“Why Do They Hate Us for Traveling?” A Russian Blogger Speaks Out

Russian travel blogger Marina Ershova has a blunt take on how her compatriots view frequent travelers: “They hate those who travel a lot.” She shared this observation on her personal page on the Yandex.Zen platform.

Ershova, who has been traveling the world with her partner for years and runs a blog about it, says their posts showcasing landmarks, local cuisine, and people often attract pointed comments. “What do you live on?” “When will you start living a normal life?” “When will you buy a house?” “Isn’t it time to have children?” “Why do you keep traveling?”

Her conclusion? It’s not the travel itself that bothers people—it’s the courage to live differently. “Many spend years in their stuffy homes, stuck in a ‘must do’ mode. You must work. You must put up with that house and its problems. You must be like everyone else. You must live correctly. Then someone shows up and says, ‘We decided to live differently.’ And the system starts to creak,” she explains.

Reading the comments, Ershova says she gets the sense that people have lost the ability to simply feel happy for someone else. They feel compelled to find a weak spot. “The saddest part is, it’s often not villains doing this. It’s ordinary, tired people—the ones life itself has crushed. Instead of dealing with their own lives, they get angry at someone else’s,” she notes.

According to Ershova, she has never encountered this level of aggression toward a different lifestyle from any other audience as strongly as from Russian speakers. In related news, another Russian travel blogger recently named Vietnam as nearly ideal in terms of everyday living standards.