I chose law which was expensive (books alone costs thousands of $). I still graduated with a large HECS (deferred Australian student) debt. I got offered a job as a lawyer straight out of law school. It was a massive privilege to be offered the job. I really wanted to save for a year, travel then work in my profession. This choice was also a privilege but it was a recession (1993) and Mum said “Take the job, it may not be around when you get back and I can’t support you”. I’ve been working ever since. If I’d had both parents, the opportunity to save my income, no student debt and not had to help my family plus had the luxury of saying no to a job offer then I would have travelled. Now I am 52 and I’ve made a few trips for which I am very grateful. But nothing like 3 or 6 or 12 months of freedom.

I spent ages in my youth listening to intensely selfish people who had travelled bragging about their privilege and assuming everyone could do the same things as them. I’m sorry but by comparison to struggling to pay for food or utilities, having the opportunity to save even $10,000 minimum to be able to fund 3 or 6 or 12 months backpacking in South America or trekking in India and Nepal or drifting through Europe was and is a privilege no matter how many youth hostels you stay in.

My children have now done a bit of travel and I have three rules for them: 1. Always be grateful for what you have. 2. Don’t assume other people have what you have including opportunities. 3. Never brag about your privilege, especially travel. Enjoy your life experiences but don’t inflict them on others.

That is a good question! Just throwing my opinion in here – privilege is always relative. When speaking about privilege, the only way it can even exist is if there are more than one person, and there is a difference between those people in a given context. So, even though generally more underprivileged people experience their lack of privilege in many contexts, in this case of going to Mecca, they have access to something you don’t, hence they are privileged in that CONTEXT. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be more privileged than them in other situations, for example, socio-economically. The context is everything when talking about privilege!

The interesting thing about it is that when you actually do travel to underdeveloped parts of the world especially, you realize even more how lucky you are just to have been able to travel there! I have met people in India and Peru who have never even left there home town/region, let alone ever travel outside of there country or see the world!