Travel Quirks

As a lifetime traveler I've developed a few quirks that makes it easier for me to travel on my own from time to time. It's not that I don't enjoy sharing a trip with others. I quite enjoy it, in fact, and I think I'm pretty easy to travel with in general. But when I'm going about things in my own way, I have my particular tendencies that don't exactly play well with others.

Lodging: This is as much a quirk of age as anything else, but I don't really like to go too cheaply with where I'm staying. It's an acquired taste, of course, for in my youth I was content to stay anywhere. I even slept on picnic tables back in the day. Now, however, I have certain standards. No hostels for me. I like internet access. I like a place that has been reviewed so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect. En suite bathrooms. Most of all, though, I want something that's at least near to where the action is. If I can't walk out of my hotel and into an area I'm interested in, its not to my full satisfaction. I'm willing to pay more for the walkability, which sounds strange when you consider how much I love to drive, but that's why this post is about quirks.

Food: When I'm traveling I love to experience the local cuisine. This is within reason, however. As a child I had a very limited palate. It's improved as I've gotten older but there are still unfortunate limitations. I prefer that whatever I'm eating comes from land rather than water, for example. I also prefer for the most part that it was breathing once upon a time. My appreciation for plant-life is almost as limited as that for sea. There are a few exceptions to that rule but by and large they're exceptions.

This doesn't mean that I don't experiment, however. One time in this lovely little town on the Atlantic coast of France, I ordered something that I thought would involve beef that turned out to be a fish. It was, fortunately, a filet of fish of some kind, and there weren't any anatomical features to specifically identify it but there was no question that it once lived in the ocean. I ate the whole thing and I even rather enjoyed it. It was unique and I appreciated it for the quality of the unexpected.

None of that is the quirky, part, however. This is: As much as I love to eat (and I really mean that) and as much as I look forward to the cuisine on any given trip, I never get to eat as much as I want. When I travel on my own, I usually only eat one main meal a day. Often I don't even do that, merely sampling various wares as I walk. This isn't my preference: I always dream of a nice breakfast at the hotel, a quick bite to eat for lunch, and an excellent restaurant for dinner. The problem is, I can't actually handle that much food. Generally speaking, if I eat one regular sized meal I can't eat much more than tidbits for the next 20+ hours. If I do eat more (and I often do when traveling with others) I always suffer for it. Sleeplessness, extreme discomfort, indigestion...I pay for it every time. This is something I would change if I could.

Activities: I alluded to this earlier, but when I've gone to a new town or city my favorite thing to do is to walk in it. This can sometimes be difficult: walking in Los Angeles, for example, isn't going to get you a lot outside of Hollywood Blvd and even that isn't exactly recommended too much. This could be part of why I love Europe so much. Most cities in Europe are imminently walkable. And if you get tired of a particular part of any given city, it's a piece of cake to hop on a train and go to another interesting section. I love it. I'd rather just spend the day walking around than hanging out in a museum, or a book store, or a show, or any of the hundreds of things people tend to do when they're traveling to interesting cities.

This is not to say that I don't go to museums or landmarks and enjoy them. I do. But my favorite part of those experiences are usually walking there. For example, I once spent six hours in Rome, my only trip to that amazing city so far. I saw Vatican City, the SIstine Chapel, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum and the Coliseum. And believe me, I loved every minute of my time there. I've wanted to go back ever since. The favorite part for me, however, was walking through the Roman Forum. It combined the best of everything: walking through the city (ancient ruins at that), steeped in history and never having to stand around or sit. Fabulous.

Go: Finally, when I'm traveling I want to spend as much time doing exactly that. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to go to a place and lounge around. I've been developing the sort of patience to do that and am much better about it than I used to be, but it's still a work in progress. For example, a lot of people like to go to beach. Generally, that involves lying around in the sun. Which is fun, as is swimming, but to me that's an activity for a couple of hours. It's not something that I particularly want to devote an entire vacation to.

When it's up to me, I travel to a place, walk around in it for a while, eat, sleep and then move on. Sometimes I skip the sleep part and just move on right away. Last year my trip to Europe involved seven countries in 9 days. In that time I visited ten cities. That was exactly how I liked it. If anything, I think I might have better enjoyed moving around a bit more and spending a little less time in a couple of the places I visited. I could have easily gotten another two countries and two or three cities.

One of my other favorite trips in the last few years is when I flew out to California and drove more than 2600 miles in ten days, spanning large chunks of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. That time I didn't walk anywhere as much as I drove but I still loved every minute of it. There was always something else to see, somewhere else to visit or drive through. Another fond trip was the three days I spend driving around Texas with a brief jaunt into Oklahoma.

Out of context, I can see how this particular quirk of mine seems insane. I think it makes a fair amount of sense given everything else I've already mentioned but it's still a quirk. I haven't ever really met anyone who could keep up with me so when I travel with others it's a totally different experience. Still, left to my own devices, that's how I am. I'm all about the traveling and considerably less about the destination.