I can understand someone thinking video games and YouTube are just killing time (although I don't agree), but traveling? That's pretty much universally accepted as one of the best things you can do to improve yourself.
Not universally. For example, I disagree. I've lived in three countries and the experiences have been incredibly rewarding and interesting. But I've traveled to dozens of countries and while I enjoy those trips (that's why I did them after all!) it's very superficial. I know people like to be exposed to different cultures and ways of life, but I feel you just can't really meaningfully do that in only a week or two from a hotel and with no responsibilities.
Very much this. I travelled around Europe and what's left to me of these trips have almost nothing to do with being exposed to other cultures and that stuff. I agree that a bunch of weeks of traveling, especially if you don't know the language, is very superficial.
My memories of these are mostly about the time spent with the people I travelled with —mostly family.
There are different ways you can travel. You can do it on a shoestring budget, sleeping rough and working odd jobs in the process to sustain yourself. This I believe is very challenging and enriching. The other alternative is to just take a bunch of money and go to country where it goes a long way (like Thailand) and then spend time in hostels, eat out and basically live a life of partying and leisure. This I believe is much less valuable.
> Most young people that I have seen traveling in Thailand or Bali do not seem like improving themselves.
How do you know? The benefits of travel don't come instantly like some binary "travel" door you walk through. Travel sculpts your character over time in small ways and small interactions. And why would it need to be an active self-improvement process? On of the beauties of travel is how passive the a-ha moments are, you just have to pull the trigger to go in the first place which many people cannot even do beyond a "someday I'll go" dream they carry to their grave.
Tens of thousands? There is some 5 milion tourists pers year to Bali and 35 milion to Thailand. Not to mention other destinations. So tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number) is just an rounding error.
So I guess here is your answer.
What I simply meant is that travelling for most people is just a form of leisure not a life enhancing experience.
I don't agree. Very few people do anything significant enough to warrant a book about their life, but everyone who travels lives a better life afterward.
tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number)
There's more than 80,000 in the biography section of Amazon, and that only includes the ones in print right now.