Is it bad I have no interest in visiting most of the world?

[quaffingquentin]

Is it bad that I’ve found holiday destinations I’m comfortable with and have lost interest in exploring?

I know I love Greece and Italy. Like Spain too.
I also know I love certain places in the Caribbean and certain places in South East Asia.

I now just go back to the same destinations every few years. I have no interest in trying somewhere new. Friends of mine never return to the same country but I have zero interest in visiting X country.

I didn’t read it that way. If op can go to the Med multiple times, she could easily choose instead to get her country count up if that’s what she was interested in. The number of destinations that are now perfectly mainstream and easy to visit is vast now compared to when I was a kid in the 80s. That’s before you even get to ‘adventure travel’, which is growing all the time.

Yeah we aren’t staying in an AI but we are basing ourselves in one place. It’s a big country and most people that go there stay in 4-5 different places. We aren’t doing that, for various reasons.

We rarely go abroad now as it's expensive and awkward & living in NI there's a lot of beauty on our doorstep.

I do want to take the dc on a holiday that's really memorable & enjoyable v soon though. They're 10 & 14 and I think it will be difficult to find common ground before too long but they've only been to Majorca/Spain so far.

If I was told I was never going to leave the British isles again, I wouldn't be heartbroken, although I would like to visit new places very occasionally. I think it's a bit off to have several long haul flight holidays every year if you have the money. We have to think of the environment. Better to go somewhere for 3-4 weeks & really explore the area

Of course "trying somewhere new" which is what the OP said in her first post doesn't have to involve flying long haul or indeed getting on a plane at all. I think you could travel for a lifetime and not see the whole of Europe, and travel by ferry/car/train isn't terribly difficult and does give you a different perspective of a country. Obviously there's still an environmental impact but I don't think it's as great as flying. I've only flown once in the last 5 years and that was short haul but I have been to some very interesting places in the UK and Europe in that time. I count that as visiting new places - it doesn't have to be transcontinental travel to be good.
Flying is more convenient naturally, and especially if you only have a short time it makes sense but there are other ways to get around and the travel can be part of the holiday. I have harboured a desire to travel on the Trans Siberian Express since I saw a tv programme about it when I was in primary school and I am gutted that now I'm retired and potentially have the time and money to do it it's not safe. I'm looking for an alternative long distance train journey to do in a couple of years when DH also retires but it won't be the same. Guess I'm never going to see Omsk and Tomsk after all☹

I'm both someone who loves to go back to places I know and love, and someone who likes to try new places. I have a travel wish list that runs 1.5 pages of A4 and I love being able to delete places off it, once I've been.

We're fortunate enough to be able to travel a few times a year and each year we try to do at least one trip to a new country or a new place. We have the places we love though and keep going back to, because we know we'll have a good time. We love Paris, Rome, Sicily, Spain, the Canaries, a particular ski resort in France that ticks all our boxes, and my DH's home country, which is vast and varied and which we visit every year in addition to whatever else we're doing.

I've sometimes thought though that if I was told I could only visit say five countries for the rest of my life I wouldn't be horribly gutted and I know exactly which five I'd pick.

I have absolutely no unrest in going to Asia, Australia or Africa. But happy to explore Europe and maybe North America.

Nothing wrong at all, and those are lovely places.
There are lots of different "travel styles" and people can get extremely judgemental, even on this thread already.

I think it would be boring if we all travelled (or not) in the same way ! There are some things that make me uncomfortable like "dark" tourism or anything exploitative but I can't stop people.

Was just thinking the same thing. Family members ( newly retired ) are currently in Australia, Vietnam and New Zealand. It makes me feel tired thinking about it plus the horror of getting sick - they have been.
I’m lucky enough to live in pretty Central Europe so we normally drive/ take the train and are in a completely different place within hours. It’s enough for me. But I feel that I have to justify it to friends and family who obviously think I lack imagination.

I'm coming around to your way of thinking OP. I've been lucky enough to have seen a lot of the world and DH and I always thought we wouldn't go back to places as in the words of Our Song "there's such a lot of world to see" but we've found ourselves going back to favourite places more and more and I'm not really interested in long haul any more (although I've maybe got one more trip down under in me).

(I did have a back of a fag packet bucket list and I'm ticking off the last place in May ✈ 😊)

I do a lot of repeat visits to America, Greece, Turkey, France, Italy and Spain.
However I absolutely want to see so much more of the world. I’ve been to 60 countries and am hoping to go to 100 before I die.
I travel a lot so have the luxury of being able to go back to favourite countries and visit new ones.