traveling! to places! and stuff!
Dec. 18th, 2014 02:05 amfor ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kate - Travel. Do you like it, hate it, where do you like to go, where's your ultimate destination, anything, really. :D
I like... being places? I've never been, like, an aspirational traveler though, nor am I pining for the fjords. But, for example, there used to be a group of us from college who'd meet up in Las Vegas once a year, and I'd usually be up hours before they were, just wandering down to the other end of the Strip from wherever we were staying. I do that most places I go, just looking at stuff, and people.
I was a bit more well-traveled as a child than I have been under my own steam, because my parents would drag me along on business trips, and my father's family was in a sort of family reunion mode until I was in college. We never really did road trips except up and down I-95, but we flew somewhere about once a year once I was old enough to be reasoned with - London, Paris, Jamaica, Hawaii, Spain. Lake Tahoe? (wheeee...). Lots of Southern California.
When I was in college, I drove cross country twice, once across the northern states and once sort-of-midwest-to-south. I think, looking at a map just now, that I've been to all but 6 states - Alaska, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Wyoming, South Dakota. Nebraska and Iowa just passing through by train, so even less "there" than in the car trips where I just crossed a state. I'm not sure it counts if your foot never touches the ground.
If money, time and cat supervision weren't an issue, I think I'd go to Hawaii every year. I'm definitely a beach person. The Bahamas are also quite nice! But I like bonus volcanoes, when they're not being jerks and destroying people's homes.
As I've gotten older, I've gotten a little (okay, a lot) more hesitant about traveling to places where I don't speak one of the official languages, or at least know enough to limp along in an emergency. Thanks, my crippling fear of looking like an idiot. So that takes out, like, the 2/3 or whatever of the world outside the Americas or Commonwealth nations. I think I'd feel differently about that if I had a travel buddy, but my brickspace friends are either super busy with work or raising kids, and the last few dudes I've dated have been pretty disinterested in visiting anywhere more than 200 miles from home, so not so much.
I can very much remember there being a period of years where I kept saying that I wanted to go to Australia, but I could not begin to tell you why. Not that there aren't reasons to, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually know anything about Australia while I was saying that.
My dad actually spent most of last month in Australia and will be in New Zealand in January, but traveling with him is terrible unless we have lots of activities and other people to distract us. My mom mostly-joked that I should have gone with him, and just. lolnope.
I spent the past few years traveling for work, and planning trips for work - both small scale, super busy site visits for one or two people, and then big, big trips of 100+ people for ten days. I didn't hate it while I was doing it, but I had absolutely zero interest in traveling for pleasure while I was in that. I've just gotten back to the point where I'm willing to look at, like, flight listings and hotel reviews without just immediately giving up and closing out the tab.
I've sort of volunteered to organize our next-generation family reunion in 2015 or 2016, so I should get on that before anyone else has an infant to tote around.
kate - Travel. Do you like it, hate it, where do you like to go, where's your ultimate destination, anything, really. :DI like... being places? I've never been, like, an aspirational traveler though, nor am I pining for the fjords. But, for example, there used to be a group of us from college who'd meet up in Las Vegas once a year, and I'd usually be up hours before they were, just wandering down to the other end of the Strip from wherever we were staying. I do that most places I go, just looking at stuff, and people.
I was a bit more well-traveled as a child than I have been under my own steam, because my parents would drag me along on business trips, and my father's family was in a sort of family reunion mode until I was in college. We never really did road trips except up and down I-95, but we flew somewhere about once a year once I was old enough to be reasoned with - London, Paris, Jamaica, Hawaii, Spain. Lake Tahoe? (wheeee...). Lots of Southern California.
When I was in college, I drove cross country twice, once across the northern states and once sort-of-midwest-to-south. I think, looking at a map just now, that I've been to all but 6 states - Alaska, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Wyoming, South Dakota. Nebraska and Iowa just passing through by train, so even less "there" than in the car trips where I just crossed a state. I'm not sure it counts if your foot never touches the ground.
If money, time and cat supervision weren't an issue, I think I'd go to Hawaii every year. I'm definitely a beach person. The Bahamas are also quite nice! But I like bonus volcanoes, when they're not being jerks and destroying people's homes.
As I've gotten older, I've gotten a little (okay, a lot) more hesitant about traveling to places where I don't speak one of the official languages, or at least know enough to limp along in an emergency. Thanks, my crippling fear of looking like an idiot. So that takes out, like, the 2/3 or whatever of the world outside the Americas or Commonwealth nations. I think I'd feel differently about that if I had a travel buddy, but my brickspace friends are either super busy with work or raising kids, and the last few dudes I've dated have been pretty disinterested in visiting anywhere more than 200 miles from home, so not so much.
I can very much remember there being a period of years where I kept saying that I wanted to go to Australia, but I could not begin to tell you why. Not that there aren't reasons to, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually know anything about Australia while I was saying that.
My dad actually spent most of last month in Australia and will be in New Zealand in January, but traveling with him is terrible unless we have lots of activities and other people to distract us. My mom mostly-joked that I should have gone with him, and just. lolnope.
I spent the past few years traveling for work, and planning trips for work - both small scale, super busy site visits for one or two people, and then big, big trips of 100+ people for ten days. I didn't hate it while I was doing it, but I had absolutely zero interest in traveling for pleasure while I was in that. I've just gotten back to the point where I'm willing to look at, like, flight listings and hotel reviews without just immediately giving up and closing out the tab.
I've sort of volunteered to organize our next-generation family reunion in 2015 or 2016, so I should get on that before anyone else has an infant to tote around.
