country really is. You might spend the afternoon at an art museum and then the evening in the nightlife district, but 99% of the real population isn’t doing that because they are working during the day and then watching a bit of TV at night. Spending a day at the Louvre might help you understand what Paris was like 300 years ago (or maybe it won’t), but it doesn’t tell you a thing about the city today.
I personally find it fascinating to watch some local news, even when I don’t understand the language, because you can always follow the stories anyway, and you’ll get a chance to see what the real locals and thinking about and worrying about at that moment. It’s also interesting to see which sports stories pop up and in which order. In some countries a big football/soccer story might be the top story of the whole broadcast, or they may be obsessed with cricket or something else. You really get the sense of what the locals care about in a hurry, much more so than by asking a bartender in a tourist pub.
Television reveals that most of us are hypocrites
If you talk to locals who work at the hostel they might tell you that people from that country mainly prefer documentaries and French films, and that they all find Hollywood blockbusters to be stupid. But flip around the dial and you’ll find out in a hurry that they probably have horrendous reality shows, plenty of dubbed American sitcoms, and Rambo-style films on every night.
Watch their version of MTV and you might be surprised. In Egypt, where every woman who isn’t a tourist or prostitute wears a scarf over their head in public, you might expect their MTV to only feature male singers and traditional songs. But in reality the music channel that is included on their basic cable shows videos with more than their fair share of scantily-clad women dancing and singing. It’s shocking and fascinating and it really shows you more about them than you could ever learn by visiting an art museum.
Moderation is best
I’m certainly not advocating anyone becoming a TV junkie while on the road, but when you have those days when you are tired of traveling and you just want to relax, don’t dismiss the idea of finding a cheap hotel room with a TV and scanning the dial a bit. You can read that paperback book anywhere in the world, but you can’t watch local TV in India unless you are actually in India.
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