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Looking down, low voice, guilty tone: when a friend reveals shortly before Easter that she is flying to Fuerteventura, every word is accompanied by shame.
She anticipates derogatory looks and derogatory thoughts.
Understandable.
During the Corona period, travel achieved the status of "unnecessary luxury".
Restricting domestic and international tourism travel at the height of the pandemic was a understandable and correct step.
However, like most measures, this also has disadvantages.
The past year was not only one with suffering children and old people, with death, fears, psychological overload and human alienation - it was also a year of missed opportunities in terms of the trip.
Travel is not a luxury for a liberal and enlightened society - it is their food.
Those who travel learn.
About yourself. About others.
Travel is education, a means of personal development.
The debates about flight shame have shown that this fact is not being given enough attention.
Not all journeys are the same
Certainly not all trips are the same.
The five-day trip to the Ballermann with a meter straw in a sangria bucket can hardly be compared with stays abroad for several months during school or university.
Just as little as with well-timed pensioner trips through India with photo stops.
But trips abroad have one aspect in common: people leave their familiar surroundings, their comfort zone.
And that has consequences.
If you stay abroad for longer than a few weeks, learn the national language, experience everyday life, surround yourself with local people, the effect is even greater for you.
Especially when there is a willingness to experience something new.
But learning begins with stepping on the plane, train or bus.
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Learning by traveling is very easy.
It all starts with recognizing differences: language, street signs, fashion, smells, architecture, traffic rules, music.
Everything is different - and yet comparable.
There is something profound hidden behind the obvious: the values of a country or a region are expressed in everyday life.
Anyone who walks through a foreign country with an open mind will inevitably be faced with questions.
Why do some women in Cairo wear headscarves, but many others don't, even though it is a predominantly Islamic country?
Why don't homeless people in Mexico City beg, but instead sell paper tissues on the metro?
Why do people in Boston ask how you are when they don't expect an honest answer?
More important than the answer itself is the recognition that the answer is complex and that your own initial assumption may be wrong.
And that people usually have good reasons for what they do, even if their actions, viewed from the outside, may initially appear illogical or even wrong.
Deciphering the inner logic of another culture is only possible with a change of perspective.
This expands thinking in a fantastic way and creates understanding.
"Travel ennobles the mind and clears up our prejudices," Oscar Wilde described this process as early as the 19th century.
Understanding the other - a gain for one's own
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The German state is also aware of the effect.
Germany finances numerous foreign scholarships for students and schoolchildren every year - through the Bundestag, the German Academic Exchange Service or indirectly through the European Union's Erasmus program.
Because traveling also has added value for society.
Those who change perspective gain a fresh look at themselves and their surroundings.
Why doesn't the saleswoman in the German bakery actually ask how you are?
Is that rude?
Efficient?
Honest?
Traveling raises questions about one's own society and one's own life.
Those who dare to question the familiar can sharpen their attitudes and sort out what is important and what is less important.
Travel thus contributes to the maturity of citizens.
You also automatically learn to admit to yourself that you have made wrong assumptions. Those who allow doubts about their own beliefs improve their ability to engage in dialogue. Maybe there is a reason why the neighbor is always so grumpy? Travel stimulates the mind, to think, to differentiate, to reflect. And thus teaches skills for peaceful coexistence. It not only contributes to international understanding, but also to national ones. A social division can be observed in many western countries. There is also a rift running through Germany, which the pandemic has probably made even bigger. Against this background, the ability to change perspective and to understand the other will gain in importance for a productive discussion that leads to togetherness.
Travel promotes democracy
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Travel also has a democratic character.
The experiences abroad give the impetus to question political action and realities.
Political ideas are carried across national borders and can take root at home.
Democracy is the belief in swarm intelligence.
The fact that responsible citizens vote from alternatives to choose the best one for everyone.
Traveling means that fresh ideas and new thoughts find their way into social discussions.
This does not only apply to democratic societies.
It is not for nothing that dictatorships lock up their own citizens, switch off the Internet and censor the press.
Just do not allow the dangerous comparison with free democracies.
The people could ask for something similar.
Last but not least, travel and vacation are also a way to escape everyday life for a limited time.
In times of constant availability, overtime and weekend work, it is difficult to switch off within your own four walls.
And anyone who has ever had a guilty conscience because they forgot a private date knows: Sometimes you also have to relax from your private life.
"The time has come to book a vacation in Italy"
Italy's Prime Minister Draghi is wooing vacationers.
Even before the European so-called Green Passport is supposed to enable freedom of travel in Europe in mid-June, Italy wants to launch its own health passport from mid-May and thereby enable entry.
Source: WORLD
It is precisely this need that drives people to Fuerteventura, Mallorca or the few model regions in Germany where tourism is possible.
Despite the bad gut feeling.
Vacation is not an end in itself and not just a branch of the economy - but a means to regulate your own well-being and to widen your mind.
Not a luxury - just basic services, and it is bad enough that some people in Germany cannot afford it at all.
Everyone should be able to broaden their horizons.
The travelers in the pandemic didn't deserve a moral index finger.
They strive for something that we all lack: the freedom to discover new things and get to know yourself a little better in the process.
A freedom from which those who stay at home also benefit.