Travel can challenge assumptions in ways no book or news report can. For years, the world may seem divided into simple categories: familiar and foreign, friend and enemy, people we understand and people we don’t. Then you travel somewhere unexpected.
You sit across from someone you’ve been taught to think of as distant. You share photographs. You talk about families and work. For a few minutes, the labels disappear.
What remains is a person.
In October 1998, a trip through Vientiane, Laos, led to an unusual destination: the North Korean Embassy. The visit wasn’t arranged like a formal diplomatic meeting. It began with a motorcycle ride, a familiar neighborhood, and a search for the embassy remembered from an earlier bicycle trip.
When the gate turned out to be open, the visit became even more unexpected. The people inside initially assumed there had been a mistake. Then First Secretary Kim appeared.
He recognized the connection immediately.
Photographs of his friend and former classmate, Counselor Kim Myong Gil, who had previously visited Anchorage, changed the atmosphere. What could have been an awkward encounter quickly became a conversation about people, families, jobs, and shared connections.
The political portraits remained on the wall. But the conversation became personal.
The story began much earlier with another country that had once seemed completely foreign. Growing up during the Cold War, Russia had been presented as the enemy. Then came the opportunity to meet Russians personally.
After repeated visits to Siberia and the Russian Far East, including homestays and shared meals, a different picture emerged: people who were welcoming, generous, and hospitable.
The lesson wasn’t that history and politics didn’t matter. It was that they weren’t the whole story.
A country is not a headline. A government is not every person who lives beneath it. And sometimes, the only way to discover that is to go there.
Curiosity doesn’t require agreement. It doesn’t mean ignoring history, politics, or difficult realities. It simply means being willing to look beyond the first impression.
Travel can create that opportunity. A motorcycle ride through Vientiane led to an unexpected conversation inside an embassy most travelers would never think to visit. A childhood shaped by Cold War fears eventually led to friendships and hospitality in Russia.
The destinations were different. The lesson was similar.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we bring to a journey is not an itinerary. It’s an open mind.
Before visiting a country you’ve only encountered through headlines, spend some time learning about its everyday life: food, family traditions, neighborhoods, music, and ordinary people. Look for the human story alongside the political one.
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
Often attributed to Saint Augustine
Has travel ever changed your opinion of a country or culture? Tell us about the experience that made you see a place differently than you expected.
If you’d like to read more stories about my travels through some of the world’s most unexpected places, you can find my book, My Pursuit of the Axis of Evil, here:
Get My Pursuit of the Axis of Evil
Editor’s Note: Some newsletters are original pieces created by Dr. Cox’s social media manager with the assistance of AI, inspired by stories and themes from his book.