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This! When people "buy experiences" and travel/visit etc, I just don't really find it interesting. I buy things because I enjoy doing stuff with them. I buy a c

This! When people "buy experiences" and travel/visit etc, I just don't really find it interesting. I buy things because I enjoy doing stuff with them. I buy a camera and a drone because I like taking shots. I buy a new computer because I like coding/design/video editing and it does it faster. On the other hand, I've never found traveling an enjoyable activity of any kind. It's just extra stress for me (unless there's some specific reason that excites me that justifies it all). I buy tools that enable me to create more stuff, and I'd always pick it over many experiences that I'd buy. Good to see that I'm not really alone.

deleted 5y ago
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JSavageOne 5y ago
I think the strawman here is assuming that an experience needs to be "bought". What kind of photos/videos do you take with your camera/drone if you don't like traveling/visiting places? In any case, the author makes the distinction between experience-like things. A camera is a perfect example of an experience-enabling thing. Photography and videography are experiences. I don't think anyone in the "buy experiences not things" crowd would discourage buying a camera, or something like say a surfboard, snowboard, basketball, woodworking tools, raspberry pi, etc since those enable experiences. On the topic of travel - personally I think it's extremely valuable from a cultural/educational perspective to venture outside of one's city and/or country at least once in one's lifetime. I've spent the last 4 years traveling and living abroad, and while I wouldn't necessary recommend going that hard, I certainly wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Also, experience is more than just buying plane/train tickets and hotel rooms, nor do experiences necessitate travel.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Very good. While the OP may disagree, I suspect, years from now, it will be certain experiences taking photos with the camera/drone that will still linger in their mind. I know for myself that a couple decades ago I excitedly rode the digital camera revolution and photographed/video'd family vacations (yeah, not very original of me). The photos now recall to my mind the heat and wind of Death Valley, the girls jumping on the beds in the hotel ... not the particular gear I was using.
- mantas 5y ago
  There's plenty of opportunities to take pictures/videos close to home. Which does not count as „traveling“ for most people.
ryandrake 5y ago
There are dozens of us! When I buy a thing, I can use it for a while then sell it on eBay to recoup some of the cost. I can return it to the store if I don’t find it useful. With some items, I can share it with a friend and he can get the same utility from it. None of these things are true for purchased experiences. I used to think I liked travel, but turned around later in life. To me, travel is nothing but stress. Let’s take a typical international trip: Big payment up front for plane tickets, hotel, rental car and so on up front, then you’re praying it all goes well. You can substitute travel insurance for prayer if you want to spend even more money. Then, the security/boarding circus of air travel. Then cramped seating and crap service in what has turned into a Greyhound Bus in the sky. Once you land, assuming the airline didn’t lose your bags, you and the rest of the cattle are marched through immigration and customs, where you pretty much have no rights as a human being. Finally you are in your glorious destination! Except you probably don’t speak or understand the native language so everything you do is going to be 5X more difficult than at home. You rent a car that’s not as nice/familiar as yours, stay in a hotel that just doesn’t have everything you’re used to at home. With kids in tow you’re desperately trying to keep everyone corralled together and (in some destinations) not kidnapped. Finally, you hit some tourist sites, lay on the beach, check out the local cities, whatever your goal was. Then, back to the circus to get home. COVID has added “pass last minute COVID tests or you are stuck without compensation” to the equation. By the time you’re home you are so thankful to get back to real life! Spent all that time and money for what? A memory that we can’t even sell on the secondhand market. Maybe 100 more photos on the phone which we might look at again sometime later. Last vacation I took with my family, my spouse mentioned to me two days before it started “I can’t wait till this is all over and we’re back here at home again!” I agreed, and we both realized “why are we doing this??”
- deleted 5y ago
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- frankus 5y ago
  I can definitely relate to the "I wish we could just cancel the trip and take two weeks to relax at home" sentiment, pre-departure. At the same time I'm almost always retrospectively glad that I went on any given trip. I often feel the same way about social engagements ("I hope the other party cancels so that I can just stay in and relax") which retrospectively were much more enjoyable than being alone at home. I think both of these are about intentionally complicating your life for a period of time. Sometimes that's called for, but I can imagine if you're raising kids and working full time there's a real appeal to not complicating your life any further.
chalcolithic 5y ago
Travel is spraying you with novelty from a firehose. Everything around you is new - people, buildings, cusine, language, nature, climate e.t.c. It's not for everyone, sure
lelanthran 5y ago
> This! When people "buy experiences" and travel/visit etc, I just don't really find it interesting. Agreed. The things I buy make my life richer in some way that matters to me. The person buying the Lambo presumably has his life made a little better for owning the car. I know someone who, even though they had to sell their house due to loss of income, did not miss a single vacation (at least once each year, sometimes twice, to a resort) in the last 25 years. They told me, at least once when I was buying some new toy for myself, that experiences matter more than material goods, because "after all, you can't take it with you". Then they got annoyed when I asked them if they thought that they're taking their memories with them. Given a choice between blowing a ton of money on some ephemeral thing and only having a memory of it in return, and blowing a ton of money on some concrete long-lasting item, I will pick the item most of the time. After all, the more assets you can leave your children, the better off they will be. They can also turn those assets back into money.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
We're different then. On the road is the only time I truly feel unburdened by the stresses and distractions of everyday life. My best and most creative ideas come while on the road.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Maybe it depends on the baseline. I don't have much stress in my daily life and I'm okay with (physically) being at the same comfortable space. Any traveling activity is more stressful than my daily life. Maybe if I had my daily life more stressful or for whatever reason I didn't like where I was, I might find traveling more appealing. Maybe it's just me of course.
elxr 5y ago
A personal example is my motorcycle. It's as material a thing as you can get, but the enjoyment I had gotten out of it would be hard to match if I looked to "buy experiences" instead. Of course, the by-product of owning a motorcycle is getting the experiences of riding it through beautiful canyon roads, feeling the wind on your body, and meeting new friends in the community. But it had to start with "buying things".

deleted 5y ago

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JSavageOne 5y ago

I think the strawman here is assuming that an experience needs to be "bought". What kind of photos/videos do you take with your camera/drone if you don't like traveling/visiting places? In any case, the author makes the distinction between experience-like things. A camera is a perfect example of an experience-enabling thing. Photography and videography are experiences. I don't think anyone in the "buy experiences not things" crowd would discourage buying a camera, or something like say a surfboard, snowboard, basketball, woodworking tools, raspberry pi, etc since those enable experiences. On the topic of travel - personally I think it's extremely valuable from a cultural/educational perspective to venture outside of one's city and/or country at least once in one's lifetime. I've spent the last 4 years traveling and living abroad, and while I wouldn't necessary recommend going that hard, I certainly wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Also, experience is more than just buying plane/train tickets and hotel rooms, nor do experiences necessitate travel.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
Very good. While the OP may disagree, I suspect, years from now, it will be certain experiences taking photos with the camera/drone that will still linger in their mind. I know for myself that a couple decades ago I excitedly rode the digital camera revolution and photographed/video'd family vacations (yeah, not very original of me). The photos now recall to my mind the heat and wind of Death Valley, the girls jumping on the beds in the hotel ... not the particular gear I was using.
mantas 5y ago
There's plenty of opportunities to take pictures/videos close to home. Which does not count as „traveling“ for most people.

ryandrake 5y ago

There are dozens of us! When I buy a thing, I can use it for a while then sell it on eBay to recoup some of the cost. I can return it to the store if I don’t find it useful. With some items, I can share it with a friend and he can get the same utility from it. None of these things are true for purchased experiences. I used to think I liked travel, but turned around later in life. To me, travel is nothing but stress. Let’s take a typical international trip: Big payment up front for plane tickets, hotel, rental car and so on up front, then you’re praying it all goes well. You can substitute travel insurance for prayer if you want to spend even more money. Then, the security/boarding circus of air travel. Then cramped seating and crap service in what has turned into a Greyhound Bus in the sky. Once you land, assuming the airline didn’t lose your bags, you and the rest of the cattle are marched through immigration and customs, where you pretty much have no rights as a human being. Finally you are in your glorious destination! Except you probably don’t speak or understand the native language so everything you do is going to be 5X more difficult than at home. You rent a car that’s not as nice/familiar as yours, stay in a hotel that just doesn’t have everything you’re used to at home. With kids in tow you’re desperately trying to keep everyone corralled together and (in some destinations) not kidnapped. Finally, you hit some tourist sites, lay on the beach, check out the local cities, whatever your goal was. Then, back to the circus to get home. COVID has added “pass last minute COVID tests or you are stuck without compensation” to the equation. By the time you’re home you are so thankful to get back to real life! Spent all that time and money for what? A memory that we can’t even sell on the secondhand market. Maybe 100 more photos on the phone which we might look at again sometime later. Last vacation I took with my family, my spouse mentioned to me two days before it started “I can’t wait till this is all over and we’re back here at home again!” I agreed, and we both realized “why are we doing this??”

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
frankus 5y ago
I can definitely relate to the "I wish we could just cancel the trip and take two weeks to relax at home" sentiment, pre-departure. At the same time I'm almost always retrospectively glad that I went on any given trip. I often feel the same way about social engagements ("I hope the other party cancels so that I can just stay in and relax") which retrospectively were much more enjoyable than being alone at home. I think both of these are about intentionally complicating your life for a period of time. Sometimes that's called for, but I can imagine if you're raising kids and working full time there's a real appeal to not complicating your life any further.

chalcolithic 5y ago

Travel is spraying you with novelty from a firehose. Everything around you is new - people, buildings, cusine, language, nature, climate e.t.c. It's not for everyone, sure

lelanthran 5y ago

> This! When people "buy experiences" and travel/visit etc, I just don't really find it interesting. Agreed. The things I buy make my life richer in some way that matters to me. The person buying the Lambo presumably has his life made a little better for owning the car. I know someone who, even though they had to sell their house due to loss of income, did not miss a single vacation (at least once each year, sometimes twice, to a resort) in the last 25 years. They told me, at least once when I was buying some new toy for myself, that experiences matter more than material goods, because "after all, you can't take it with you". Then they got annoyed when I asked them if they thought that they're taking their memories with them. Given a choice between blowing a ton of money on some ephemeral thing and only having a memory of it in return, and blowing a ton of money on some concrete long-lasting item, I will pick the item most of the time. After all, the more assets you can leave your children, the better off they will be. They can also turn those assets back into money.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

We're different then. On the road is the only time I truly feel unburdened by the stresses and distractions of everyday life. My best and most creative ideas come while on the road.

can16358p 5y ago
Maybe it depends on the baseline. I don't have much stress in my daily life and I'm okay with (physically) being at the same comfortable space. Any traveling activity is more stressful than my daily life. Maybe if I had my daily life more stressful or for whatever reason I didn't like where I was, I might find traveling more appealing. Maybe it's just me of course.

elxr 5y ago

A personal example is my motorcycle. It's as material a thing as you can get, but the enjoyment I had gotten out of it would be hard to match if I looked to "buy experiences" instead. Of course, the by-product of owning a motorcycle is getting the experiences of riding it through beautiful canyon roads, feeling the wind on your body, and meeting new friends in the community. But it had to start with "buying things".