Where should I go?

Have to agree with Lucapal here TIS, I consider myself well travelled having been to many regions over the years, including places far off the tourist map as well as the more traditional banana pancake places, and I wouldn't say those who have just visited SE Asia as having less discerning taste than myself (who has Iran, Mali, the Sudan and other places on my long list of destinations for example) or others who have been elsewhere too. Many people do head out to SE Asia their first time out, I did too, for many reasons. And you know what, I would head back to SE Asia time and again, I LOVE the region!

But hey, at least any backpacker is more discerning than the usual Benidorm package holiday crowd! Hahaha! (kidding lucapal! Kind of! ;D)

OK, OK, I suppose I was a bit tongue in cheek snobbish.

My point though is that while many people may decide to visit SEA for whatever reason, having done so or not done so means nothing in terms of how much travel experience a person might have.

"If you have little/no travel experience (I guess you don't if you have never been to SE Asia..that is a standard trip for most travellers)"

Perhaps you want to reconsider that statement lucapal.

To me it is clear.

If a person says to me that they are a big traveller..they love travelling...they live for travel (or however you want to word it) I would assume they had been to Thailand.Also to Paris,Spain and the places where nearly all travellers go,at some point if their travel lives!

That is what I mean by 'standard trips for most travellers'

It is of course possible that a person has been to Kazakhstan,Congo and Papua but never to Rome or New York...but it is rare.

Don't you agree?

I certainly do lucapal. Although there are obviously always going to be exceptions to the rule there are certain destinations that many backpackers flock to. I don't think this is always a bad thing, they are popular for a reason after all, but it is generally a safe assumption that most backpackers have been to Thailand, India, Australia, etc. TIS is right that any backpacker can be an experienced and well travelled, erm, traveller without being to these places, but I think the majority of us have at some point been there.

I've never been to Europe, aside from 5 days in Germany. I have done SEA, but that was after a year abroad in Japan and a trip through China... so by the time I got to SEA I was already a pretty seasoned traveller! I do agree that experienced travelers have a high tendency to have traveled to either SEA or Europe, although it certainly isn't the rule. Or at least, it wasn't as of 5-10 years ago in the case of SEA.

I don't think you can pick ANY area and say it is an indication or not an indication of someone who has a lot of travel experience. Quite simply, there are places where any individual is not interested in visiting. They differ by individual.

Look at it mathematically. Suppose there are 200 places. We decide that if someone has spent more than a week in each of 75 or more of them, we will consider that person well travelled. There will be no need to have gone to any particular place. Any 75 will do. Don't you agree?

To suggest that whether someone has gone to a specific area or not indicates they are well travelled is simply illogical. I could as easily say if you have not travelled Africa from north to south, you are not well travelled. There's no difference. Just because the 'pancake trail' is popular with low budget travellers doesn't mean someone who travels to other places isn't well travelled.

Frankly, in my opinion the reason why SEA is so popular is primarily because of cost. More people can affford to visit there than can afford to visit the Maldives or the French Polynesians. But neither makes one traveller more experienced than the other.

That assumes that statistically there is the same possibility/probability that a person will go to any of the 2000 places.

That is obviously not true though.

There are surely more tourists in Paris at any one time than have ever been to Chad (or will ever go there).

It is not a question of a traveller being more adventurous,'better', or 'worse'....it is simply logical that the more popular a place is,the more likely an experienced traveller wll have gone there at some point in their life.

That assumes that 'popular' means anything to the individual traveller. While it is logical to say that a higher percentage of all travellers have been to Paris rather than Chad, it is not logical to assume that if any individual traveller has not been to Paris, that individual is not well travelled.

You can say more travellers have been to Paris than to Chad but you cannot say a traveller who has not been to Paris is not well travelled.

False logic is very common. Jack wears a hat, Jack is a man, all men wear hats. That is in effect that you are saying lucapal. Jack has been to SEA, Jack is well travelled, all well travelled people have been to SEA.

That is a jump that cannot be made.

If i had said all,then that would be true.

I didn't.

I said that if someone is well travelled,the probablitity is that he has been to Paris.

If someone has never been to Paris,the probablity is that he has not been to Chad either.

"If you have little/no travel experience (I guess you don't if you have never been to SE Asia..that is a standard trip for most travellers)"

That is what you wrote. You made the assumption that someone who has not been to SEA is not well travelled.

If you had wrote, 'a well travelled person has probably been to SEA based on the simple laws of probability', that would be a correct assumption. But that is not what you wrote.

In, 'a well travelled person has probably been to SEA, the key work is 'probably'. It does not say that to be well travelled is dependent on having been to SEA. It allows for someone being well travelled and not having been to SEA.

What you originally wrote lucapal does not allow for that. Technically you could argue that your use of the word 'guess' allows for it. But what you were implying by what you wrote is quite clear. Haven't been to SEA, you're not well travelled. Plain and simple and incorrect.