My Middle Class Lens: Travelling Abroad Isn't A Norm As Shown On Social Media

One would be living under a rock if they haven't seen multiple social media influencers putting out reels about their foreign trips and saying how affordable they are. Also, there is an idea that a honeymoon in Maldives is a must, without that your marriage can look incomplete. Travelling abroad for middle-class families is still a dream, no matter what social media tells you because most of these influencers come from a privileged background and generational wealth so what is affordable for them might be a huge deal for you, so it's not okay to feel bad if you haven't been out of your country yet.

In middle-class families, one trip to the nearest hill station or that beach would be the best part of our holidays and quite enjoyable. Trips to a faraway holiday destination in the country would be quite a big deal and require months of planning and bookings. Now with the advancement of the internet, things are indeed easy and flights are becoming a common mode of transportation. But when you go back to see things from your middle-class parent's viewpoint and the slower life they led, a 36-48 hours journey in trains than staying in mediocre hotels and enjoying the experience over being 'instagrammable' might not seem that boring either.

Of course, with time our choices have changed, now a lot of us who are earning and want to take our family on a trip would want to achieve some of the dreams we all hoped to live as a family. But in this race, we often forget that we are not competing with the rest of the social media users but each on our own path of small wins. So it doesn't matter if you could take your parents to visit the northeastern part of India or on a trip to Paris, they would be equally happy. Similarly wherever you go on your honeymoon with your husband, doesn't have to be the same place your favourite Bollywood star went as well.

Social Media Pressure About Travelling Abroad

The more social media reaches people, we think that what's on the screen is a part of your to-do list and without achieving it, your life has no meaning. Travelling and enjoying holidays is a thing of joy, it doesn't have to look exactly like the way the travel vloggers showed. In the end, it puts pressure on ourselves to reach that level where we don't find joy anymore because we might end up spending way too much or in the quest of looking for perfect frames we forget that we went there to have fun in the first place. Growing up and living in a middle-class household we often think that we aren't happy enough because we don't have a luxurious lifestyle. And overlook the opportunities for happiness because it is either old-fashioned or not trending on social media.

Travelling abroad is definitely not a bad thing to do but it's not the only way to understand if you won in life. It is an expensive experience and not everyone can afford it, while for some it could be a priority in life, for the rest it isn't. In a middle-class set up there are a lot of debts and responsibilities so social media pressure making them believe that they aren't doing enough because they cannot afford a trip to a foreign land is just cruel. Enjoy the little wins and the little trips you make so you can actually save up for that foreign trip someday, or not.

Views expressed are the author's own.

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