Has anyone lost the travel bug?

[RavenSky]

I'm still convinced that a lot of it is somehow tied to social status. "Did you know I've been to [x]". Well what did you do there? Why did you want to go there? What interested you about it? The interest is less in the place itself, more how it adds to the story.

Well, I agree that there may be some people who travel “just to say they’ve been there,” but I’m not so sure I’ve ever met any. Personally I’ve enjoyed my travels immensely and recall the details frequently with great pleasure.

Precisely, though I still don't get to do enough of it.

I disagree with rousseau's remark about aquariums (museums, art galleries, zoos, etc) because they tend to be very very different from place to place.

I love local science museum - have a season pass and go frequently. But I also love visiting museums in other cities because the focus and/or exhibits are completely different (as is, typically, the architecture of the building). I'm fairly certain that the Toronto aquarium is not going to be focused on the Gulf Stream the way that Miami's is.

The other consideration is landscape. I am quite certain I am not going to find a mountain in my backyard (NO, Playball! Mount Trashmore does NOT count!). Or snow. And I love both.

The one thing I don't understand about how some people travel is shopping. Is there anything anywhere in the world that I can't buy just as easily (if not more so) from the comfort of home?

 

[Copernicus]

...The one thing I don't understand about how some people travel is shopping. Is there anything anywhere in the world that I can't buy just as easily (if not more so) from the comfort of home?

Mostly, local arts and crafts come to mind. A lot of people go in for souvenirs. My wife and I seldom buy mementos, which just contribute to home clutter. Instead, we clutter up our computer with pictures and our minds with recollections. What I get most out of travel is an appreciation of the diversity of humanity and the planet we live on. I consider that an important part of what makes my life worth living.

 

[crazyfingers]

Not a good question to ask me as I currently am sitting on an Amtrak train from NYC to Boston and the guy next to me, against the rules, is sucking down a whole bottle of his own wine. Man he stinks. I see some empty rows now and am moving my stuff.

 

[rousseau]

I'm still convinced that a lot of it is somehow tied to social status. "Did you know I've been to [x]". Well what did you do there? Why did you want to go there? What interested you about it? The interest is less in the place itself, more how it adds to the story.

Well, I agree that there may be some people who travel “just to say they’ve been there,” but I’m not so sure I’ve ever met any. Personally I’ve enjoyed my travels immensely and recall the details frequently with great pleasure.

Precisely, though I still don't get to do enough of it.

I disagree with rousseau's remark about aquariums (museums, art galleries, zoos, etc) because they tend to be very very different from place to place.

I love local science museum - have a season pass and go frequently. But I also love visiting museums in other cities because the focus and/or exhibits are completely different (as is, typically, the architecture of the building). I'm fairly certain that the Toronto aquarium is not going to be focused on the Gulf Stream the way that Miami's is.

The other consideration is landscape. I am quite certain I am not going to find a mountain in my backyard (NO, Playball! Mount Trashmore does NOT count!). Or snow. And I love both.

The one thing I don't understand about how some people travel is shopping. Is there anything anywhere in the world that I can't buy just as easily (if not more so) from the comfort of home?

I more meant it to highlight the lack of imagination of a lot of my peers (in the nicest way possible ).

Toronto is home to the best art gallery in Canada, and yet I've never heard of anyone I know visit it. Time after time, people travel there and visit the new Aquarium and C.N. Tower. It's almost like there is some mental block that stops a lot of people from thinking outside the box about these things. Toronto is a huge, beautiful city, with an enormous amount of stuff to do..and yet it's always the aquarium. It's just what people do.

 

[purple_kathryn]

Actually I wouldn't mind travelling but I really really hate it. I don't sleep if it's not my bed and I'm prone to mild travel sickness so by the time we're going home I just feel really ill

 

[Artemus]

Over the last 35 years I've been to, in order from least to most exotic, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Dublin, Sydney, Hamburg, Toulouse, Helsinki, Tokyo, Singapore, Chengdu, South-Pole Station, and Albuquerque (plus about every other large US city). Unfortunately they have all been for work and I haven't had a chance to enjoy any of them. The couple times my wife was with me it has been nice. So no, I don't like to travel right now but when we both retire and can go together I may want to.

 

[gmbteach]

Actually I wouldn't mind travelling but I really really hate it. I don't sleep if it's not my bed and I'm prone to mild travel sickness so by the time we're going home I just feel really ill

I understand that whole ‘not sleeping if it’s not my own bed’ thing. I was once in a job where I travelled a lot. A few times I was in a different bed every night for a week, I slept very little.

I also need to know where the loo is so I leave the loo light on for the first night so that I can find it in the middle of the night.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Over the last 35 years I've been to, in order from least to most exotic, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Dublin, Sydney, Hamburg, Toulouse, Helsinki, Tokyo, Singapore, Chengdu, South-Pole Station, and Albuquerque (plus about every other large US city). Unfortunately they have all been for work and I haven't had a chance to enjoy any of them. The couple times my wife was with me it has been nice. So no, I don't like to travel right now but when we both retire and can go together I may want to.

South pole station for work? Wow! What do you do?

 

[bilby]

Over the last 35 years I've been to, in order from least to most exotic, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Dublin, Sydney, Hamburg, Toulouse, Helsinki, Tokyo, Singapore, Chengdu, South-Pole Station, and Albuquerque (plus about every other large US city). Unfortunately they have all been for work and I haven't had a chance to enjoy any of them. The couple times my wife was with me it has been nice. So no, I don't like to travel right now but when we both retire and can go together I may want to.

South pole station for work? Wow! What do you do?

You know, asking nosy questions like that is the kind of thing that could get a man frozen into the Antarctic ice-cap.

Just sayin'.

 

[Artemus]

Over the last 35 years I've been to, in order from least to most exotic, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Dublin, Sydney, Hamburg, Toulouse, Helsinki, Tokyo, Singapore, Chengdu, South-Pole Station, and Albuquerque (plus about every other large US city). Unfortunately they have all been for work and I haven't had a chance to enjoy any of them. The couple times my wife was with me it has been nice. So no, I don't like to travel right now but when we both retire and can go together I may want to.

South pole station for work? Wow! What do you do?

Electrical engineering professor who did a lot of geophysical measurements in his grad student days The experience was "Holy shit, I'm at the South Pole! When can I go home?"

 

[Underseer]

Here's a thought: where are the people who've travelled and experienced enough that they've lost interest in travel?

I haven't travelled too extensively, mostly a bunch of Europe and North America, but oddly enough my interest in history along with the travelling that I have done has taken a lot of the appeal out of it for me.

I can contrast my state of mind these days with that of when I was 16 and taking a high school trip to Italy. The trip was exciting at that time because Europe was a mystery to me, but these days I don't find many cultures or places particularly mysterious or interesting, at least so much so that spending huge sums of money, time, and energy to be there feels worthwhile.

So now I have the money to travel almost anywhere I want to, and yet am content sitting in a coffee shop downtown and reading a book.

I'm an Air Force brat. I spent most of my childhood on overseas military bases in Asia and Europe growing up. I have many fond childhood memories of visiting great museums in Holland and climbing mount Fuji and having long conversations with foreign people who had very different attitudes from Americans.

But upon reaching adulthood, I haven't had much desire to travel to foreign countries to see the world because I feel that I've already done that.

 

[BH]

As a kid I've been to Colorado a few times, all the old Confederate states except Florida, Washington D.C., Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Maryland.

The last time I was out of Texas was twenty years ago when I went to Okalahoma. I do not care to travel too much anymore. The last few years I haven't traveled further than probably 50 miles from home.

 

[aupmanyav]

Yeah, I have not traveled much even in India, I am 75, I have lost the travel bug. Otherwise, I was a solo trekker in Himalayas in my middle age. Now Google Earth helps me to travel. Though we might go to Egypt this summer. I have been there, but if I do not go then my wife also will not go. I do not want that to happen.

 

[Worldtraveller]

I'm almost 50 years old. I love seeing new places, visiting different people and cultures. I hate actual commercial air travel, but it's the least bad way to get most places. I rather enjoyed rail travel when I lived in Europe, and if I had the time, I'd take a cruise ship to cross the oceans instead of flying.

I love the actual act of flying, though. Someday I will get my pilot's license, but private planes are really not practical for anything other than short range travel or just for fun (by the time you get to the performance where a private aircraft is practical, you could fly first class every time you fly and not spend as much money as you would on a personal aircraft).

 

[Old Woman in Purple]

... but if I do not go then my wife also will not go. I do not want that to happen.

That's sweet, going for the wife. You're a good man, Aup.

Good marriages do involve a certain amount of give & take. (Now that I've mastered the art of stating the obvious.... )

 

[Jobar]

Whatever touch of the wanderlust I had- never much- I lost in my late forties or early fifties. I live less than ten miles from the town where I was born.

I still had more of it than my father, though; after he got back from his stint in the US marines during the Korean War, he never traveled if he could avoid it.