5 ms·

That unique experience is hard to find, though, especially as one gets older, I find. Once you've been to a handful of cities, you've kind of seen them all. I

That unique experience is hard to find, though, especially as one gets older, I find. Once you've been to a handful of cities, you've kind of seen them all. If you live near a major city it's even worse because chances are you've seen most of what it has to offer, and if you visit another city somewhere else in the world it's like "Oh, yeah... more museums... more theme parks... more bars and clubs... another beach... some skyscrapers... street food... people who don't speak my language... I should have stayed home." I know it's not like that for everyone, but that's essentially why I don't always like traveling and why it annoys me when people tell me I should get out more and travel. When I travel, either I want people or I want solitude. Most of my enjoyment from traveling comes from seeing family and friends, and it really doesn't matter that much where we're situated. But if I have neither, then being in a sea of people is really worse than just being at home. In that case, I want to be alone, and I can easily get that by driving 1.5 hours into the mountains where I live. Travel isn't a bad thing, in fact it can be a great thing. My problem is that we've made travel out to be a grandiose life achievement. In the near past and for millennia, humans spent most if not their entire lives in one place, and there's nothing wrong with that.

jghn 5y ago
A bit hyperbolic, perhaps intentional, but I agree. It's compounded by the fact that I'm just not cut out for true adventure travel. Sorry, I need some modern conveniences. The result has been that over the years my travel preferences have become decidedly more milquetoast.
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  I think I might have somewhat similar requirements. I need a nice hotel room. Camping, tracking etc are completely off the table. I've never found that to restrict where I could visit. It does make everything more expensive though.
  - jghn 5y ago
    Yep. If one wants to pay enough money you can get glamor versions of just about anything. Ignoring for the moment that I'm often not willing to "pay enough money" a big part of it for me is that it starts to homogenize the experience back towards that mean we're discussing. It loses some of the unique character. Put another way, some of my travel fantasies are pretty out there, I just know I'll never do them. Even if I had the cash and was willing to spend it, at that point the experience would never match the fantasy.
    - dv35z 5y ago
      What's are a few of your travel fantasies? Would love to hear that...
  - robocat 5y ago
    > I need a nice hotel room. Be very careful, because hotels are where the tourists are, and the places where where the tourists are are the places with a repetitive international “tourist” vibe. If you only have a short time to travel then hotels are OK. I originally learnt this while “backpacking”: backpackers travel options and staying in accomodation intended for backpackers leads to a kind of internationalised backpacking culture experience that is completely disconnected from the culture you are visiting. Many backpackers had time, but used it poorly: budget constraints ekeing out their money for a longer time with lower benefit. Even travelling in my own country, the early AirBnB experience was meeting people from other paths in life than my own, which is wonderful if you have the ability to share. My current style of travelling is more on the edges, disconnected from backpacker style travelling and from hotel travelling, and spending my time more randomly. Planning trips generally draws you towards tourism experiences, because the information directed at you will lead you down the path of least resistance.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Hah, yes, I get hyperbolic. But I did not mean to say that one shouldn't want or enjoy modern conveniences on their travels. When I travel, I always like to make sure my lodging is nearby a convenience store like 7-Eleven. If there's a 7-Eleven, I'm there! lol It's not always possible, but in no way am I saying that the only real travel experience is staying in a grass hut in the heart of Africa.
  - jghn 5y ago
    Bad phrasing on my part. I was referring to the part about cities all being more or less the same. I 100% agree and share the takeaway sentiment. What I was referring to with my hyperbolic comment was more an attempt to head off people thinking "Well, but that's not true! Paris has the Eiffel Tower and London has Big Ben!". Yes, they're not exactly the same but still it does get a bit blah over time.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      Yeah, and that's the thing; I have nothing against visiting landmarks, but they blend together after a while and there are only so many of them. I think the vividness of modern media also ruins things like the Eiffel Tower. It's one thing to see a photograph and aspire to one day visit Paris, but I'm pretty sure I've absorbed views of the Eiffel Tower from just about every angle in UHD drone and helicopter footage. In another era, I might be tempted to repeatedly visit it in my lifetime. As far as my brain can tell in this era, I've not only been to the Eiffel Tower but I've been higher than it. So biiiig deal.
ajmurmann 5y ago
What you are saying rings more true to me for domestic travel. Do you have this experience (or lack of it) for international travel as well? Even for countries that are more different from the one you live in?
hervature 5y ago
> In the near past and for millennia, humans spent most if not their entire lives in one place, and there's nothing wrong with that. Same can be said about slaves. What conclusion should I draw? Honestly, I think you should get off of Instagram if you think travel is about life achievement. If getting to know your fellow humans and expanding your understanding of why the world is the way it is is not interesting to you, stay home. But also don't be surprised if people call you a troglodyte. I agree with everything you said about the problems of modern day traveling, that it is incredibly geared towards empty experiences. However, I believe this is because people only have a few days to travel. What irks me is seeing "43 countries visited!" because, as you allude to, it is a vanity number. It takes months to fully immerse oneself in a culture or even be invited into local life. However, that's obviously out of reach for 99.99% of the population and so we have the current set of cookie cutter experiences. Of course, none of what I suggest is easy. I also classify myself as an introvert, which you don't say explicitly but is abundantly clear you are as well. Just make a new friend in the country you want to go to, just one. The emotional energy it takes upfront is paid tenfold in the experiences that come after. Oftentimes, you will discover that traveling with said friend brings them tons of joy because it gives them a reason to go do all the things in their backyard that they have never done because it is in their backyard.
- darebak 5y ago
  >If getting to know your fellow humans and expanding your understanding of why the world is the way it is is not interesting to you, stay home. I feel you are being a little bit pretentious with this sentence. Travel is not a requisite for those things in any imaginable way.
  - hervature 5y ago
    I did not say it was a requirement but you must concede that cultural understanding is greatly expedited by actual experience. The best I can do to summarize my thoughts is this. If you can replace the verb travel with the verb go, you are missing the whole point. The point of traveling is not to go to museums in a different place. This correctly encompasses the feeling that business "travel" is not "traveling". No one cares for doing the same thing in merely a different physical location. Things get confusing when people use the word travel as a means of experiencing something new. For instance, "we traveled to Costa Rica and went ziplining. It was fun." The part about Costa Rica is irrelevant to the experience. While these uses of the word travel are grammatically correct, it lacks, in my opinion, what many proponents of travel mean as there is no single word that encompasses the emotion in English. It is a great shame that exchange students and spring breakers get clumped into the same bucket as the two could not be further apart in terms of motive and outcome. At the end of the day, traveling is a deeply personal experience and there is nothing wrong with these other forms of travel (Mexico has great beaches!) but if one finds traveling to be empty, stop treating travel as a commodity that one gains. I end with a quote from Good Will Hunting: > So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.
tayo42 5y ago
> In the near past and for millennia, humans spent most if not their entire lives in one place, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think that's true, maybe just leisure travel is cheaper in the last hundred years so its more common. There was movement to the americas, westward expansion in the us. Europe immigration movements. large wars. pilgrimages
- InvisibleCities 5y ago
  Your average Roman circa 250 AD lived farther from their place of birth than your average American today.
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  Staying in a single location became possible for humanity only with the advent of agriculture. Before domestication, they had to follow the game animals around on their migrations, travel to find the edible plants and fruits, etc. Even once horse, goats, and cattle were domesticated for their meat, milk, and fur (note this is separate from agricultural cultivation), humans had to roam in really large areas, from winter grazing grounds to summer grazing grounds as still well as following the game animals around. I think traveling is a very ingrained behavior in humanity.
TheGigaChad 5y ago
MDWolinski 5y ago
As an avid traveler, I disagree with your assessment. Yes, there are definitely things that are very similar in all places, particularly as western companies take over the world (much to my disappointment). However, if you get away from the "tourist" spots, every place is unique and does offer something interesting to experience. My wife and I were driving back to our rental in France from someplace and stopped for lunch at the only restaurant we could find in the little town in the middle of I have no idea where we were. Very little English spoken (we don't speak French, but can manage with a few words and technology) and had a very enjoyable meal and a little sightseeing in this small town. Not saying that everyone enjoys that kind of thing, but if someone travels to Paris, for example, and has their sights only set on the popular things, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, etc. They're missing so much more to the city. Yes, certainly plan on seeing what's popular because that's why you went there, but also spend at least half the time exploring the little gems that every city offers that unique to it. And for the love of everything, don't eat at places you can eat at home every meal just because you know it.
- jghn 5y ago
  The way I interpreted their post was that yes, there are differences, but are they really that different when one takes a step back? The answer to that is going to be a deeply personal one, which is why I agree w/ both of you although my personal mentality is closer to the one they cite. As an example, one thing I do enjoy is finding and visiting quirky little museums. The sort that might only be a couple of rooms worth of items. By nature each one is a new experience for me. But if I take a more abstract view I could say "I'm just looking at another quirky little museum".
- Aloha 5y ago
  I'd agree - once I get outside of a major US city, and get into Tier II and Tier III cities, and then into rural america with its small towns, I find a whole wealth of experiences that I just.. cant get otherwise. Sometimes they're vibrant little untouched spots on the map - sometimes they're little dried up outposts of humanity, with some grand buildings left as testament that people once believed this place would prosper, and that there was money here at some point. It's something I've always wondered at - you go out to rural america, there are a ton of small towns with really grand buildings in them, clear evidence that there was capital there at one point - and now its all gone - where and why did it go? The when is obvious usually, the other two, not as much. Thats an aside however. I'll defend eating at the familiar when tired or worn out, but I do suggest trying the local color, you never know what you'll find out there - it might be good or bad, but it will almost certainly be memorable.
WalterBright 5y ago
I get tired of looking at things after about a week, and want to get home and go back to work.

jghn 5y ago

A bit hyperbolic, perhaps intentional, but I agree. It's compounded by the fact that I'm just not cut out for true adventure travel. Sorry, I need some modern conveniences. The result has been that over the years my travel preferences have become decidedly more milquetoast.

ajmurmann 5y ago
I think I might have somewhat similar requirements. I need a nice hotel room. Camping, tracking etc are completely off the table. I've never found that to restrict where I could visit. It does make everything more expensive though.
- jghn 5y ago
  Yep. If one wants to pay enough money you can get glamor versions of just about anything. Ignoring for the moment that I'm often not willing to "pay enough money" a big part of it for me is that it starts to homogenize the experience back towards that mean we're discussing. It loses some of the unique character. Put another way, some of my travel fantasies are pretty out there, I just know I'll never do them. Even if I had the cash and was willing to spend it, at that point the experience would never match the fantasy.
  - dv35z 5y ago
    What's are a few of your travel fantasies? Would love to hear that...
- robocat 5y ago
  > I need a nice hotel room. Be very careful, because hotels are where the tourists are, and the places where where the tourists are are the places with a repetitive international “tourist” vibe. If you only have a short time to travel then hotels are OK. I originally learnt this while “backpacking”: backpackers travel options and staying in accomodation intended for backpackers leads to a kind of internationalised backpacking culture experience that is completely disconnected from the culture you are visiting. Many backpackers had time, but used it poorly: budget constraints ekeing out their money for a longer time with lower benefit. Even travelling in my own country, the early AirBnB experience was meeting people from other paths in life than my own, which is wonderful if you have the ability to share. My current style of travelling is more on the edges, disconnected from backpacker style travelling and from hotel travelling, and spending my time more randomly. Planning trips generally draws you towards tourism experiences, because the information directed at you will lead you down the path of least resistance.
ravenstine 5y ago
Hah, yes, I get hyperbolic. But I did not mean to say that one shouldn't want or enjoy modern conveniences on their travels. When I travel, I always like to make sure my lodging is nearby a convenience store like 7-Eleven. If there's a 7-Eleven, I'm there! lol It's not always possible, but in no way am I saying that the only real travel experience is staying in a grass hut in the heart of Africa.
- jghn 5y ago
  Bad phrasing on my part. I was referring to the part about cities all being more or less the same. I 100% agree and share the takeaway sentiment. What I was referring to with my hyperbolic comment was more an attempt to head off people thinking "Well, but that's not true! Paris has the Eiffel Tower and London has Big Ben!". Yes, they're not exactly the same but still it does get a bit blah over time.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    Yeah, and that's the thing; I have nothing against visiting landmarks, but they blend together after a while and there are only so many of them. I think the vividness of modern media also ruins things like the Eiffel Tower. It's one thing to see a photograph and aspire to one day visit Paris, but I'm pretty sure I've absorbed views of the Eiffel Tower from just about every angle in UHD drone and helicopter footage. In another era, I might be tempted to repeatedly visit it in my lifetime. As far as my brain can tell in this era, I've not only been to the Eiffel Tower but I've been higher than it. So biiiig deal.

ajmurmann 5y ago

What you are saying rings more true to me for domestic travel. Do you have this experience (or lack of it) for international travel as well? Even for countries that are more different from the one you live in?

hervature 5y ago

> In the near past and for millennia, humans spent most if not their entire lives in one place, and there's nothing wrong with that. Same can be said about slaves. What conclusion should I draw? Honestly, I think you should get off of Instagram if you think travel is about life achievement. If getting to know your fellow humans and expanding your understanding of why the world is the way it is is not interesting to you, stay home. But also don't be surprised if people call you a troglodyte. I agree with everything you said about the problems of modern day traveling, that it is incredibly geared towards empty experiences. However, I believe this is because people only have a few days to travel. What irks me is seeing "43 countries visited!" because, as you allude to, it is a vanity number. It takes months to fully immerse oneself in a culture or even be invited into local life. However, that's obviously out of reach for 99.99% of the population and so we have the current set of cookie cutter experiences. Of course, none of what I suggest is easy. I also classify myself as an introvert, which you don't say explicitly but is abundantly clear you are as well. Just make a new friend in the country you want to go to, just one. The emotional energy it takes upfront is paid tenfold in the experiences that come after. Oftentimes, you will discover that traveling with said friend brings them tons of joy because it gives them a reason to go do all the things in their backyard that they have never done because it is in their backyard.

darebak 5y ago
>If getting to know your fellow humans and expanding your understanding of why the world is the way it is is not interesting to you, stay home. I feel you are being a little bit pretentious with this sentence. Travel is not a requisite for those things in any imaginable way.
- hervature 5y ago
  I did not say it was a requirement but you must concede that cultural understanding is greatly expedited by actual experience. The best I can do to summarize my thoughts is this. If you can replace the verb travel with the verb go, you are missing the whole point. The point of traveling is not to go to museums in a different place. This correctly encompasses the feeling that business "travel" is not "traveling". No one cares for doing the same thing in merely a different physical location. Things get confusing when people use the word travel as a means of experiencing something new. For instance, "we traveled to Costa Rica and went ziplining. It was fun." The part about Costa Rica is irrelevant to the experience. While these uses of the word travel are grammatically correct, it lacks, in my opinion, what many proponents of travel mean as there is no single word that encompasses the emotion in English. It is a great shame that exchange students and spring breakers get clumped into the same bucket as the two could not be further apart in terms of motive and outcome. At the end of the day, traveling is a deeply personal experience and there is nothing wrong with these other forms of travel (Mexico has great beaches!) but if one finds traveling to be empty, stop treating travel as a commodity that one gains. I end with a quote from Good Will Hunting: > So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.

tayo42 5y ago

> In the near past and for millennia, humans spent most if not their entire lives in one place, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think that's true, maybe just leisure travel is cheaper in the last hundred years so its more common. There was movement to the americas, westward expansion in the us. Europe immigration movements. large wars. pilgrimages

InvisibleCities 5y ago
Your average Roman circa 250 AD lived farther from their place of birth than your average American today.
sillyquiet 5y ago
Staying in a single location became possible for humanity only with the advent of agriculture. Before domestication, they had to follow the game animals around on their migrations, travel to find the edible plants and fruits, etc. Even once horse, goats, and cattle were domesticated for their meat, milk, and fur (note this is separate from agricultural cultivation), humans had to roam in really large areas, from winter grazing grounds to summer grazing grounds as still well as following the game animals around. I think traveling is a very ingrained behavior in humanity.

TheGigaChad 5y ago

MDWolinski 5y ago

As an avid traveler, I disagree with your assessment. Yes, there are definitely things that are very similar in all places, particularly as western companies take over the world (much to my disappointment). However, if you get away from the "tourist" spots, every place is unique and does offer something interesting to experience. My wife and I were driving back to our rental in France from someplace and stopped for lunch at the only restaurant we could find in the little town in the middle of I have no idea where we were. Very little English spoken (we don't speak French, but can manage with a few words and technology) and had a very enjoyable meal and a little sightseeing in this small town. Not saying that everyone enjoys that kind of thing, but if someone travels to Paris, for example, and has their sights only set on the popular things, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, etc. They're missing so much more to the city. Yes, certainly plan on seeing what's popular because that's why you went there, but also spend at least half the time exploring the little gems that every city offers that unique to it. And for the love of everything, don't eat at places you can eat at home every meal just because you know it.

jghn 5y ago
The way I interpreted their post was that yes, there are differences, but are they really that different when one takes a step back? The answer to that is going to be a deeply personal one, which is why I agree w/ both of you although my personal mentality is closer to the one they cite. As an example, one thing I do enjoy is finding and visiting quirky little museums. The sort that might only be a couple of rooms worth of items. By nature each one is a new experience for me. But if I take a more abstract view I could say "I'm just looking at another quirky little museum".
Aloha 5y ago
I'd agree - once I get outside of a major US city, and get into Tier II and Tier III cities, and then into rural america with its small towns, I find a whole wealth of experiences that I just.. cant get otherwise. Sometimes they're vibrant little untouched spots on the map - sometimes they're little dried up outposts of humanity, with some grand buildings left as testament that people once believed this place would prosper, and that there was money here at some point. It's something I've always wondered at - you go out to rural america, there are a ton of small towns with really grand buildings in them, clear evidence that there was capital there at one point - and now its all gone - where and why did it go? The when is obvious usually, the other two, not as much. Thats an aside however. I'll defend eating at the familiar when tired or worn out, but I do suggest trying the local color, you never know what you'll find out there - it might be good or bad, but it will almost certainly be memorable.

WalterBright 5y ago

I get tired of looking at things after about a week, and want to get home and go back to work.