on travel
i love travel. i love the idea of travel. i love the act of traveling. i love planning to travel. i love writing about travel. (this phrasing sounds vaguely reminds me of a typical hinge profile - “give me some travel tips on [insert japan/tawian/southeast asian countries/ etc.]” lol) there so much to be extracted from traveling. with endless possibilities and variations with their own unique benefits and detractions, each trip is not the same. some say traveling with a significant other or friends reveals how strong relationships are. i believe it boils down to travel style.
my parents love to travel. some of my fondest memories are abroad: sleeping in the back of a rental car surrounded by the swiss mountains, trying to find a restaurant on christmas in paris, snorkeling amongst penguins and turtles in the galapagos. (i’ll contend the true the cost of travel in a later entry). i’m fortunate enough to have such an encouraging set of parents who have instilled into me the pleasures of travel. so many of my countrymen have not even left the country only traveling between the east and west coasts. and while i do admit the united states has a plethora of diverse regions, with differences in some states mirroring the differences in some european countries, i do find it rewarding to specifically travel to international areas, experiencing their culture, cuisine, and way of life. having explored over 20 countries, i can confidently say my eyes are a bit wider. thank you mom and dad.
my parents are very hands on and diy. despite our constant bickering and differences, we all agree that the worst experience we’ve had was our carnival cruise to the bahamas - mundane activities, banal food, excessive pricing. from a young age, my parents have meticulously mapped out every single facet of a trip: my dad responsible for rental cars, parking, points of interests; my mom responsible for food, airfare, housing. we almost never do tours unless another family joins us. when we visited italy, i got so use to rick steve’s voice that i still immediately think of his voice every time i think about the colosseum despite having taken over 4 years of latin after the trip. when we visited spain, i was expected to use my 6th grade 1st year spanish to learn the history and translate phrases back to english and chinese. everything we did was at a breakneck speed, my dad somehow managing to fit 30 hours into 1 day. everytime we look up some guide online “how to travel x country in 7 days”, my dad simply scoffs at says we can do it in 5. in my family, travel is not relaxing, sitting on the beach for hours, lazily wondering through tourists traps. travel is a strenuous activity that is a full family effort. travel is executing a scrupulously crafted plan filled with backups. travel is getting to say you visited a place through pictures - clear and indisputable evidence to flex on social media. there is no time to relax during the day unless its in the back of the car.
my friends by comparison are so much more laissez faire. for an upcoming puerto rico trip (a reattempt of a college spring break that got canceled due to covid) in a few months, all we had booked were flights. having asked to call a meeting to discuss some other major details (where to live? if we needed a car for the 7 of us? etc.), one of our friends unironically asked what we needed to talk about: “its just housing right?”. -______- my brain could not comprehend this. im truly thankful for all my friends, and so if any of y’all see this i dont want no ops. yet i can confidently say that some of them despite being having the same sense of humor, interests, etc. have completely different travel styles. last year in an european trip one wanted to sit on a beach for 6 hours, another wanted to rent atvs and spend 6 hours exploring ruins. i guess i fall somewhere in between? it is not that i hate the concept of sitting down and relaxing. it is that i’d rather be doing that at a uniquely greek place for instance. its not that i hate the idea of constantly doing something. it is that i’d also rather be immersing myself in the local culture. my favorite memories of traveling have been a mixture of rigid planning + high intensity traveling and loose planning + low intensity activities: having some sort of plan and preordained set of interests while having the flexibility to take the time and relax amongst the local scene. as much as i remember being awestruck by the acropolis, i equally remember wandering around to some local cafe talking to the waiter about the greek obsession with nestle and how that devolved to a drink called the freddo.
somehow both approaches have affected my daily life away from travel. i have my parents’ mindset. before i meet up with people, i always look where free parking is, how to take local transport, where to get food and drinks. when my friends ask to hangout, i mentally have a list of potential backups for whatever reason if 1A doesn’t work out. my google maps is filled with places of interest, partly because they are recommendations i found through friends and online but also partly so i’m always prepared. i also have (some of ) my friends’ mindset. during our hangouts, i see how we’re feeling and make game time decisions. last weekend, a simple coffee hangout became furniture shopping and ultimately ended up as a mini chinatown food crawl.
what travel style are you?
be good,
simple