Why do you travel?

Just had this conversation with MrsP…..she asked me for a bucket list of which places I’d like to go to, and I couldn’t really answer her…..but then when I thought about the experiences I’d like to haven the destinations kind of took care of themselves.

This was reflected in our honeymoon when we did fly drive on west coast of USA and I ended up completely saturated birth “sights”, to the point where I felt a bit meh about the heli trip down Grand Canyon. But then I remember most fondly swimming in lakes in Yosemite, walking randomly round San Fran, rafting, riding down Mammoth.

I guess quite a few folk here must be into the idea of collecting experiences rather than sights seen or locations ticked off?

Yeah “doing the sights” doesn’t do much for me, seeing something like Sydney Harbour bridge is great and all that but what I usually end up doing is comparing it to pictures and the TV, oh it’s bigger/smaller than it looks etc.

Personally I like mooching about and seeing what life is like in other places, the way people interact in different places and how they see the world, I think in this age of internet that we know everything and we’ve replaced opinion with fact, but the world can still look very different from a different perspective.

I still ‘holiday’ though, sometimes it’s nice just to sit still for a bit and forget your worries for a week.

still ‘holiday’ though, sometimes it’s nice just to sit still for a bit and forget your worries for a week.

Oh yeah – absolutely. So amongst the skydiving, scuba, sailing, snowboarding, wilderness trekking etc I also have a bucket list guilty pleasure of taking the kids all inclusive for a week!

I like to wander and get lost. You see some great when you’re just wandering.

In the next couple of years we’re go na take the whole summer hidays off and just drive round Europe with the kids.

I like just mooching about in different places

the smells, the scenery, the sounds and the people are all different.. it’s like a reset..

I tend to find a place that offers some of the ‘experiences’ I want, and then spend some time there soaking up the atmosphere and trying to get a feel for how everyday things are subtly different/similar

Very much so. The sights are kind of meh, it’s the experiences of doing things which stick – kayaking with dolphins in Milford Sound, skiing through Yellowstone past springs so hot you’d die if you fell in are the two which immediately come to mind. Though actually one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had when travelling was a totally random one in Malaysia when invited to share lunch with some Muslims – I was just a typical traveller, but maybe most travellers aren’t so open to such experiences (I don’t think there was any suggestion of them trying to convert me, simply welcoming me into their community).

I travel to experience cultures and geography rather than view sights or trapse around tourist traps led by a guide. Finding the off-the-beaten-track “thing” is so much more rewarding than being fed the spiel.

Going to see family mostly. off on Wednesday to see them all for a month. It probably helps that they live here:

I am literally shitting myself with excitement :0

Can we use this thread for experiences we still want to have – I’ll start:

kayaking the Grand Canyon (that’s a realistic one, I think some folks I know are planning a trip in the next year or so)

Riding the transfagarasan highway. Just getting there would be a mission!

To see & witness weird & wonderful things with friends or partners, ultimately forming some pretty awesome memories

Different trips always have different characters who stick in your mind and help to associate it with a certain point on the trip and the people you were pally with at the time

Not be confused with Brits Abroad year in, year out 🙂

To get away from this shit hole for a little while 😉

Love travelling dont do anywhere near enough

Why do I love it? I really do love it so couldn’t really list all the reasons. I’ll just write a load of them:

Curious to see new stuff
Wanderlust – often feel the need to go wandering with nowhere special to be
Photography/painting/sketching
Serendipity
The feeling of moving, being ‘disconnected’
I like transport, the feel of it, the relaxation, the people-watching, the self-contained musing, the meeting new people and being able to just say cheerio and walk away to another experience.
Simplicity, fewer immediate posessions
New smells
New sounds
Tastes/food
Meeting new people
Seeing different art hearing new music
Experiencing wildlife I havent seen, touched, heard etc before
Feeling more ‘alive’

Doesn’t have to be lenghty, exotic or expensive either – Today I drove Mrs MR to hospital in the Big City. It was a v long double appt and procedure so I just drove and mooched around for hours discovering new trees, chatting to people in the parks, cafe, etc. smelling the leaves and cold air. Hearing new voices. Felt amazing.

In another life I would have been Grasshopper out of ‘Kung Fu’ – even as a kid I yearned for the small rucksack and walking pole life – watched that show religiously!

I’ve not travelled for about ten years, from trying to get somewhere decent and studying and volunteering etc. Having ‘not’ travelled, I’m feeling the need to travel next year – to change my surroundings: to (in theory) put me in a different frame of mine, to give me a break from the treadmill feeling, and to see what else is out there which ‘chimes with me’ as a person.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit a lot of places over the years, but my Wife had our first in her early 20’s so didn’t. We’ve got 2 plans – a European road trip when the youngest is a bit older, 3 weeks in a camper, something like that. I’d like to take a big tourer bike, but she’ll never agree to ride pillion.

Then when they’re old enough to leave behind Asia and Austrialia.

Hot_fiat – I came over the Transfagarasan this Summer on way back from Greece/Turkey/Bulgaria. It’s not all that, to be honest. Many more interesting roads in the area, not least the Transalpina.

Rachel

Going to see family mostly. off on Wednesday to see them all for a month. It probably helps that they live here:

The woods behind the Nationwide in Swindon?

Rachel – thats a shame. I felt the same about Stelvio, which is quite pretty at the top, but as a piece of tarmac isn’t really all that. Perhaps the weather was sub-optimal for two wheeled transport?

work mostly.

which kinda puts me off travelling when I’m not at work.

fortunately I live somewhere quite nice.

Why do you travel?

For a holiday. For work. To get from A to B.

There have been some extremely memorable occasions where the journey – the travelling – was as much a part of the overall experience as the destination. The immediate one that springs to mind is being flown into the Canaima National Park in Venezuela in a little Cesna, then spending a couple of days going upstream in a dug-out canoe with an outboard motor before a half day trek to the foot of Angel Falls. The destination was somewhere I’d wanted to go since being a kid, but the travelling that led me there made it even more special.

It’s more the surface that’s the problem – it has suffered badly. Pretty much shaking you to bits for large parts of it.

Transalpina was all new tarmac. 😀

Definitely travel for collecting experiences rather than sightseeing for me. Doesn’t even have to be far either, just doing things at a different time to normal can make the mundane exciting! I only have one thing on my bucket list: New Zealand. But that will be a once-only thing taking a few weeks or months to do it properly and avoiding most of the touristy stuff.

I’m a great people watcher, so have always been drawn to Africa and South America and can happily just sit watching a bustling market or people going about their daily lives.

It is always the little things that tend to stick in your mind, for me trying to get my old Land Rover 101 through the Mauritanian Sahara and barely making 8 miles in 12 hours, a random Irish bar in La Paz where we got served a pint of Guiness and a line of coke, watching Africa mechanics take apart and repair a fuel pump that a Land Rover dealer in UK said couldn’t be repaired and had to be replaced, then watching same mechanics weld us up a BBQ grill for about 80p.

Or eating cod roe on a beach in the Outer Hebredies Scud 🙂

I’ve been travelling for two weeks each time to Africa and the Middle East, four or five times a year since 1985 so I’m travel-weary, which doesn’t go down well when Mrs Gti is all excited about going somewhere. On top of that my childhood family holidays were always climbing in Scotland or Wales so I hate beach holidays and get bored after a few hours of inactivity.

boltonjon – Member
Or eating cod roe on a beach in the Outer Hebredies Scud

Now that was a good trip! Will have to go back again some day.

When we found ourselves in a far-away spot on the Mekong Delta, where we were the only foreigners they had seen in ages, and some of the locals were so poor they made their living collecting and selling plastic bottles, and there were floating villages, our over-riding feeling was how much we had in common with these lovely people.

Last week we took advantage of a timeshare company’s offer to stay in a big resort in Tenerife for next to nowt (except to sit in a 3 hour presentation). We used the opportunity to drive the 20mins each day down to the windsurfing spot at el Medano, but the residents of said holiday prison got up early to put towels on sunbeds, lounged around all day before an adventure into town for their fill of Watneys Red Barrel, HP sauce, Marmite, Heinz beans and PG Tips before heading up to their rooms at 5pm for Countdown, Coronation St. and Strictly.

Our over-riding feeling was that we had absolutely nothing in common with these people.

It’s hard to put my finger on why.

In the last 10 years I’ve travelled around quite a bit of Asia. Some of the best bits haven’t been when doing anything especially exciting but simply feeling that you’re lucky to be in that place, at that time and with those people. Of course you can get that having a BBQ on the beach in Devon but there’s something amazing about being somewhere so totally different to where you grew up.

Some priceless experiences for me over the last 15 years:

Watching local fishermen working whilst we went across Inle Lake on a longtail.
Cowering under a holey mosquito net in the Cambodian jungle after kicking a few scorpions out of the room.
Swimming with sea turtles in The Philippines.
Eating with a local family in Burma just because they found us whiteys interesting.
Diving with whale sharks.
Swimming across to Lombok to get a ferry to the mainland
Carrying big artworks on the back of a scooter in Indonesia as my wife fell in love with the painting.
Spending all night drinking with people in Laos. Never meeting them again but laughing for hours.
Jump-starting a jeepney.
Spending Christmas day playing charades on the beach in Malaysia.
Crazy bike rides in Vietnam.
Sleeping on a bench outside KL airport.

Each trip has a few of those absolutely unforgettable moments. They often aren’t the ones you’d expect to remember but they’re the ones where you look around you and think that you’re making the most of your one shot at life.

Some of my favourite pictures. None really meant much when travelling but love them ad what the represent.

Sleeping on a bench outside KL airport.

King’s Lynn doesn’t have an airport??

Rachel

🙂

Perspective and escapism mostly.

To avoid the law.

King’s Lynn doesn’t have an airport??
Rachel

Last time i was there, i flew out pretty quick……..didn’t even buy a wolf fleece.

Usually, its for local culture, but work has let me see some great tourist sites which should not be missed. Niagara falls and the Great Wall have been most impressive

I travel to experience cultures and geography rather than view sights or traipse around tourist traps led by a guide. Finding the off-the-beaten-track “thing” is so much more rewarding than being fed the spiel.

This.
Plus some exploring adventures to see new nature and sights. My own efforts, meet locals etc.

I guess my travelling mixes both sightseeing and an experience.
All my recent holidays have been riding holidays (Pyrenees, Dolomites, Alps, Corsica). I love the lifestyle on these trips of group breakfast/dinner and nothing else to worry about other than riding my bike and soaking up the views.

The photo of me below is quite memorable cruising up the col d’iseran early in the morning before the sun had taken the chill out of the air.

Why do you travel?

I travel home … home to N.Borneo.

Not interested in seeing or visiting some cultural hype stuff in other countries etc coz I don’t even know my own region anymore.