The call to expand opportunities for study abroad students in "non-traditional" locations has become a kind of mantra throughout the international education community. This call is almost always allied to the intent significantly to expand numbers going to these non-traditional locations. Of the three key objectives in the Lincoln Commission report, the second is that "efforts be made to expand the number of American students studying in non-traditional countries." The author's concern with this vision is that it is neither entirely realistic nor wholly desirable. It is built out of a misplaced and sometimes condescending enthusiasm for regions and nations constructed through US lenses as an "exotic" other. The Lincoln Commission melds the two when it envisages "an expansion of study abroad programs, especially in developing countries." The National Security Education Program articulates similar objectives in supporting students who pursue overseas education in "the languages and cultures of world regions that are less-frequently studied." The purpose of this essay is to define some of the issues that permeate this area and to suggest that the field of education abroad needs to take a more concentrated view of what it means and intends. (Contains 16 notes.)