Do you need to travel?

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Purposefully open ended question. Obviously, a human being doesn't technically need to travel long distances to survive and live a relatively fulfilling life. But I'm talking more about travelling to help alleviate a lot of one's problems in life that aren't immediately seen as connected to one's location and exploratory habits.

So defining "need" as "required to recharge one's outlook on life" and "travel" as "moving distances great enough such that you need technology to do it, not counting commuting to work".... whaddayathink, sirs?

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Travel's really good. If I don't get out of this city soon (for at least a little while) I'm going to go crazy.

― slutsky (slutsky), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

My family's pretty nomadic, and I go stir crazy if I can't keep moving - I'm stuck in LA for now, so travelling is the only way I can shake the blues and still feel like I'm not trapped.

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

removing yourself from your illusory context is good for your soul.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

traveling, too... I always do that.

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:09 (twenty-two years ago)

wanderfuckinglust

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I need to move. Far, far away.

I'd be $1500 richer if it wasn't for all the little "hey why not fly to LA this weekend?" trips I've taken over the last 9 months.

― chester (synkro), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

You know I'm depressed if I haven't been on a plane and/or hit the road at least once every three months.

For me, travelling is not just recharging and seeing new things, but an absolute compulsion. Runs in my family and I don't mind it at all.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I need to travel - it's something that builds inside me until I feel like I am going to scream unless I am on the move in a car. I'd rather drive than fly, and love to hike more than that - I need to see new things and breathe new air and meet new people - but mostly I need to see the land and the plants and the water and the animals.

But I also am not nomadic and have a strong need for a home base to return to and relax in.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

People in the US especially need to travel. Many think the American way of life is superior to the rest of the world without ever having left the country. How would they know?

― fletrejet, Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

for nearly five years, I lived nowhere for more than six months at a time. I saw/lived most of this damn country.
then, four years ago (shit, am I that old already?), I came home and started collecting debt.
I haven't been away more than three days at a time or futher than 300 kms since.
But someday...
oh shit, I'm so doomed. No wonder I'm angry at everybody all the time. I need to pick up and walk away. (not that I was extremely happy during my wandering days, in fact I was miserable, but I was fun to be around, by which I mean I was a happy drunk, whereas now I'm a mean drunk, if I socialize at all)

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the idea of travel more than the actuality. I hate planes and flying both (independent hatreds there which gang up on the whole experience). I don't drive. Trains never seem practical.

I do like road trips, particularly when time is not of the essence, and when my ex was not my ex, I loved visiting her family in San Antonio, and driving off to random places for her to present papers at conferences and so forth.

I visit my mother every few years, which is not as bad as it could be but generally a few hours of fun stretched out into three or four days of not-a-damn-thing-to-do (YOU try being in Southern NH without a car, visiting people who are gone most of the day, without an internet connection).

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I have this weird compulsion against travelling, which I'm trying to change. It always seems like a terrible waste of money. But this is ludicrous.

One nice thing about touring is that it gives me a good justification for travelling.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 15 May 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I love flying. My ipod + I buy a ton of fashion magazines + I bring some nice snacks, so it's not too bad. I always bring my SLR, so a lot of the attraction of new cities is the chance to take 15 rolls of a new place & maybe a few good photos.

My family is far too sedentary (3 generations living within a 10 mile area in NJ, and their vacations are to only about NY or VT), so really a lot of it is just rebellion against that--> move 3,000 miles away & vacation in Tasmania. ;-)

― lyra (lyra), Friday, 16 May 2003 03:39 (twenty-two years ago)

In a general sense, no. But I haven't been further than fricking Hoboken in two years. Need vacation now. < /cookie monster>

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 16 May 2003 03:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I just like to drive. Visiting places is secondary to me. I do like to talk to strangers, though, which is an upside to traveling.

― Bryan (Bryan), Friday, 16 May 2003 03:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't left London in two years now, which surprises me. I loved going on holidays, back when I was married, and the thought of going on my own is not terribly scary or miserable - I think it's mostly that I've not had enough spare cash. Once tthe final financial settlement with my ex is done with, I hope I'll be able to start thinking about it again.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 16 May 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Although Songlines by Bruce Chatwin is in several ways an exceedingly weird book, I agree with one of its major theses; to wit, that human beings are built to walk about rather than to stay put. Not just walking about within a small radius of a fixed place, either. We are designed to travel long distances on foot and to roam in very large territories.

It is only only in the recent past that the sedentary habit has emerged. It contradicts our entire evolutionary history to sit on our bums in a chair all day. These days, shopping seems to be the stand-in for the constant change of scenery inherent in nomadism.

That much said, I love to hike. If I couldn't hike any more, I would probably fall into a deep everlasting depression and think dark, poisoned thoughts until I died. Lucky for me, I can hike.

― Aimless, Saturday, 17 May 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Only in the past couple of years, and now it's pretty bad; went to London for 2 weeks last Winter and then Paris for another 2 weeks on honeymoon a few months later, and now getting on a plane to Europe feels like a necessity every three months. Unfortunately can't afford it; traveling/vacationing too much in too short a time really makes the rest of your life unbearable. NYC in four months though, but I'm afraid we'll go into debt and take off to London and Italy again in the fall. But the spiritual payoff of getting the hell away from home is worth it.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Saturday, 17 May 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

eight years pass...

I must admit I don't understand the concept of leaving work behind entirely, when I go on vacation I take a stack of newspapers and books with me and keep a journal. How do you travel - do you get away from it all or do you integrate it into your career?

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Don Nots (Mount Cleaners), Monday, 3 October 2011 15:10 (fourteen years ago)

I set up an outgoing message on my phone that I'm on vacation, and set up an autoreply on my email. And I leave all that at home.

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 3 October 2011 15:42 (fourteen years ago)

I discard all thoughts of work and all work related or work-like activities like so many used prophylactics.

― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Monday, 3 October 2011 15:58 (fourteen years ago)

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