A friend’s niece - 20 yr old blonde hair, blue eyes, went backpacking across Europe with her parent’s blessings. She came back ok but this was about 10 yrs ago when things were slightly better than they are now. I thought it was outright stupid but no one asked my opinion.
I’m reminded of an old SNL skit, it was for a condom commercial and these two White yuppies are playing basketball. The one says to the other that he had gone on vacation and didn’t have any condoms but then he says “ but I thought to myself, when am I going to be in Haiti again?”
I did the same in Europe many years ago. Often met young women who would travel with me, backpacking all over Europe for several months. We shared rooms and it was as though they were family.
Times have changed since then.
A few years ago I was in Barcelona, sitting by the big fountain on the main street when one immigrant asked another immigrant, “Why do you want to kill Americans?”