Cultural exchange in general is defined as when people of two or more different backgrounds trade ideas, feelings, stories and customs. Cultural exchange can be used as a form of creating dialogue and understanding diversity in communities to help build community relations and cohesion.

Visamate believes that each of its members should have the opportunity to participate in a meaningful intercultural experience. For some, it will mean living and working in another country, far from your home. For others, it will mean sharing your home, business, or community — and your culture — with exchange participants from abroad.

Visamate is committed to broadening your global awareness, empower you with intercultural connections, and provide you a lifelong connection to the international community.

We are passionate about helping each of you build cultural understanding and global skills—one person at a time, one experience at a time.

Visamate is at the intersection of you and the world.

Visamate believes that through travel, the more we learn about each other and our differences, the more we will realize how similar we are.  That is how traveling helps in cultural exchange.

If we all traveled more and shared our ideas and experiences with each other there would be no need for wars about religion, no excuse for treating people of another sexual orientation, gender or skin color differently (not that there is any justification for that of course, but there would be no excuse no matter how misguided).

Any kind of travel involves a certain amount of cultural exchange, but to go beyond the superficial, the best way to learn about another culture is to speak to someone from that culture.  Get to know them, learn from them, and talk about the differences and similarities in your beliefs and lifestyle and you’ll see how powerful exchanging cultures can be.

There are lots of ways that we can share our culture with others, and arguably anything we do is part of our culture, so simply telling people about our day to day lives, and listening to them do the same is one of the simplest cultural exchange examples.

However, there are some more specific ways we can exchange our cultures, which relate to our personal passions or hobbies.  Being able to share something you love with someone from another culture, and learn about how they do it, is a perfect example of cultural exchange.  You can also choose specific destinations which are renowned for their style of whatever you like doing.

Here are some examples of cultural exchanges that could relate to your interests.

Learning Languages

Language is a huge part of our culture – how we express ourselves and nuances in the words we use often lose a lot in translation.  Learning another language opens us up to a wider understanding of how we see the world, and allows us to communicate with a lot more people who don’t speak our language.

Being able to speak to people in their own language can make you meet some incredible people that you wouldn’t have been able to hold a conversation with otherwise.  The smiles on their faces as you greet them and ask them about their country are more than worth the effort it takes to learn that language!

Cooking Together

Food is one thing that brings us all together – we all eat!  One of your favorite things to do when traveling could be to take a cooking class or a food tour so that you get to know some of the local food and drink wherever you are, and learn about the dishes from someone who knows a whole lot more about it than you do – from the history of salt cod in Portugal on a food tour in Lisbon to roasting cashew nuts in Belize!

Learning how to cook a new dish, and then sitting down together to enjoy the food you’ve made is a wonderful experience and one you may enjoy every single time when you do it.  Even watching a woman flipping corn tortillas between her hands before slapping them onto the griddle is something we don’t see every day at home.

For chefs or enthusiastic cooks, what kind of food do you enjoy, and what would you like to learn more about?  French patisserie?  Mexican street food?  How about Peruvian fusion cuisine?  The world is your oyster.

Music and Dancing

Music and dance are two forms of communication that you don’t even need to properly understand to appreciate the meaning or beauty of it.  Different instruments and different dances have evolved all over the world, and being able to watch and learn how people make music and dance in their country and culture is a joy.

If you are a musician, for example, a drummer, perhaps going to Belize to learn how to play the drums like the Garifuna people, or heading to Japan to learn about taiko drumming would be an excellent way to learn more about Japanese culture.

Student Exchanges

There are various platforms that arrange exchanges where it is an actual swap between two people in different cultures and they either visit each other to spend time together in each place one after the other, or swaps where they essentially switch places for a period of time.

The younger we start to learn about different cultures, the better!  The more open-minded we become as we begin to see beyond our own little bubbles.

Further opportunities for cultural exchanges come with the chance to study abroad for a longer period.

Non-Student Exchanges

As an adult, there may be professional cultural exchanges that you can do, for example taking a sabbatical or working in another country for a set period of time.  One of the best ways to do a cultural exchange is to join visamate