Travel… but Travel Right

Twelve centuries ago, Imam Al-Shafi'i, a traveler who moved between Makkah, Madinah, Yemen and Baghdad before settling in Egypt, urged us to travel, counting five benefits: relief from worry, a livelihood, knowledge, good manners, and noble company.

 I searched that verse for a sixth benefit called "the Instagram story." It isn't there. He never imagined we would travel to post rather than to see.

After 94 destinations on five continents, I say it confidently: travel, but travel right. I once saw a traveler arrive knowing nothing about a country, then wonder why locals didn't act like his neighbors. Another raised his voice in a hushed museum as if at a family majlis. A third memorized the malls' hours but forgot the city's name; a fourth collects countries like stamps, counting every airport layover as one!

The clearest lesson came from Boracay, in the Philippines, whose white sand looks like milled flour.

 Standing on that beach, I could hardly believe this very paradise was closed to tourists for six months, April to October 2018, after then-President Rodrigo Duterte called it a "cesspool," worn down by crowds and by sewage pumped into its waters. It reopened with conditions: no parties, bonfires or barbecues on the beach, a cap of 19,215 tourists at a time, and even sandcastles came under regulation.

Traveling right is simple: read before you pack, learn what to wear and what is off-limits, respect the queue, and learn "thank you" in the local language; it opens hearts faster than any visa. Leave places cleaner than you found them.

 The Emirati passport has topped the global Passport Index since 2018, opening over 180 destinations without a prior visa. Don't let your behavior be weaker than your passport. When one of us slips up abroad, nobody says "that man erred." They say "the Emirati erred."

Good travel isn't measured in passport stamps or phone photos, but in what a traveler leaves behind: a clean beach, a smile for a stranger, a fond memory for a small restaurant owner, a country remembered kindly. And Al-Shafi'i's fifth benefit, noble company, belongs only to those who travel nobly.