To ask if anyone else doesn't see the appeal of "Travelling"

[LornaDuh]

So many on MN talk about doing lots of travelling in their 20s. Or their DC "going travelling."

Anyone else not see the appeal of backpacking round Asia sharing hostels with randoms and eating authentic street food?

I've worked abroad but that was an office job not picking fruit or working on a cattle ranch in Australia.

I love going on holiday but like coming home after a fortnight ... months on the road don't appeal.

Anyone else?

Me too.

I've always wished I could be the kind of person to strike out across Patagonia or hike around the Peloponnese. Sadly I am a pale, freckly vegetarian mosquito magnet who can only go to the toilet in an actual toilet, so I have definitely missed out. A viking river cruise is probably more my speed if we're honest.

I've gone lots of places and enjoyed it, but no backpacking since my teens and no hostels except YHA ones.

But that’s a completely different syndrome from people going to stay in cheapo backpacking hostels

Oh really? Interesting- that was not my experience in any way

Me too but in Australia if you stay in the same job for 10 years you get 3 months on full pay (or 6 months half pay) off on top of your leave. I have big plans

But that’s not ‘travelling’ at all. That’s pretty much the reverse of travelling. It’s just tourism that hits certain class markers.

I have noticed that my friends older kids don't seem as keen on the kind of travelling people did in the nineties. Maybe because they have all been on so many holidays, they don't have the same desperation to see other places?

It's the hours on planes I can't abide. I've never traveled business or first ( which must make it a lot more pleasant) but the thought of many hours stuck on a plane isn't for me or my legs.
I can't sleep on planes , I become bored and restless and other people would wind me up.
A few hours is enough

There are lots of ways of going traveling. It doesn’t have to involve sharing a room with 12 people and being stinky. Widen your thoughts and you might imagine some amazing experiences you could have that would fit in with any sort of desires- living in Osaka for 3 months and settling in, sailing a boat around the Caribbean, a road trip around Australia. The possibilities are endless.

So don’t. Go by train. Or boat

Take trains, then. I got from London to Hong Kong entirely by train, and could have got further.

I could only do it if I was rich, so I could do hotels and upmarket travel choices. Did backpackers in Australia in my 20's, it was fabulous but once and once only.

You’ve just reminded me of the time I spent a couple of weeks travelling around Scotland with a couple of friends in our early 20s (all just finished postgrad degrees) on the understanding we would stay in hostels to save our limited funds. We’d booked an upmarket hostel in Edinburgh for our first night. One of the friends looked in the door of the (perfectly nice) hotel room (just for the three of us, no randoms in dorms) and burst into tears. She’d never seen anything like it.

It turned out she’d never been in a youth hostel before. We ended up having to renegotiate and scrimp on other things to afford B and Bs most nights. It turned out that the weepy friend had a weird fetish for ‘cosy touches’ like floral bedspreads, valances, little pots of breakfast jam etc.

We’ve lost touch long ago, but while I’d like to think she’d been roughing it in Guatemala and moved beyond ‘But are there little pots of breakfast jam on doilies?’ as a measure of whether she wanted to stay somewhere, I doubt it…😀

DD went inter-railing in Europe after A levels, she's spending a year in North America as part of her degree.

Hate to break it to you, but your DD literally is "travelling". She's not backpacking but she is travelling. Backpacking is generally cheaper, I guess that's part of them appeal.

I love travelling, even with the dc. My dsis works in end of life care and says that many people state not travelling as one of their regrets on their death bed.

I also think it depends why people want to travel. A lot of people go travelling "to find themselves". That's fine, I guess, but wouldn't have worked for me. I knew who I was, I've never had a deep and complex personality to go and find. I went travelling simply because I wanted to see the places that I travelled to. I didn't have much money so I stayed in cheap places and took cheap transport. I got to see remote countries when I was young, fit and without children in tow, so able to get by on little sleep in shit hostels and still get up bright and breezy to climb a mountain and see a temple. Now I'm older and have DC I'm enjoying discovering places closer by, in the the UK and in Europe, at a more leisurely place and in slightly more comfortable accommodation.

I would hate travelling now, in my 40's I like some creature comforts. But in my 20's I travelled a lot. I found it so freeing to travel solo, I could chose where I went and when, no one to compromise with, mer lots of fantastic people for a few days at a time.
I do feel its important to experience cultures different to our own to broaden perspective, and hoping to do a family tour in India in next year or 2. Mine are currently 4 and 8, lots have a minimum age of 5 or 6 due to the travelling time involved. They have led a fairly comfortable (some may say privileged) existence knowing they will always have everything they need, so I want them to understand that not everyone lives as they do.

I never wanted to either, still don't much! I'm interested in other cultures and countries but would like the idea of travel a lot more IF I could afford to do it in relative luxury/not too full of people! Also have a stomach condition so that and the anxiety around it puts paid to spontaneity wherever I am as a rule.

The longest that I have been travelling so far is 6 weeks
When I have travelled for a month at a time, I always want to stay longer.

I wish that I could just go forever ! but I have some responsibilities currently. However, I will go for longer hopefully one day in the future.

I enjoy meeting new people learning about new cultures, history, food, smells, the unexpected etc

I can sleep anywhere

I don't get home sick

What is there not to like ?

This sounds amazing. How long did it take? I think people forget that part of travelling is....the travelling. They views from the bus/train/boat, the people you meet, is part of the experience.
I often met people on the bus to a place, who I would then hang out with with a few days in that place

That's the one place, of all the places I went to, that I wouldn't go back to. Well maybe that and Morocco. Too many lecherous men!

I did it because my friends were but I can't say I particularly enjoyed any of the travelling I've done.

It was uncomfortable, I felt unsafe, I was sexually assaulted, ripped off, robbed, threatened, got bitten by something I couldn't see in the dark so I couldn't walk for 3 days.

There were a couple of nice folk we met but the majority were twatty "yahs" as we called them at the time playing one upmanship as to who had been to the most places.

Was relieved to be home.

I couldn't afford to go travelling in my early 20s so I roll my eyes whenever I read about it on Mumsnet and how it's supposedly essential. I'd have hated to stay in hostels too. I'm still in my 20s and have a 1 year old but I might wait a couple of years as I can imagine it'll be stressful.

That’s great. I’m not afforded that in my job.

I loved it in my 20s - although was never away for more than about 6 weeks at a time, and didn’t do a lot of hostels or meeting randoms (I’m too cautious). So travelling “lite” I guess. Amazing experiences and memories though. SE Asia, Central America, South America.

Now in my 40s I like comfort too much! Would love to do some “flash packing” in the future though staying in cheapish but comfortable hotels with the odd splurge. There’s still a lot of the world I want to see.