Anyone else lost excitement for travel?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

Nah, you’re just an unimaginative old geezer with more money than smarts I imagine. There are so many undiscovered places out there, you just have to know where they are. The fact that you mentioned Tahiti just shows me you’re another typical tourist yourself.

Not PP. I'm sorry but you are the worst type of tourist. The holier than thou who thinks they are special because they don't go where the other "basic" people go and are now ruining places that should be left alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

Nah, you’re just an unimaginative old geezer with more money than smarts I imagine. There are so many undiscovered places out there, you just have to know where they are. The fact that you mentioned Tahiti just shows me you’re another typical tourist yourself.

Not PP. I'm sorry but you are the worst type of tourist. The holier than thou who thinks they are special because they don't go where the other "basic" people go and are now ruining places that should be left alone.

Ha ha, OK. Enjoy Barcelona then!

[Anonymous]

Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

The richest people go to exclusive tiny islands, top ski fields, and holiday homes in beautiful natural spots such as rural Provence, not to Disneyworld.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

I don't know why people are getting so offended. I am not rich (unfortunately) and I have not seen the world. And is early 40s old? But I have been to Europe and different places in the US and it's absolutely not the same. I still enjoy travel and I still want my kids to see certain places but I know that it's a totally different experience nowadays. Esp. crowd levels and pandering to tourists vs. more authentic stuff.

If you went to Europe in your 20s, you are rich

NP here. I went to Europe in my twenties and wasn't rich. I worked temp jobs in London until I saved enough money for a new trip, over and over. I took bargain courier flights where courier companies used my baggage allowance for same day freight - I don't know if such a thing exists still today. Those took me from London to Dublin, New York and Montreal. I took bargain priced buses to Edinburgh and Amsterdam. I backpacked around in 1990 on a Eurorail pass, and still have my diary where I recorded my daily expenditures. I had a budget of 26 pounds a day and averaged less than that. There was a book from Frommers called Europe on $25 a day. Let's Go Europe was my bible. I stayed in a lot of youth hostels and didn't eat in many restaurants, instead going to supermarkets or eating the youth hostel breakfasts. I stayed in the homes of people I met on the train sometimes. I took every free trip included on my pass - boat trips on the Rhine and Danube, a cog railway up a mountain in Austria, a bus trip on the Romantic Road in Germany. I headed to Eastern European, which was still emerging from communism, and had a ball because prices were still at pre free market levels. I did it all without a cent or penny from my parents.

Nowadays I'm married with grown children. Our trips include plane tickets, vacation rentals or fancy hotel rooms, rental cars, museums and attractions with fees, taxi rides, and more costly restaurants. Countries are courting the high value tourist, not the shoe string traveler that I used to be. My husband isn't going to stay in a shared dorm and eat bread and cheese or sit and watch the boats go by on the Seine at night with a bottle of two euro chuck, alas. It all costs more and we have have less contact with locals and other travelers than in my backpacking days.

That sounds like a great experience and not too far off when I backpacked for a month in Europe after graduation in early 2000. I saved everything I made from my job as a student waiter and half planned the trip and half winged it using Rick Steves guidebook. I only stayed at youth hostels and took trains and buses to get around. I shared rooms with strangers, paid to use showers, took overnight train rides with no AC in the summer, and had a blast. I didn’t own a cell phone and had to call hostels off the guidebook with a pay phone to see if I had a place to stay that night, than follow a hand drawn map down a residential neighbor alley to find a small door sign in another language. I enjoyed interacting with the locals and folks at the youth hostel to learn about the town and city I visited by word of mouth instead of social media.

I definitely was way closer to being broke than rich but the experience gave me a lot of wonderful memories of how to enjoy travel on a budget. But not something I can repeat in 2023 with a young family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

The richest people go to exclusive tiny islands, top ski fields, and holiday homes in beautiful natural spots such as rural Provence, not to Disneyworld.

Who said anything about the richest people? Point is, I’m not taking my kids to France and skipping Paris. But you do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

Omg, you have to see real Florida around there. Gainesville IS the fancy rich town for the Nature Coast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

Nah, you’re just an unimaginative old geezer with more money than smarts I imagine. There are so many undiscovered places out there, you just have to know where they are. The fact that you mentioned Tahiti just shows me you’re another typical tourist yourself.

Not PP. I'm sorry but you are the worst type of tourist. The holier than thou who thinks they are special because they don't go where the other "basic" people go and are now ruining places that should be left alone.

Ha ha, OK. Enjoy Barcelona then!

I've been to plenty of pretty remote places. And off the beaten path places. And I stopped getting excited by them once I realized I was just repeating a theme. There's not that much to differentiate between remote places on one continent with another remote place on another continent. I've had trips that involved four and even five flights just to get to one remote island. Like the Bandas in Indonesia. Was it worth it? Ehh.... I don't regret the trips but at the same time the experiences aren't making me eager for more of the similar kinds of trips involving a lot of effort just to get somewhere remote/off the beaten path. So much of the world is also fairly unremarkable. Local culture these days is all same-same. They all watch TVs and have cell phones. I do like to travel for pleasure but I am realistic about it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

Omg, you have to see real Florida around there. Gainesville IS the fancy rich town for the Nature Coast.

Gainesville is not on the coast.

[Anonymous]

If there’s one thing I can’t stand .. it’s the puny and disappointing Earth. It’s like we’re in a terrarium being observed. It’s claustrophobic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

Nah, you’re just an unimaginative old geezer with more money than smarts I imagine. There are so many undiscovered places out there, you just have to know where they are. The fact that you mentioned Tahiti just shows me you’re another typical tourist yourself.

Not PP. I'm sorry but you are the worst type of tourist. The holier than thou who thinks they are special because they don't go where the other "basic" people go and are now ruining places that should be left alone.

Ha ha, OK. Enjoy Barcelona then!

I've been to plenty of pretty remote places. And off the beaten path places. And I stopped getting excited by them once I realized I was just repeating a theme. There's not that much to differentiate between remote places on one continent with another remote place on another continent. I've had trips that involved four and even five flights just to get to one remote island. Like the Bandas in Indonesia. Was it worth it? Ehh.... I don't regret the trips but at the same time the experiences aren't making me eager for more of the similar kinds of trips involving a lot of effort just to get somewhere remote/off the beaten path. So much of the world is also fairly unremarkable. Local culture these days is all same-same. They all watch TVs and have cell phones. I do like to travel for pleasure but I am realistic about it too.

Doubtful you have been anywhere at all. Just stop already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TLDR. I a rich old person who has seen the world many times. It’s gotten boring, and crowded with all these tourists. I’m posting because I want everyone to know why this years Christmas card isn’t all of us in Tahiti.

Nah, you’re just an unimaginative old geezer with more money than smarts I imagine. There are so many undiscovered places out there, you just have to know where they are. The fact that you mentioned Tahiti just shows me you’re another typical tourist yourself.

Not PP. I'm sorry but you are the worst type of tourist. The holier than thou who thinks they are special because they don't go where the other "basic" people go and are now ruining places that should be left alone.

Ha ha, OK. Enjoy Barcelona then!

I've been to plenty of pretty remote places. And off the beaten path places. And I stopped getting excited by them once I realized I was just repeating a theme. There's not that much to differentiate between remote places on one continent with another remote place on another continent. I've had trips that involved four and even five flights just to get to one remote island. Like the Bandas in Indonesia. Was it worth it? Ehh.... I don't regret the trips but at the same time the experiences aren't making me eager for more of the similar kinds of trips involving a lot of effort just to get somewhere remote/off the beaten path. So much of the world is also fairly unremarkable. Local culture these days is all same-same. They all watch TVs and have cell phones. I do like to travel for pleasure but I am realistic about it too.

Doubtful you have been anywhere at all. Just stop already.

"Just stop already." Very mature.

Are you upset not everyone shares the same enthusiasm? A great deal of it surely comes down to age. When I was in my 20s, even 30s, I was eager and excited by every trip regardless of the challenges and logistics. Now I'm in my 40s, priorities are different. But I have to admit even in my peak exotic travel years I was always bemused by the hippy backpackers with dreadlocks and keffir scarves and who loved to sit around drinking and being bewitched by local extortionists telling tall tales and spiels of human fellowship across the globe and how we're all brothers and sisters in mankind, and always with a subtle hand extended for cash payments. Getting down and low with the locals, eh? Meanwhile the smart ones are cashing in on the dumb tourist dollars everywhere with cheap resorts and packaged tours and tourist dollars and unwanted stops at gift shops in the middle of nowhere.

[Anonymous]

I love the new places and people but hate being away from kids and the actual travel (even sitting in business class is torture compared to just being at home in my own environment).

So in short, yes, I’m sick of the actual travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

You have a very limited sense of travel if you only go to the “main cities.” Worried about missing out on your Starbucks and Apple Store?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who wants to visit random middle class areas in europe? We want to go to the main cities. People don't fly down to Florida and skip Orlando and Miami and visit Gainesville.

Omg, you have to see real Florida around there. Gainesville IS the fancy rich town for the Nature Coast.

Gainesville is not on the coast.

Neither is Paris. Nor London or Berlin or Madrid or ..