I live for the kind of vacation you describe. Almost everyone I take, I do get my family with me (so not exactly solitude), but freedom to do what I want is the

I live for the kind of vacation you describe. Almost everyone I take, I do get my family with me (so not exactly solitude), but freedom to do what I want is the main chase there. But do give bandwidth to the 'everyone' you talk about: In my experience, many people look at communication as a 'contributing' activity: meaning they want to add to it with their own color / knowledge rather than listen to what you are saying and go "that's awesome dude!" and move on. I would assume some like it too instead of looking at it as one-upping because this is pretty wide spread. I just look at it as chatter rather than judgment nowadays, frees me from the insulted feeling. I didn't do that for their approval, so while approval would feel nice, I am totally free to ignore their judgment :)