What is the most uninformative statement that people are inclined to make? The philosopher Agnes Callard’s nominee would be “I love to travel.” “This tells you very little about a person, because nearly everyone likes to travel; and yet people say it, because, for some reason, they pride themselves both on having travelled and on the fact that they look forward to doing so,” Callard writes. Travel gets branded as an achievement: see interesting places, have interesting experiences, become interesting people. Is that what it really is?

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What is the most uninformative statement that people are inclined to make? The philosopher Agnes Callard’s nominee would be “I love to travel.” “This tells you very little about a person, because nearly everyone likes to travel; and yet people say it, because, for some reason, they pride themselves both on having travelled and on the fact that they look forward to doing so,” Callard writes. Travel gets branded as an achievement: see interesting places, have interesting experiences, become interesting people. Is that what it really is?
“Travel turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best,” Callard argues. “If you think that this doesn’t apply to you—that your own travels are magical and profound, with effects that deepen your values, expand your horizons, render you a true citizen of the globe, and so on—note that this phenomenon can’t be assessed first-personally.” On a Memorial Day weekend expected to break travel records.

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