17/07/2026
Can I be politically incorrect for a moment?
If you can afford a flight to another country, you can afford an hour to learn something about it before you arrive.
Read its history.
Learn a few words of the language.
Find out where the locals actually eat.
Visit an independent bookshop instead of another souvenir shop.
Walk into a family-run café instead of the first place with a neon “Best Goulash in Budapest” sign.
Then, and only then, complain.
Don’t tell me Budapest has no authentic food when every meal you ate was in a restaurant built for tourists.
Don’t tell me Venice is “just souvenir shops” when you never stepped away from San Marco.
Don’t tell me Prague, Transylvania or Slovenia have “lost their identity” when you spent your entire trip following Instagram reels and Google rankings.
I live and work between Venice, Slovenia and Hungary. I spend months every year in other places. Before I go anywhere, I read. I try to understand the people, the history, the customs, the food, the crafts. I look for the places that belong to the country, not to tourism.
A destination owes you nothing.
It is not Europe’s job to become a comfortable version of wherever you came from.
The world is not an extension of your home country.
Travel should make you more curious, more humble and more adaptable.
If you return exactly the same person you were when you boarded the plane, perhaps you weren’t really travelling at all.
You were simply consuming another place.
