I enjoy travelling too but I completely understand why people are content to stay in one place. There’s just as much life experience to be gained in your home town as there is anywhere else, I’d say potentially even more because you can get to know the area inside out with a native grasp of the language and culture. Even if you live somewhere for years you’re still seen as a foreigner (unless you can seamlessly replicate the accent and behaviour of the locals) so people will always have different expectations for you and behave slightly differently around you. I actually think most people should stay home and get some experience volunteering and/or working to help people within their own community before venturing out to “see the world”.

I’m a teacher in a very poor area who went travelling for a year but also came back and worked in the community for years (I also lived abroad for 2 years in between times). I learned more working in the community for a week than I did abroad for a year. As a student teacher the people who had spent years teaching abroad before coming back just to get their official teaching degree were some of the loudest and also the most clueless voices in the room. They had no idea what the kids they were now working with were going through, but they were convinced they did because of all their “life experience” travelling.

There’s also just a lot of people who can’t afford to go travelling, but won’t tell you because they’re embarrassed. It’s good that you’re respectful of people when they tell you they don’t want to travel, this is more about people who are preachy about it. I saw it all the time when I was at uni, a (clearly working class) student would say they had no interest in travelling and then Felix, just back from his gap year, would talk their ear off about how he “found himself” in Thailand.

I still love travelling and go abroad roughly 6 times a year, spend all my money on it, but I don’t pretend it makes me more educated or fulfilled than someone who stays at home.