zlacker

>>wallfl+(OP)
I personally despise travel, almost every aspect of it. Planning, making reservations, trying to figure out airline tickets, packing, parking, waiting, being groped by the pre-flight fondlers, cramming myself into a seat, sitting there for hours, the mystifyingly slow process of disembarking, getting to the hotel, registration, lugging luggage, the cautious exploration of the room, the scan for bedbugs, arraying the hopefully adequate creature comforts imported to the destination on some tatty drawer, all of it is terrible. But then people say, "Oh, but the thing you came for!" And whatever it is leaves me unmoved. I could have been shown a photo of it for all that it matters. Or conferences were nothing was conveyed. Then you get to do all of it in reverse, perhaps with a careful notebook of receipts tucked away.

Even hearing about it. And what is beyond the pale is that if word gets out you don't like travel, the Travel People simply won't have it. They're like a cult.

In my black little heart, I wonder if people would on the whole travel less if they weren't permitted to speak about it, because lord knows some bore bringing up their time in Nepal yet again at the merest whiff of conversational relevance makes my cortical folds smooth out.

>>at_a_r+hda
I shared, and in many ways, still share your sentiment. But, having recently done my first international trip (to Mexico) for about three weeks, I would say my perspective has changed.

I think it helped that I stayed in hostels. Basically, all of the fun I had came from meeting people at breakfast or at bars, and then doing things with those people. The people you meet at hostels are open to meeting people and, being travelers themselves, are usually coming from somewhere interesting, with an open mind, and with nothing to do. I had a lot of great conversations with people I wouldn't have normally ever met, learned a lot about their cultures, and learned to get really comfortable meeting and befriending people.

The other thing I consciously tried to do was be open to everything. If someone invited me to go do something I hadn't done before, I'd say yes unless I had a good reason not to. That led me to a lot of interesting places!

The experience for me, as an American in Mexico, I would also say genuinely did make me rethink how I understood Mexico and Mexican culture in the US. I would be very excited to go see firsthand a lot of the countries that have influenced me in some way, because it really seems different when you see it directly rather than just on TV.

I think it also helped that Mexico was very cheap and I had no responsibilities back at home. I showed up with no plans to do anything at all, and no expectations. Some of the days especially at first were relatively boring. But it felt okay, as part of the goal was challenging myself to enjoy life even when I really wasn't doing anything.

Have you considered traveling in ways besides simply sightseeing? I think the travel industry pushes one idea of travel onto us, but it's not the only way. Many of the people I met were lifelong travelers, who worked in their home countries until they saved up enough to travel for six months, and then they would go and try to make their money last as long as they could while still enjoying themselves before repeating the process.

And I agree the logistics of travel are terrible. But, it wasn't actually too bad on my trip here. It was easy enough to book a flight to Mexico. And once I was there, I basically booked space at hostels for 1-3 days at a time, and then just extended my stay one day at a time if I wasn't bored yet. Unlike the hundreds of hotels in big cities, there are usually 3-10 hostels in any given area of Mexico so the choice was always easy, and since they're so cheap ($15-25/night) and have good availability I never really worried about booking them.

All of this said, I think I could probably have traveled even more adventurously. And actually that's a good summary of the mindset I think you should consider: be adventurous. Try to challenge yourself by eating foods you normally wouldn't eat, going places you wouldn't normally go, talking to people you wouldn't normally talk to. I think you'll get a lot more from travel that way.

>>cbau+d9c
Well, I don't speak Spanish. Going to a country without a working command of the language seems like a bad idea to me. This seems like an extraversion vs. introversion thing, because "meeting a bunch of new people" is on my list of things I do not enjoy. It would seem even worse if I did not know the language.

New foods don't thrill me, and I have to be careful with what I eat anyway. As to enjoying life when I wasn't really doing anything, I could do that at home.

There's nothing about travel that is for me. Even if I could teleport across borders, I don't think I would. Other people like being in new places, and I just ... don't.