It's easy to call yourself a world traveler if you visit places like Paris, Rome, New York City, and London. Each of those cities is wonderful in its own way, and each one is definitely worth a visit, but not if you're going to take a selfie with each one's most famous structure and then leave.

The point of traveling is not to get a cool picture for Instagram. The point of traveling is not to say that you've been to all of these cool places just to make people jealous of the life you live. The point of travel is not to go somewhere and live just as comfortably as you do at home. Those are all characteristics of tourists.

Traveling is about so much more than that cool selfie or photograph. If you simply stand at the Eiffel Tower and only see it through the lens of your camera, have you truly seen it for all it is worth? If you stand outside of the Coliseum posing for the cutest picture and don't bother learning about it, did you really take in the fact that the building you were posing with was constructed starting in 70 AD? And the fact that it is still standing through natural disasters and war is truly unbelievable?

I am not saying to not take pictures of any of these things. It would be silly not to see Big Ben and not take a picture of it. What I am saying is that you should want to see these things with your own eyes, admire them, stand in awe at their beauty, and then take the photo. The moment you turn a street corner and see something you've only seen in pictures your entire life is one of the most breathtaking moments you will ever experience, and you should not experience it through the screen on your phone.

So many times it seems that people post pictures while they're traveling as if to say, "Hey everyone! Look at me! My life is so much cooler than yours!" and while the pictures may be incredible, I guarantee you that their trip was not all sunshine and rainbows. You don't see the picture of their faces the moment they got pick-pocketed. You don't see the picture of the horrible weather they had one day. They only want you to see the beautiful things and be jealous of their adventures, and that's not the goal of the traveler--that's what tourists do.

If you travel to a new city and stay in a five-star hotel, eat food extremely similar to that which you eat on a daily basis at home, and only take taxi cabs and übers everywhere you go, you're not being a traveler. You are, in fact, the epitome of a tourist. Travelers immerse themselves in the culture of each place they visit. They take the public transportation and seek adventure, even if it means getting lost. They eat authentic foods, regardless of whether or not they think they'll like it or think it may be too weird in comparison to the food they're used to. Travelers do not get upset when the natives do not speak their language fluently.

Traveling is about learning. Traveling is about trying new things. Traveling is about being uncomfortable and learning to love it. Traveling is about taking in each sight with your own two eyes before snapping a picture to show all of your friends where you are.

Traveling is one of the most life-changing and rewarding things you can ever do, and my hope is that if you truly travel you have the desire and the open-mindedness to accept other cultures. Please, don't invalidate the worth and value of other places, sites, and buildings for the sake of Snapchat or Instagram.