As a 19 year old I’ve kindled the desire to travel overseas for seven years, but coming from a lower middle-income background and a small town (employment was difficult), I couldn’t get the money. Apart from an independent trip to the other side of the country when I was 16, I haven’t travelled outside of the mid-east coast.

I went straight onto University, thought about doing a semester overseas, but decided not to because the subjects never seemed as good (I have a thirst for knowledge). And now, at 19 and 1/2, I am finally planning a trip to Turkey at the end of the year.

In Australia University ends in November, so I’ll be leaving after my final semester, and in some ways I feel that may limit my career chances. But I have wanted to travel for so long (I’ve been saving the little scholarship money I get in what I called my Travel Account since my first trip by myself), and I think the benefits outweigh the risks. You have to take risks – that’s life. And the idea of an employer wanting to hire a 19 year old who hasn’t even been out of the country would seem to limit my career options anyway.

So before people start talking about which “generation” is ignorant of travel, please consider the social implications for young people. There is a faster pace in lifestyle these days (at least in Australia that’s the case), and with such advances in communication technologies like the internet, competition for jobs is tough on young people. Who could blame anyone for wanting financial security?

I don’t think the issue is that young people don’t know a thing about travel, I think it’s that they possibly don’t know the value of travel to other aspects of life, and how it may end up a benefit in the long run.

I’m 19, and I’ve simply never had the chance to travel before – I’ve been too poor, and my parents never encouraged it. Hell, anything more than a half-hour drive is too far without a very good reason, according to my mother. (I have been to Wyoming and Florida, and that’s about it.)
And most of my friends have the same experience – the travel we’re most familiar with is presented as dauntingly complicated and prohibitively expensive. I don’t have a spare $100 for a passport, let alone international plane tickets; you can’t even fly into Canada without a passport, and soon you won’t be able to walk there, either. Even domestic travel tends to be costly – a bus or train ticket is often well over $100 or $200 round-trip, plus food, lodging, and whatever you’re going to do while you’re there. When we’re trying to focus on getting through school without going into massive debt, or paying our bills on minimum wage, travel is seen as a luxury.
Every adult I’ve met – those out of the under-24 range – has discouraged us from traveling, too. It’s too dangerous, it costs too much (when you should be saving for college), you’re going to get mugged and raped and blown up. When I tell people I’m going to Chicago (and I’m only in Ohio!) for a weekend with my two closest friends, they’re horrified, not happy (the most positive reaction I’ve had was confused – “But why?”).
I don’t know anyone my age who doesn’t want to travel. It isn’t that we all just want to sit at home and play videogames all day. We have obligations a lot of people forget – whether school, an inflexible job, or ill parents. No, it’s not like having to plan trips around an office job and children, but I’ve met so many older people who are under the impression we can take off for weeks at a time with little notice.
Really, I’m a little surprised anyone in my age group has traveled at all. A friend of mine has done some traveling for school (Peru, and Spain this summer), and while it’s inspiring and makes me want to get out of here and see the world, the realities of it – passport problems, the insane cost of the plane tickets, luggage mangling, and how much more expensive it would have been if she weren’t going through a school program – are discouraging.
This past year I’ve been doing research on how I can travel, given the circumstances: being very, very broke; being under 21; not having any support from relatives or older adults; limited access to a vehicle (my mother needs the car for work, and there’s no way I can afford one of my own); having no vacation time at work. I’m setting up a site for my research, to connect other young poor explorers and share information. There are options, but few of us are aware of them. I don’t think turning off the computer and disconnecting yourself from technology is the single best solution, but I am one of those dumb wired kids who loves me some internets… and without the internet, I wouldn’t be traveling at all. Technology is not the enemy – the problems come with how you use it.

(The state of geography education is unforgivable, though, and I don’t take “Well, my school didn’t teach me!” as an excuse from peers. I taught myself where everything is, and at least some basics about each country and its culture. There are fewer than 200 countries. If you can memorize that many goddamn cheat codes for your X-Box, you can remember where Haiti is.)

Gen Y & Z people have a TV & DVD player (and often times, a videogame console) in every room of the house and in each car. These kids can’t hack a 2-hour plane ride without jacking into their PSPs or DVD players.

We are, as a society, actually creating disorders like ADD & ADHD via the behaviors we instill in our children & young adults.

My wife & I sat next to an American ex-pat on a recent flight from Atlanta to Moscow. We struck up a series of lengthy chats and became fast friends. Not long after we landed, our new friend looked us up and insisted that she show us the town. You can’t get experiences like these if you’re too busy chatting online with your buds back home to even look at the person seated next to you.

So, sure, I’m sitting here checking email & blogs from my rented apartment in Moscow in the wee morning hours, so I’m not advocating that we need to turn everyone into Luddites, but people do need to understand & appreciate the value of unplugging.