In essence, this quote is true.
Applied to reality though, in our day and age your results may vary. It is completely possible to travel and learn nothing that would open people’s minds especially when the traveling keeps itself within tourist zones and resorts designed to just give you a change of landscape and an illusion of cultural flavor.
You need to purposefully step away from that sort of thing and actually engage with the culture to get the benefits of the quote.
I wonder if it was more effective in his era, late 19th century? Leisure travel wasn’t as much of a thing then, especially to other countries/continents, and the tourism industry didn’t exist nearly as much
It was around this time that a white guy adopted the clothing of an Arab country and passed himself off as an Arab to learn more about a country (Syria, I think?). I learned about him in the intro to an episode of the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Travel was definitely different then.
I think it was ep 15, about the Nabataeans.
Edit: the Nabataeans were in modern Jordan.
