The middle and lower classes(not peasants),everywhere I have been, make ours look like dolts, for the most part, even in Mexico, Africa, and the Phillipines.
Huh? I have lots of stories of dumb people from my travels around the world. In Latin America and Europe people always like to tell me about how terrible America is and how awful Americans are, and then when I ask them if they’ve ever visited America they respond with either “No, I don’t need to go to know it’s horrible” or “I went once for two weeks fifteen years ago and hated it”. I met lots of people in South America that thought California was its own country and that the US president was still named Clinton. A friend of mine lived in Japan for a long time and couldn’t ever get his friends there to understand that Ireland wasn’t part of the US. Of course there are smart people all over the world too but you can’t paint with such a broad brush.
Definitely don’t travel with a large group of Americans (or Europeans for that matter!) Get away from the tourist busses as fast as possible. If you think Americans are bad, watch the busful of Frenchmen try to talk to Mexicans in French. It happens all the time, they’re just as bad as we are. Germans are better, they typically make an effort. So do the Swedes. The only good thing I’ll say about organized tours is that the locals who guide them are usually super-smart and knowledgeable about all kinds of things. I have come away from some of those thinking that the locals are all geniuses and then I talk to the guy selling hot dogs on the street and he can’t even read or write. When you strike out on your own and jump in the front seat of a cab with a guy in Guatemala that never finished the 3rd grade — now you’re gonna experience the real flavor of the place! And have a hell of a lot of fun, too. Don’t be so down on dumb people, even dumb Americans. Their cluelessness makes life more fun (and some of us wealthy!)