Echoes of the Garage

Daily writing prompt

What are the biggest mistakes people make when visiting your country?

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📰 Tuesday, June 2, 2026 — 9:57 a.m.

My studio is dim this morning.

Kindle-gray light coming through the side window.

The prompt asks:

What are the biggest mistakes people make when visiting your country?

Honestly, I haven’t traveled much.

Mostly Mexico.

Specifically Cancun.

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One thing I learned though is that it’s okay not to know much about a place.

The important thing is wanting to learn.

I think that’s where most people get stuck.

Not in what they don’t know.

But in thinking they already know.

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I’m Mexican.

I speak Spanish.

I look Mexican.

But even then, I hadn’t spent much time in Cancun.

So when I visited in the summer of 2022, I was still experiencing a lot of it for the first time.

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I remember being in the ocean one day.

Just swimming.

Nothing special.

Then I started noticing the people around me.

A Muslim woman swimming in a hijab.

An Australian guy. I could tell from the accent.

People from Africa.

A Spaniard.

Me.

All of us floating around in the same water.

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And I remember having one of those small moments where your brain suddenly zooms out.

I thought:

I’ve never seen so many different people together in one place.

And nobody was fighting for shit.

Nobody was arguing.

Nobody was trying to prove anything.

Nobody cared where the other person came from.

They were just enjoying the ocean.

Enjoying the day.

Being human.

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Maybe that sounds obvious.

But it wasn’t obvious to me at that moment.

Because most of the time we hear about people through headlines, politics, arguments, and stereotypes.

Then one day you find yourself standing next to them.

And they’re just people.

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I think that’s one of the reasons travel matters.

Not because it teaches you everything.

But because it reminds you how much you don’t know.

And sometimes that’s enough.

💬 Reader Question

Have you ever traveled somewhere and realized your assumptions about people were completely wrong?

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