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?

DH did it in the very early 1990’s between his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and had a great time. It was the only way to travel extensively that was affordable. He worked in America and Australia for a couple of months each time to subsidise his travels. He was away for just over 18 months. His job has also involved a lot of travel at different times and he has visited around 130 countries. At that exact time I was working long shifts in a day surgery unit assisting at general anaesthetics. I wish I had that opportunity to travel then. Sounds more fun than being puked on by patients.

Plan is for extensive travel when he retires which may be soon as his work are offering voluntary severance.

As a teacher myself and a few friends would head off for the whole 9 weeks of holidays travelling in our 20's. We travelled Australia, New Zealand, South America, South East Asia, Europe and we did Route 66 and Canada.
Fiji is my favourite place in the whole world.
I now have small children and have changed to AI in Spain but once they get older I hope to show them enough of the world to ignite the travelling bug.
Saying that I could understand how someone may not enjoy it.

The longest I have personally holidayed is a month road trip round bits of America with DH when we both managed to get a month off work. I have stayed in hostels though. Ended up in one in New York shared with a French guy who working illegally as a DJ, a Swiss engineer, a Japanese student and some art teachers from Blackburn. We saw Hilary Clinton speak at a political rally and got drunk together.

YANBU. I never wanted to go travelling when I was younger.

I do like going on holiday and seeing different countries. I went to Thailand last year. But I like to stay in a nice hotel and be comfortable. I never wanted to go on buses and stay in hostels and fit everything into a backpack. Sharing a room with someone is my worst nightmare.

And I don't like to be away for more than 10 days, I just want to be back home after that long.

I am with you on that. I dislike travelling. Holidays were enough for me.

My son travels a lot for work, he accepts it and enjoys a lot of it but is always glad to come back to his house. He loved lockdown when he worked from home.

I don't feel as though I have "missed out" by not travelling. I have friends who are very well travelled and I still seem to know more about the world than they do. It is possible to have amazing experiences without travelling, they are just different.

I did have the opportunity when I was young, but I bought a flat instead. No regrets (even though I've ended up long term renting).

The problem for me is, I would love to do all the staying in hostels and seeing different places, it's the physical travelling I don't like. Being in a stuffy car for hours on end. Even though I much prefer train travel, I wouldn't want to be regularly doing long, crowded journeys on a train. I get sick on boats and in cars, and just generally find getting from A to B a faff. If somebody had invented the transporters like they have in Star Trek, I'd love it.

Well, it teaches to plan and be organised and learning how to budget. Getting on well with others and working on social skills by having to interact with strangers who may become friends. Learning languages etc etc. It's an experience, but only shallow people can experience, right?!

I think 'experiences' can be had anywhere. You can push your limits on relationships, ideas and all sorts anywhere. If you have a mind to it. You can also travel and still just mingle with the same people.

An open mind is an open mind and can exist anywhere.

And I speak as someone who has lived abroad (though not 'travelled' in the sense OP means).

I'm a different person because I went travelling. It changed me for the better and I genuinely believe that even 20 years later.

For a start, you need money and lots of young people can't afford to go travelling.
It would never have appealed to me at that ago though. It's one hassle after another, arranging transport and accommodation, eating unfamiliar food, not being sure of clean water, and what happens if you fall ill?

I wish more people felt like you and then the great sights of the world wouldn't be so overcrowded and I could enjoy them in peace!

Depends where you go surely, travelling around Switzerland is a heck of a lot more expensive then travelling around say Morocco. With a smart phone it's a lot easier these days to book accommodation and transport in advance. My first trips I was only armed with a Lonely Planet guide, you picked up tips on the road from other traveller's, you relied on the kindness of locals and occasionally luck.

I don’t disagree that open minds can exist anywhere, and that some people travel in a bubble, but you’re really not going to have the same ‘experiences’ or relationships, or push your limits in the same way if you spend your life in Surbiton to the way you would if you backpacked solo through Africa, or married someone (like my former housemate) you met doing ayahuasca in Guatemala and started running ayahuasca retreats in Europe.

Even much closer to hand, living in a different language and culture and landscape are life-changing. I think one of the most genuinely transformative things I ever did was au pair in France aged 18. I’d barely left my home county before , never my country, because we were poor and I was expected to leave school and get a job in a shop and marry young, as my parents did. But living in a different way, learning to speak French well, learning about food and another culture, and meeting people people with different expectations and ideas, exploring the south of France alone etc etc put my life on an entirely different track. I came home, applied to read modern languages at university, and stepped entirely outside the type of life I’d been expected to lead.

@TheCadoganArms With a smart phone it's a lot easier these days to book accommodation and transport in advance. My first trips I was only armed with a Lonely Planet guide, you picked up tips on the road from other traveller's, you relied on the kindness of locals and occasionally luck.

Same here re the Lonely Planet Guide - or Rough Guide. But actually I think travelling is much more complex now, partly because of booking in advance.

You need tech and phone access, and charging facilities. If you decide to do a day tour you might need a WhatsApp data connection to arrange a meeting place while you're out and about. You need to book in advance or popular things are sold out - a friend recently missed out on the Terracotta Warriors because he hadn't booked in advance. Likewise, we couldn't see a couple of things on recent holidays because 6 weeks in advance wasn't enough to get booked slots. It doesn't do much for freewheeling, spontaneous travel. Likewise with accommodation. DH and I used to just rock up somewhere, find a hotel, ask to see a room and that was that. Now, in many places, if you do that you will be left with the dregs or the super-expensive ones because everyone else has booked the decent ones.

@Rummly

lol as if Suffolk can compare to Australia

@Helloworld56

not everyone sees eating unfamiliar food as a bad thing

I am very keen to eat any food except British, tbh.

Don’t diss the Suff!

I forgot to mention how affordable many Suffolk hotels and B&Bs are. Bet you’d pay more in Brisbane and Adelaide.

@Rummly

but it’s still the uk though! Lots of people do want to see the world ie visit different countries even if that means getting less value for money with their accommodation

Rummly is having a laugh. 😉

You work as you go, often, doing something like WWOOFing or Workaway, or you work online, and that’s far easier now. One of my own former students teaches Irish online to international students wherever he is, and another writes content for social media from wherever (if you’ve read Anne Enright’s novel The Wren, the Wren, you’ll see an amusing take on this). Some people run YouTube channels with advertising etc. Or, seeing as people on here seem to accept as normal people moving back in with their parents for years to ‘save for a deposit’, they decide to save instead to travel. Most of the staff of a friend’s youth hostel are people travelling and stopping off somewhere they like to save money before heading off again.

There are enough great sights to go round. Just need to use your imagination and not follow the crowd 😊

OP - I thought I was the only one!

I agree. It wouldn't be my cup of tea and I know I wouldn't enjoy it. I can only go on holiday for a max of 9 days...after that I cannot help it but my thoughts turn to home and I just want to get back.

My parents didn't travel and I'm sure it must be linked to that. I'd love to be different, of course. I'm very much out of step with 90% of the population and I'm lost when people start long discussions about travel. I'm happy to listen, but can't really contribute anything of my own.

I always think it's the equivalent of being a heretic in the past, not to worship travel. I've never met anyone in real life who understands!

On a more serious note: I completely get where the recent demonstrations are coming from against mass tourism. I think it's destroying the planet, and certainly ruining many beautiful, once-remote and special places. I've only ever been to rural France and for the off city break in Europe, but my one and only encounter with mass tourism in Venice* traumatised me. I'm not surprised the Venetians are demanding a fee for entering the city. All power to them!

I was there for work - not by choice.

That doesn't mean people who travelled have "better" lives or make them better people though. It's very subjective.