Does Globalization Make Travel Better, Or Worse?

On the blog 3QuarksDaily, which always provides delicious food for thought, I came across an essay by Jennifer Cody Epstein, who asks "Has globalization really changed the experience of travel? And is it always and necessarily for the worse?"

She was visiting Barcelona recently for a symposium entitled "Reading to Travel, Traveling to Read," sponsored by the Libraries of Barcelona, and was struck by how familiar the city seemed, with its Circuit City, Starbucks and Chanel, in contrast to her experience in Kyoto some twenty years ago, where she was constantly reminded by everyday experiences how far she was from home:

"From food to fashion to the crisp cadence of the language; to the very posture and pace of the pedestrians, nothing--quite simply, nothing--felt familiar. For the first time in my life I felt fully an outsider, completely other; almost entirely without cultural or linguistic foothold. The simplest tasks--withdrawing money, finding the bathroom; using the bathroom (all those appliances! All those chirping automations!), making a phone call--seemed vast challenges."

But as her week progressed in Barcelona, she wondered if globalization, as much as it is widely condemned, doesn't so much eliminate cultural differences as provide tools to understand, even transcend, those differences. 

It's an interesting question and we wonder, what do you think?  Has globalization helped you transcend cultural differences when you travel?  Or do you crave the shock of the unfamiliar? Or both?

Photo of an apprentice geisha in Kyoto, by Melissa Rose Chasse via Intelligent Travel Flickr pool