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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]
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?  :D 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. [/quote]

If you went to Europe in your 20s, you are rich[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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