I agree totally with you Vibe! I have traveled a bit, and it always amazes me at the people that will go around the globe and then want to stay in a five-star hotel isolated from the culture they have gone so far to be in, then sit at the pool for a week and go shopping - all things they could probably do at home! I always try to get off the beaten path as you have described - to see how the "regular" people live, what their lives are like, etc. If more people would take the donkey tours in life and not go to McDonald's, maybe the world would be a little better??