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This is the place for you to ask your travel questions and share your tips. To search for particular topics, go to categories and choose a relevant topic
The thrill of new people and places? The satisfaction of checking off another travel icon -- whether it be a site, a people, an animal, etc.? Similarly, reaching some goal of countries visited? A chance to relax? To get away from the daily grind? The need to see places/people/animals before they change/disappear forever? The inability to sit still? A little of everything? So I'm a Canadian living in Japan. I've been here off and on for almost 8 years. The first 5 years here I never once made it to Tokyo. Never had the slightest inkling to go. Although I've now been there on multiple occasions (mostly for work), my travels within my temporary homeland are almost always off the tourist trail (for foreigners anyway -- the Japanese are frequent tourists in their own country and they know all the off-the-beaten track locations). I don't speak Japanese, can barely read it, but this is such an easy place to get around it seems a shame NOT to visit what most tourists never have a chance to see. Yet, in planning my upcoming trip to Cambodia (for work), and most probably India (for pleasure), I find myself falling into two kinds of traveller's mentalies. Even though I've been to Cambodia twice before, and have seen how much it has changed (not always for the good), I still want to revisit old places (like the Angkor Wat area) that I've been to before, and have no real interest in exploring new places. Why? Because I'm a photographer and I want a chance to improve (if I can) on what I did before. Yet a part of me thinks I should try somewhere new instead. I suppose I could spend more time in Cambodia, or do some volunteer work somewhere in SE Asia, but there is a big part of me that gets excited by visiting a brand new country, and that's where India fits in (that, and the fact that you can get extremely cheap flights there at the moment). So, for India, even though I've been told to get off the tourist trail for a more pleasant experience, I can't help but think that those are the places that I really want to go to. I suppose the only difference for me is the fact that I plan to spend at least 3-4 days in each place (rather than 1-2, which seems the norm), and in fewer places. So I suppose the tourist in me can check off my famous sites seen, but the traveller (and photographer) in me can relax in knowing that I've given myself some breathing room to explore a little further. Anyway, just curious to see what drives others to choose the places they do.
2 posts | 23 responses
1. An insatiable appetite to discover and explore this wonderful world. So many fantastic places, lovely people, un-touched wildenesses. If we don't go we won't see it! So I go! 2. We all want to escape routine, winters etc.
7 post | 59 responses
You mention cheap flights to India as an incentive to go there. I know it doesn't sound like a very inspiring reason to go anywhere but cost is actually a major factor for me in my choice of where to go – if I can't get there cheaply (and stay there cheaply) then I can't go there. But, that particular constraint aside, my choice is based on my interest in the culture of the place and my curiosity about the geography of the area. But why I'm more interested in some cultures than others is a bit of a mystery to me. I think it is probably true to say that the less I've heard about a place the more curious I am about it. In recent years, since most of my travelling has been with my sons, their preferences have also played a big part in my choice of place.
13 post | 216 responses
The thrill of learning the rudiments of a new language if I'm more than five weeks in a country fuels my travel lust.... Sorry, what was the question?
50 post | 389 responses
Almost anything Steve writes I find myself agreeing with - geography and culture are the big drivers, and cost is not irrelevant. For me a chill in the air is a big off-put, while pleasant warmth by contrast is an attraction. If I go somewhere and like it for whatever reason, I usually want to go back and learn more. And if I've learnt some of the language it seems a shame not to go back and use it before I forget it. But what attracts me in the first place is harder to pin down - the best I've come up with is that anywhere with a culture that ultimately grew out of the Land between the Rivers (such as Crete, Ethiopia, Samarkand, New Zealand) has an appeal that eastern and mesoamerican cultures lack. Does that sound convincing? No, I didn't really think so either!
13 post | 393 responses
Pure curiosity and the determination to prove that the world is not as bad as the media portrays it!
0 post | 1 responses
1. A learning itch which always needs to be scratched. 2. A need to keep opening new doors, rather than settling comfortably behind one.
46 post | 337 responses
1. To meet people from other cultures. To marvel out our differences and celebrate what we have in common. There's no greater feeling than making a connection. 2. To see the world. To see with my own eyes that which has mesmerised me in books and films. To experience for myself what others have raved about. The geography, the architecture, the people, the food, the music, everything and anything is a reason to go. 3. To escape. We all need something so we can escape from our mundane lives and I can't think of a better way than loosing yourself in travel; the planning, the travelling, the reminiscing. Then it all starts all over again.If I'm not travelling, then I'm thinking about where I'm going or where I have been.
1 post | 7 responses
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