There’s a growing movement in the US that we’ve been following from afar. It’s the notion that society has become way too politically correct to function successfully. And you know what? We couldn’t agree with this more! In fact, we are catapulting ourselves onto the bandwagon and would be honored to lead the un-PC parade. Many would think this only applies to the world of politics, but even in our world of travel blogging, being politically correct has gotten WAY too out of control. It’s almost made us wonder how worthwhile travel blogging even is when people are scared to offend or to give their honest opinion.
Our quest has always been to find, and then share, places that have great value for the dollar. How does one effectively do that? We believe it’s by living an experience and using a review process to share reflections and the outcome. For the most part, travel experiences can be great, rewarding, and positive. But things can really suck too, and when you have a limited amount of funds, you don’t want to waste your money on crap.
However, the world has become so damn sensitive that you cannot NOT like something anymore. You are not allowed to have an opinion. You cannot judge. You can’t say something was subpar or shitty. Everything has to be lined with an unrealistic positivism that is causing travelers, like us, to have difficulty spending their money wisely. We read a lot of positive posts and reviews, but it’s uncanny how we rarely read anything negative.
Everything has to be lined with an unrealistic positivism that is causing travelers, like us, to have difficulty spending their money wisely.
These days people walk on eggshells in their travel reviews, especially on Airbnb and TripAdvisor. This becomes a problem when you make a reservation and find yourself in a dumpy apartment wondering why it has a history of glowing five star ratings. For example, we recently stayed a month in an apartment that had a serious sewage smell due to improper plumbing. There were 19 previous reviewers who failed to mention this. Why were we the first to bring this up in a review? Because no one wants to be the bad guy. Unfortunately, this is leading to a society of people that cannot take any form of constructive criticism and are hyper-sensitive to anything that is not putting them (or their goods) on the highest pedestal.
Take, for example, our “controversial” India vlog. As many of you know, we really disliked our time in India. We tried to keep a positive mindset during the entire trip, but everything that surrounded our travels was corrupt, dirty, and disappointing. If you look at our YouTube video, we had 9 people actually dislike the content.
A viewer even added a comment “...it is not necessary that every guy focus on negative aspects, you went there for fun and so you should enjoy every such conditions also.”
Wait! Enjoy the conditions? Are you serious? Why must we say that we enjoyed our time in a country when we actually hated it? To top it off, a family member even told us, “You better delete that video!” WHY?
Would I recommend to a friend or family to go where we went in India? No. Was it worth spending our limited travel funds in a country that we felt scammed the entire time? No. Did I enjoy seeing men urinate and defecate openly in public or getting harassed every time I was in a public place? No. Did I feel safe? No. Was it worth the $500 a day cost? Hell no!
I wouldn’t advise my best friend to go there, so why should I lie to other travelers deceptively describing how “unique” and “different” India was? Why the need to lie and paint India as this enchanting place when to us it wasn’t? Maybe we should just play the typical, PC travel blogger role and conveniently choose to never bring up any negative aspects of travel? But if you were investing YOUR hard-earned money, who would you rather seek advice from? The PC traveler or the tell-it-like-it-is traveler?
Providing honest and realistic commentary when traveling is a must when you are a travel blogger. In fact, it’s your responsibility. And despite what this overly sensitive, PC world keeps telling us, you are entitled to have and openly express your opinion without the fear of being called “harsh,” “self-centered,” and “negative.” So fellow travelers, do everyone a favor, and start being real! Your honesty and thoughtful feedback is really the best way of paying it forward to the next guest.
