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to comment on "travel" (and why I think you're getting push back)
There are two different things we call 'travel'. The problem with your argument is that your pro is relating to one of them ('discovering oneself through cultural exposure'), but the against is relating to the other meaning ('escaping your life to relax').
I'll use the anecdote of myself to exemplify:
In my 20s travel was about self-discovery. I would usually go on city trips on my own, utilizing online communities like CouchSurfing (e.g.) to 'live like a local'. A motto of the time was that you eat local food, and drink local drinks, and talk with the locals to understand their lives. I couldn't understand why would anyone want to go to a resort or sleep in a hotel. And for a few weeks a year, I didn't do those but instead tested new identities and ideas. This travel was about discovering myself and then coming back to my life changed.
In my 30s a vast majority of travel is about other stuff: There's work travel, and there's travel for extended periods (as of today I've been living from a carry on for the past 8 weeks). I know the world, I know most cultures I travel to, I have friends in most places I go. For those few weeks that I go on 'vacation', I don't have even to be going anywhere. But I sure want to have access to a gym and a real bad (that wasn't a thing in Couchsurfing days!), and as I usually don't vacation alone anymore, it's important to have food for non-adventurous eaters. This travel is about taking a break from a much more intense life then I had in my 20s.
So sure, both things are called 'travelling', both things can even be called 'vacationing', but they are not the same activity for not the same purpose.