Visitors to any country tend to get a different perspective than the actual residents of the respective place. It’s easy to be awed by the beauty of certain views, monuments, cities and other attractions when you are a tourist.
The locals on the other hand are most of the times less enamored with the sights and would gladly go on vacation somewhere else. Italians, French, English, Germans etc. would rather go somewhere else when vacation time comes. The exception might be the Americans as mentioned in our earlier blog entry Puzzle Solved.
Living in what others see as a little paradise is way different than just visiting for a few days. When dealing with cost of living, work, daily commute to work, taxes, and other unknown to the tourist issues, any place how beautiful may look like could be less fun for the locals.
There’s no perfect place, where everything is without social, economic or natural problems. A beautiful remote corner in the mountains somewhere looks stunning and may be the envy of many visitors, but the locals will complain about lack of economical or educational opportunities, remoteness and many other problems.
When reality settles in, many wonderful cities will have to deal with traffic, cost of living, unemployment and much more. Some visitors fall in love with a certain place and decide to move permanently there and when the heaven they fell for proves to be less happy and the “part all the time” mood disappears when they realize there’s income taxes to be paid, health care and social services might be inexistent or very poor. Even law and order might be optional in certain countries where civil unrest is a possibility.
So having said all that, it’s always good to see any place you visit as a whole. With awe and skepticism as well, without losing sight of the main goal of travelling: learning something new.
