Am I the Only Person Who Doesn't Like To Travel?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread is inspired by elmwood’s match.com drinking game thread over in MPSIMS. Several posters have mentioned that “loves to travel!” is practically required in match.com profiles.

It took me a long time to admit that I don’t like to travel. In fact, I’m pretty close to saying I hate it. For years I said I liked it without really thinking about it, because I had the vague sense that it was part and parcel of being an educated, intelligent person. I’m pretty sure I’m both educated and intelligent, and yet if I have to travel, it mostly feels like punishment.

I’ve found that it often shocks people when I come out and I say I don’t like it. Please tell me I am not alone!

I do travel, of course. I enjoy things like seeing family and friends, and if that involves travel, then fine. I can cope with the horror of traveling for the fun of visiting with kith and kin.

I also manage to get out of the house. I like day trips, because they get you back in your own home at night. I’m even mostly okay with an overnight trip – two days of activities, but only one night in a strange bed. More than that … ugh.

For people who do like to travel, how do you feel about people who don’t? Is it a character flaw, or just a personal preference?

2

I like it but almost never do it. Mostly because my husband doesn’t like it. It’s not a very good scenario. He would never leave our little town if he coud help it. Me? There are lots of people I’d like to see but probably never will. :frowning:

3

Travel is the greatest blessing and curse in my life. I suffer from gran mal wanderlust, and so my life is one of journeys. That being said, travel itself is only a means to a destination.

To say that more plainly, I like being places, but modern travel is a pain in the tail. I make an exception for first-class European trains which I actively like.

On the current thread on Air France someone pointed out all airlines suck nowadays. I just grit my teeth and think of the destination.

4

I’m with you; I despise traveling. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

“Home” is where I live (quotes to indicate that I’m using the term to refer to more than just my dwelling place). Since it’s my home, I’ve made it very comfortable for myself. I like being comfortable. When I’m not home, I’m uncomfortable.

Tell me again why I should like not being home?

5

I really like to travel. For me, I like being completely lost, feeling like I’m out of my depth and forced to rely on my self. I like being out of my comfort zone.

I think travel is important to help round a person out because it challenges one’s assumptions. Seeing how other people order their lives forces me to re-evaluate my own beliefs and I think that is very healthy.

As for how I feel about people who don’t like to travel, it’s not really my business. I do feel like I don’t have a lot in common with people who don’t like to travel. I don’t know that I think less of them, but we’ll probably run out of stuff to talk about pretty soon.

6

I hate travelling and will never do so without a VERY good reason. A good part of the reason I hate it so is because I get motion sickness. When I reach my destination I usually get the traveller’s trots. I’ve done my share of travelling, thank you, and nowadays I only visit my relatives.

Hell, most days I don’t set foot outside my HOUSE. My husband brings in the newspaper and mail, and I have the internet and my cat and my books, so I’m happy this way. I’ll go out and shop or visit sometimes, but for the most part I have my home set up so I’m comfy in it.

7

I like seeing new places. Exploring, wandering, checking out the restaurants, museums, zoos; it’s all good. That said, I have to admit it’s always nice to get home.

Now, as to getting to these new places…

I detest flying. Every other mode I’ve tried, from hitch-hiking to taking a train, I’ve enjoyed.

For me, a very large part of the enjoyment of travel is the travel itself. I suspect that’s why I don’t like flying - they’ve turned it into something very much like work.

8

I like being in other places, but I hate getting there and I hate hotels. There’s a lot of interesting stuff outside of my home (and outside of my town, which is either Kansas City or Grinnell) that I might never experience just because traveling sucks so much.

9

I’m not a big fan of travelling. Granted, I haven’t done much of it in my life – I’ve been to Oklahoma twice, Mexico once, Austin and San Antonio a handful of times, and the rest of my life has been spent in either Houston or Dallas. But I’m very much someone attached to their home, and I really don’t like sleeping in strange places or being away from home for very long.

My feelings exactly.

10

I hate to fly, and I’m not a big fan of hotels. I don’t mind the flying part so much, I just hate the airport process and being cooped up on a plane. I prefer to road trip it when it’s feasible. Hotels are poor substitutes for home, but that’s all they’re meant to be. They can call themselves luxurious all they want, but to me real luxury is having all my stuff handy.

But I still love to travel. I don’t spend that much time in the hotel (what’s the point of travelling if you do?), and the flying thing is just a necessary evil, worthwhile for the result.

11

I love travel and I love travelling. I’m at my happiest when I squished against the window on some third world bus with somebody’s baby and a couple chickens on my lap and a breeze like a hairdryer on high blowing through my hair. Something about me instantly takes to the feeling of motion, and I have a superhuman disregard for my own comfort. Give me a bedbug ridden bed at a fifty cent hotel and I’m in heaven.

As for travel, for me it is life distilled. Exsitence at it’s purist. At home I am a type A worrier who is always on edge. Away, I magically become a serene, supremely laid back, and unshakable being who is content to be happily along for the ride. Having no more existance than eating and sleeping and walking around the streets looking for sights (which, to me, are just one big excuse to go out) is beautiful and perfect. My “home” makes me feel trapped and crazy and bored. I prefer sky to ceiling. My real home is in the center of my heart, and I can call myself back there whenever I need to.

I have trouble making sense of people who don’t like to travel. I mean, I can understand wanting the comfort of home. But I feel like travel has made my world so much wider and me so much more confident and able that I still want to recommend it to everyone. My boyfriend hates travelling, being very much a homebody, and I’m afraid it probably is a dealbreaker. I’m headed to the Peace Corps, and he would honestly rather eat glass for two years.

Kalhoun, check out some solo travel resources. Most hard-core traveller (even women) perfer to travel alone with good reason- it’s easier to deal with, it’s more flexible, you spend more time doing what you want, it’s fun and easy to make friends along the way and you eliminate all the personality clashses that inevitably come with such an intense experience. I’m sure your husband could spare you for a couple weeks a year if it’s the difference between living your dreams and not.

12

I hate to travel. I mean really hate it. Unfortunatly sometimes I have to for work. Usually just an overnight conference. But once in a while a two-dayer that involves flying. That is a nightmare for me. I cannot say it better than
Digital Stimulous:

13

I used to enjoy travel until I started travelling every week as part of my job. Away from my family. Now I hate it, hate it, hate it.

A vacation now and then is fun, but not for too long. and max comfort is the word. BEING somewhere new can be fun; TRAVEL, e.g. geting there and surviving away from home, sucks shit.

Nothing takes the fun out of travel like business travel.

14

Over the past 40 years, I seem to have always ended up in jobs where travel is required (current job included). While I usually like the destinations, traveling has become a chore not to be suffered gladly. I will pay full first class fare to avoid cattle-car, and have spent lots o’ money on DVDs (and a pair of Bose noise cancelling phones) to take with me so I can just shut it all out. This includes my upcoming vacation trip to New Orleans for Jazz Fest.

The plus side of it is that I’ve seen more of the world than most people even read about.

15

I love travelling so much that as soon as I return home, I start planning next year’s trip. One thing I’ve learned is this: On every single trip, at least one major thing will go wrong (cancelled flights, bad weather, lost reservations, foot problems, illness, an entire city [Paris] on strike, etc.). Over the years, I’ve learned that these things are mere obstacles that don’t have to diminish the overall experience; you just need to roll with the punches. With a little creativity and attitude adjustment, I can honestly say that I’ve never *not *enjoyed a trip, regardless of the problems.

My brother, on the other hand, absolutely *detests *travelling. He’d be perfectly content staying at home, listening to his wife complain that they never go anywhere. He also hates flying, which I love.

As for people who don’t like to travel, there are probably many things that they enjoy that I don’t like. And we know who you are:There’s always someone who’s just tagging along, just because their spouse/friend/parent/school class wants to be there. I hope they can at least go home with some not-so-terrible memories.

16

Totally. I love seeing new places and great monuments and learning about places and soaking up the sun when it’s winter at home. I just hate not coming home at the end of the day. I don’t do well in hotels or other people’s houses at all, and it’s a very rare vacation that was actually worth the money in terms of enjoyment.

I suspect I won’t be able to avoid it entirely, but I’m with you. I don’t get enough out of travelling to justify the discomfort of not being home.

17

I greatly enjoy seeing new, interesting places – preferrably in friendly company, I’m not exactly the type to strike it up w. whoever ends up sitting next to me. It provides me somethign of a refreshed perspective and is invigorating if done right. But I also like the stability of a “home base” and the secure, warm feeling of a familiar human and physical environment to which I’ve become attuned. I’d likely be miserable in a military career having to completely uproot every couple of years. And I do indeed look forward to the invention of the Transporter Beam or some sort of backpack wormhole generator that relieves me of the misery of most long-distance transport conveyances.

As to the OP, a liking or not liking for travel is just a personal preference. Specially in today’s world, if you put your mind to it you can become exposed to much culture and different experiences w/o going **too ** far off your location. It is **if ** the lack of travel is caused by a lack of interest in broadening your horizons, that then I would consider it a flaw.

18

I agree that flying sucks, but if you can go business or first class it really helps. One of the things I really like is that feeling of being in a truly foreign land. I love the moment where I walk in a place and it is like the cantina in Star Wars, just whoa.

I also love coming home, walking in the door having my dog go nuts, hugging my wife, going to my favorite restaraunts. I’ve been away from home for a couple of months now and when I get home, I’ll be like a tourist in my home town, everything is new and exciting. That’s why I like travel.

19

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
Travel is the greatest blessing and curse in my life. I suffer from gran mal wanderlust, and so my life is one of journeys.
[/QUOTE]

“Gran mal wanderlust” is a great phrase, and while I’m not going to say “band name!” I think you should definitely make a note of it if you are ever looking for a title for your memoirs.

Digital Stimulus, seenidog, and Helen’s Eidolon are right on the same page as me. My home is my sanctuary, and at the same time, it doesn’t feel like a “retreat” kind of place – it’s both restful and stimulating at the same time. In the course of travel, I have stayed in places that were much HIGHER than my own standard of living, as well as those that were lower, and either way, I’m practically crawling out of my skin.

Some other people mentioned the actual suckitude of travelling, and I know this is also a factor for me as well. Between motion sickness and crappy service, it doesn’t set me up to enjoy much of anything once I arrive. First class is nice, but to me it feels kind of like being in an ER that is playing soothing music. The soothing music is good, but I’d rather not be in the ER in the first place.

[QUOTE=JRDelirious]
As to the OP, a liking or not liking for travel is just a personal preference. Specially in today’s world, if you put your mind to it you can become exposed to much culture and different experiences w/o going too far off your location. It is if the lack of travel is caused by a lack of interest in broadening your horizons, that then I would consider it a flaw.
[/QUOTE]

That is a really good point that I was having a hard time articulating. I think I have plenty of other interests that serve to broaden my horizons, travel just isn’t one of them.

[QUOTE=panache45]

There’s always someone who’s just tagging along, just because their spouse/friend/parent/school class wants to be there. I hope they can at least go home with some not-so-terrible memories.
[/QUOTE]

Heh, I have no doubt that you could spot me while on a trip. That said, I’m an optimistic kind of person and I usually appreciate the things I experience while traveling. It’s as if I’m thinking “Unfortunately, I’m trapped in Paris, but as long as I am, I might as well enjoy this lovely afternoon at the Louvre.” And I do genuinely enjoy it, but it doesn’t mitigate the ever-present feeling of being in exile.

20

I’m going to admit something embarassing. Gorgeous, expensive hotel or hole-in-the wall hostel, I sleep in my sleeping bag on top of the covers, with a pillow in a pillow-case I’ve brought. I just can’t sleep at night otherwise. It does get ridiculous, I admit, but looking foolish is a small price to pay to avoid panic attacks while travelling!