Djindore: If you hate traveling so much, just stay home and leave the traveling for those of us who enjoy it.
My worst travel experience was being stranded in Madrid alone with no phone, no wallet, no ID and no money. It took me four days to get home, sleeping in airports in Casablanca, Caracas and JFK. It was still a memorable experience that was better than sitting at home.
Man, it sure is! I fly across country twice every week and my a** is numb for at least the next day!
The op has issues. Stay home, that’s fine. Personally I enjoy travel and so do many other billions of people. I enjoy travel for the opposite reasons of the op. I like to be challenged.
My reward is I’ve seen glaciers crack in the Annapurna sanctuary, I’ve seen Angkor wat, London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, San Francisco , la etc. I’ve seen Mt Fuji pass by at 300 km an hour from a Shinkansen and thrown up in a dodgy Cambodian ferry , and it was all worth it.
Yep. Concur 1000%. To add to coremelts’ awesome list, I have watched ships locked through the Panama Canal, rode a hot air balloon at dawn over the Masai Maru and the great herds of Africa, walked through Soweto, flew in a helicopter over Victoria Falls, been inside one of the great pyramids of Egypt, and so many other things…
Life is what you make of it. If to you, life is happy being at home all the time, so be it. I’ve got only one life here; I plan to see all that I can see during it.
WDPLWIDL? 
Anybody else get the feeling that the OP was going to end his screed with “Vote Trump!”?
This paragraph just grabs me. It sounds like the first three lines of a good travel book.
I hope this isn’t too much of the sketch to infringe fair use, it’s not the whole thing.
MY wife and I remember our worst travel disasters with the greatest fondness. We roar with laughter recalling them.
A tourist would say: It was a terrible trip, our bus broke down,we were stuck in a dreadful village overnight with crappy food, and were too terrified to sleep.
A traveler would say: It was a wonderful trip. Our bus broke down and we got
an unexpected stay in a remote village, sleeping in makeshift hammocks, and the generous people made meals for us, and we loved the sound of the jungle at night.
Are you a tourist or a traveler?
My wife and I are currently trying to figure out what we want to do about travel. We are in our 50s, our kids are out of the house, and we have the time and $ to afford to travel. In the abstract, we’d like to go all kinds of places. In the actual, we find we don’t enjoy it as much as we’d like. Maybe we are just too lazy, and too content with our home and surroundings.
Air travel is such a pain in the ass - and personally, I hate the BS security theater. But, as someone said, it is the only way to get anywhere distant.
I also dislike the uncertainty of what I’ll experience given the expenditure of $ and effort. Not saying i don’t want to experience different things. But I find it so hard to predict my desired target of seeing neat things, without being just one of the tourist horde. How to obtain adequate comfort, without splurging on wasteful luxury? That sort of thing.
Sometimes it seems as tho you need to go to one place almost to reconnoiter - then return for a longer visit to do it right.
But inertia is such a powerful force, and we really are comfortable in our home and with our local activities. My preference is probably to do a lot of driving trips in the continental US.
I hear you. I just turned sixty, and traveling isn’t as easy as when I was young.
Here are two ways to make it a lot more pleasant:
(1) instead of going to a hotel, rent a small vacation cottage through VRBO. They’re barely more expensive than a hotel, and a thousand times more comfortable. You can make up for some of the expense by cooking some meals at home; and
(2) splurge and pay $85 per person for TSA pre-check. It’s good for five years. We did that a few months ago, and on our recent trip we got into the short line and sailed through security much less stressfully.
Can’t help you on air travel. It’s cramped and noisy and generally no fun at all.
I like seeing new places, but absolutely hate the traveling to get there. The older I get the more the cost/benefit analysis tips towards “not worth it.”
Traveling isn’t nearly as much fun as it was 30 years ago or so, when airlines actually gave a shit about something other than first class and profit. I traveled a ton for work then, and almost always enjoyed it. Even the disasters.
But the point of travel is seeing something new and of being someplace you have only read about or seen on TV.
Traveling with someone is a lot more fun I’d say, not that traveling alone is not worth doing.
Oh please, take me along. I will hold your hair while you puke over the rail and otherwise not annoy you or disrespect your personal space.
Aren’t you sweet.
Ever watch fireworks on TV? Not nearly as good as seeing them live, right?
Same concept applies to watching a travel show vs. traveling yourself.
Goddamn, I’m hankerin’ for a Watney’s Red Barrel right now!
I have been to more than 90 countries and have a goal to set foot in all of them before I die. I can’t understand people who would not enjoy traveling to new places. Discovery and seeing what lies beyond the horizon is a basic human desire.
Satisfying travel interests by watching it on TV means you want to sightsee, not travel.
Traveling is about meeting and interacting with people, learning about other cultures, and gaining an understanding that there is a world out there beyond your doorstep. If you just want to take a selfie in front of the leaning tower of Pisa, then yeah, stay home.
Mmmmmmmmmmm, I love traveling by train. Lovely way to see the countryside. Comfortable ride in expansive seats.
I was in Spain for a couple weeks last month, the train trip from Madrid to Barcelona was one of the best parts.
I worry a lot about my dogs when we’re traveling (though we have a great dogsitter, I’m scarred by my favorite kitty dying suddenly when I was 3,000 miles away from home).
I’ve seen most of the U.S., but haven’t been to Europe yet. I’d like to visit my “ancestral homes” in Scotland-Ireland-Amsterdam-Normandy, but I don’t have a driving need to see Asia, Pacific Islands, or the hot places in South America (well, anywhere hot to tell the truth).
Oddly, perhaps, I would really like to visit Patagonia and the South Pole.