Have you seen the world?
Last year I traveled a bit but did not go anywhere new. This was disappointing because the world is full of wonders and traveling to foreign places you always find enchanting things. Staying in Karachi for most of 2025 I found myself reflecting on the idea of ‘seeing the world’ and what people normally mean when they say they have seen it all.
At a wedding, I sat at a table where I knew some people but did not know others. I was keenly listening to the conversation taking place on the other side of the table. A man in his fifties had recently returned from Oslo; his colleagues were impressed by his travels and asked where else he had been to. He told them he had been all over and claimed he had seen the world.
This was impressive! I interjected. I told him it had always been my dream to see the world; I was genuinely impressed to meet someone who had already done it. I asked him how he found Burkina. He looked at me in astonishment. “Burkina?”
“Yes, Burkina Faso,” I clarified. “Was it easy to travel in that country?”
He paused, then recalled his geography. “Oh, Burkina Faso, close to Mali!” he said.
I pressed on. “Yes. Burkina Faso. How was it?”
“Who goes to Burkina Faso?” he asked.
I was a bit disappointed by this answer. Surely anyone who claimed to have seen the world would go to Burkina Faso. But out of politeness I kept that thought to myself. Instead, I asked him which country he found to be most alien. He said he enjoyed visiting Cuba.
If he found Cuba to be an interesting place, what did he think of the DPRK. No, he had never been to North Korea. From there, the conversation went south. Obviously infuriated, he said ‘seeing the world’ was just an expression, and it did not mean he went to every single country. I learned that his ‘world’ comprised most of Europe and North America; Costa Rica alone in Central America; Argentina and Brazil in South America; most of East Asia, and a couple of places in Africa. We got busy with dinner, but the conversation stayed with me and made me think about people’s desire to see the world. Does seeing the world mean visiting every sovereign state? But some countries are so big there are vast differences between their various regions. Can someone claim to have seen China if they visit only a couple of major Chinese cities? Going by the count of regions with distinct cultures and languages, the ‘world’ to be seen would keep expanding. Add to this the constant transformation of places. The South Africa I saw in 2023 was quite different from the one I saw in 1992. Perhaps the desire to ‘see the world’ is nothing more than chasing a rainbow. That nobody ever saw the world, and nobody ever will.
