And why in the world would you want to visit a foreign country just to be told to ignore its own local language and whatever language you have to contribute, instead speaking a made-up language that belongs to no one? I was very active in the Esperanto movement for ten years, and I was even into it enough to volunteer for a year in the central office of World Esperanto Association. But what really drove me away in the end is that, instead of reserving Esperanto as a useful last resort and seeking true culture exchange by letting people learn each others’ languages, there is a cult-like attachment to Esperanto. If two people who happen to be Esperantists meet each other, they are expected to speak only Esperanto even if they speak each other’s languages fluently. I speak good Spanish (lived in Madrid for two years) and great Romanian (spend about half of the year there now), and I got sick of Spaniards and Romanians telling me “Ne krokodilu”. They were so brainwashed by Esperanto that they had no appreciation of their own languages anymore. It really is dangerous, and people would do best to stay away from it. I have an essay on the subject which may interest you at http://www.christopherculver.com/en/writings/esperanto.php