The best way to travel abroad is to live with the locals.

“The best way to travel abroad is to live with the locals.” Thus spoke Zach Braff, and in this simple reflection lies a truth as old as wandering itself: that to truly know a land, one must know its people. For monuments and palaces, landscapes and rivers, reveal the surface of a nation, but it is in the homes, the kitchens, the laughter, and the struggles of its people that the soul of a place is revealed. To live with the locals is not merely to visit—it is to become, for a time, part of the life that beats unseen beneath the mask of tourism.

When Braff speaks of this way of travel, he calls us to humility. For too often, the traveler arrives as a conqueror of sights, taking photographs, collecting tokens, but never truly entering the life of the land. To live with the locals is to surrender pride, to accept hospitality, to sit at the same table and share bread. It is to hear stories unpolished for strangers, to walk roads unmarked in guides, and to learn that every nation is not merely its history, but its living people. In this, travel ceases to be escape or spectacle—it becomes communion.

History bears witness to the power of this wisdom. Consider Herodotus, the Father of History, who traveled not to gaze from a distance but to sit among the people, listening to their accounts and traditions. His chronicles were rich not because he saw temples, but because he recorded voices. Or think of T.E. Lawrence, who lived among Arab tribes, learned their customs, and shared their hardships. He did not merely observe the desert—he lived it with those to whom it belonged. His story reminds us that to truly know a people, one must dwell among them.

There is also the story of Alexis de Tocqueville, who journeyed to America not to gaze at its institutions from afar, but to live among its citizens, speaking with farmers, shopkeepers, and settlers. His great work, Democracy in America, endures not because he saw monuments, but because he entered into the ordinary lives of men and women and drew from them the truth of their society. Thus, the wisdom of Braff’s words is seen in history: that the deepest knowledge comes not from observation, but from participation.

To live with the locals is also an act of transformation. For when the traveler sits with strangers, they cease to be strangers. Fear dissolves, prejudice fades, and the walls between “us” and “them” weaken. The traveler discovers that though languages differ and customs vary, the heart beats the same in every chest. Such experiences not only enrich the traveler—they heal divisions, sowing seeds of empathy and peace. For what is peace, if not the recognition that we are bound by the same humanity?

The lesson for us is clear: if you would travel, do not remain at the surface. Seek depth. Do not be content with photographs of towers and squares, but seek conversations, friendships, and shared meals. Enter into the rhythm of another life, and you will return not with souvenirs, but with wisdom. For the greatest treasure of travel is not what you see, but who you meet—and how they change you.

Practical wisdom flows from this. When you journey abroad, resist the temptation to dwell only in hotels or tourist paths. Choose to stay in homes, to eat where the locals eat, to walk their markets, to learn even a few words of their tongue. Sit, listen, and observe not as an outsider demanding spectacle, but as a guest receiving the gift of another’s world. This is the way to honor both yourself and those whose land you visit.

Thus, let Zach Braff’s words endure: “The best way to travel abroad is to live with the locals.” For in living with them, you live their joys and sorrows, and in doing so, you discover that the world is not made of borders but of bonds. And the traveler who returns with this understanding is not only richer in memory, but nobler in spirit, carrying within him the truth that all peoples belong to one great human family.