We live in an era of global travel: in 2015, the most recent year on record, there were 1.2 billion tourist arrivals recorded around the world. These travelers took to the skies, visiting friends and relatives, traveling for business, and seeking new experiences. While these trips used to interrupt our social lives, we are now more connected than ever. This has led to a constant documentation of our travels, which we broadcast in real-time to social networks of friends and “friends.” These highly stylized representations of our experiences are entertaining, but they are also misleading, presenting narrative as truth. The reality of our global experience is much too complex and nuanced for any photo or video to do it justice.

Traipsing through social media, it becomes apparent that people are collecting places. They travel vast—once unthinkable—distances to new locales, where they proceed to take carefully manicured photographs of themselves posing in the midst of exotic landmarks or situations. When they post these images online, their digital friends experience FOMO—fear of missing out—and add this experience to their “bucket list.” I’ve seen freshly coiffed women in beautiful long red velvet dresses and high heels posing in the middle of the jungle in Bali for the “perfect” shot. They ask their companion to take their picture again and again until they get it just right. In Sydney, I watched a young woman re-do countless takes of a video segment giving advice to bloggers and social influencers, as she walked in front of the famous Opera House in a billowing white dress. In New Zealand, I watched a man in shorts and stubble scale a safety fence on the edge of a cliff, so he could dangle off the edge while his friend took photos and videos with their cell phones.

What do all these people have in common? They don’t actually see what’s in front of them. This phenomenon affects tourists, regardless of age, ethnicity or gender. As traveling becomes more affordable, the effect is more noticeable. Don’t get me wrong: I am overjoyed at the rising income levels around the world, lifting millions out of poverty. However, newly minted members of the middle class everywhere seem to want the same modern conveniences, clogging the streets with cars, fast food and pollution. In their race upward, countries are becoming increasingly homogenous. They are also becoming more sophisticated about tourism, setting up selfie spots and hashtags to capitalize on movements of visitors. The result is that everyone has the exact same photo, which doesn’t seem to matter anymore and may in fact even be the point. Everyone wants “that” photo in front of “that” place, striking “that” pose. Just watch tourists bound up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and dance around at the top like Rocky. They all do exactly the same thing. It’s uncanny.

At the other extreme are the mavens, the ones who like to go where no one has gone before. Or at least, that’s what they would like to think. They are looking for unique experiences that they can then share with friends, like closely kept secrets. If they see other tourists along the way, they ignore them, pretending that they are alone in a foreign land. Some will share their experiences online, knowing that they are the first to have been there and done that. The masses will soon follow, seeking to replicate the experience. Other mavens deliberately withhold information, so that no one else can spoil their experience, like the idealistic community in Alex Garland’s novel, The Beach.

In truth, all of these travelers are fundamentally missing the point. They are looking at other places as “destinations” and “experiences,” rather than as real places where real people live ordinary lives. Real-life traveling is often marred by frustration, fatigue and stomach ailments. It’s certainly not as glamourous as the photos. Life in Tahiti can be as difficult as in some pockets of Los Angeles. We are distracted by the physical beauty of our surroundings, but it is our socio-economic status that determines whether we will be able to enjoy them. For the most part, we as travelers are trying to disconnect from our realities, believing that we will find a higher truth or meaning somewhere else.

Traveling is a privilege, not a right. Of course, we earn the privilege of enjoying our hard-earned money by relaxing wherever we desire. However, it is a vital part of the experience to realize that these places live on independently of us and our lives. People all over the world are seeking the same things: they all want to be with their loved ones, with a roof over their heads and a job to provide stability. Despite the xenophobic narrative promoted by the rising global nationalist movement, we are all remarkably similar. Life is pretty much the same, whether you're in Jakarta, Christchurch or London.

As I grow older, I look back on a lifetime of travel and am humbled by the lessons I have learned. From a very early age, I was fortunate to live in other countries, sometimes as a native, sometimes as an outsider, witnessing how others experience the world. I was taught history from different perspectives and learned languages other than my own. I know enough to know how little I know. Still, I seek more. I travel not to discover other people, but to find a deeper truth about myself and the world I live in. I am not running away from anything; I am trying to run into things. In the process, I hope to get to know myself better, for better or for worse.

I love discovering the humanity that unites us: the fragility of a small boy sleeping on mattress in a room he shares with his whole family, the exuberance of a school girl having fun with her friends, or the vulnerable conversation with a woman who confesses the lingering wounds from a long-ago trauma. These are things that I cannot fully capture in a photograph or convey in writing. They are not stories that need to be relayed. Sometimes, I just have to listen to the world and be quiet. The world is not getting smaller every day; it’s getting bigger and more complicated. There are billions of people with customs and priorities different from our own. If we don’t learn how to adapt to this evolving new world, we will fade away into insignificance.

In the initial moments of travel, in a new and foreign location, I used to try to acclimatize as quickly as possible, to get my bearings. Now, I enjoy those precious hours of discomfort and confusion, because they make the most vivid impression. We are fortunate to be able to travel to places and situations that take us outside of our routines, forcing us to live on a simpler plane. It’s hard to worry about other things when you need to eat or use a restroom. Life imposes new priorities on us, making us listen to our real selves—the person we are when we’re by ourselves, offline, with the lights off.

If you think about it, it’s a form of time and space travel: you’re transported to a different location, where the locals may look different, speak another language and deal with alternative seasons, while a day can feel like a week. As I write these words, I am riding a train in Java, Indonesia, watching the world go by my window. A cacophony of incomprehensible voices babbles away in the background, as men toil in the lush green rice fields outside, just like their forefathers. The train slows down as we near a station. A man stares at me, his face lined and thoughts opaque. He returns my smile and we make a connection. It feels good to be alive.