the world that you see

[cris]

Melbourne, Australia is fond of their rooftop bars as they are proud of their weather. A place that is generally pleasant all year-round needs open air spaces that let you sip a glass of wine outside as the aura of the city envelops you. I was sitting at a tapas bar with a coworker, two days into a work gig and the space between us was littered

Comments

[lilmissnever]

I am moving in the opposite direction. After years of being unable to travel because I was a starving student, followed by years of being unable to travel because I was a starving bottom-rung employee at a non-profit, I have money to burn and a job that often requires me to travel to exotic locales.

I am increasingly familiar with the vagaries of business travel, in which you live out of a suitcase and all cities kind of blur together because you never have an opportunity to really experience them. But I also try to make sure that every once in a while I spend a week or two somewhere and try to really understand what makes a place tick. When choosing between the familiar and the new for my travel, I definitely prioritize the new. There will be time to go back to my favorite places eventually, but the prospect of discovering a new favorite place is especially exciting.

[cris]

your thing about learning how a place ticks reminds me of one time I was in Hawaii ... I had been out there working for three weeks and had been invited to a beach cookout by client coworkers. One of the guys asked, "so, you get tired of hearing hula music everywhere

[ayun]

Too many places to go, always. Too many places I haven't seen, too many I want to see again.

And the decisions are so crazy! Right now I'm weighing a surf camp in Costa Rica against visiting China 'cause a friend's living there and, you know, sometimes those friends move back home way more suddenly than you expect. Trying to actually weigh the pros and cons of those two possibilities seems like the most pointless effort ever.

[cris]

yeah, a trip to Hong Kong to see old friends has been on my "WANNA GO" list for a while. But, I'm also thinking that if the coin falls on the "no international travel" side then I might want to get as much Canada time in as possible -- and that's anything from bike touring on Cape Breton, or just getting some quality time in on Vancouver, or seeing more of Quebec than just Montreal.

If the coin falls on the "no domestic travel" side, I might still just say "fuck it" and go overseas anyway. There aren't a lot of places around here that I couldn't see on a long weekend if I planned for it properly.

Choices, choices.

[ayun]

Yeah, I keep back a week or so of vacation time to spend on long domestic weekends and stuff like ATP. There aren't many places left in the states that I'd give more than a day or two of vacation time (though I'd love to spend, say, a month working from another city - doing that in PDX and SFO worked surprisingly well.)

Should I keep you in the loop on China (I'm like 70% sold on that)? You know Erika, right?

[cris]

re: china

YES. Also yes on knowing erika.

If we go to Hong Kong, I can totally introduce you to my friend A. who is like Maggie Cheung As A Rugby Groupie and can sate any curiosity you may have of Cris As A Young Jock,

[atalanta]

S and I were just talking about travel last night - just as we started to have enough income to travel, my job demanded working constantly and then we had a kid. So we were both regretting not traveling more when we were younger - but it's not like we could have afforded it anyway; it wasn't really an option. So I guess it'll have to be when kids are bigger.

[cris]

how old do you think you'd want your kid to be before you take her abroad?

[atalanta]

Well, hard to say. Vacations now are not really vacations at all for us (the parents). So there is no point in taking her until it can be an enjoyable vacation for at least _someone_. Once it's possible to have an extended time away from home that's pleasant rather than fraught with peril, maybe! I don't know when that happens - maybe 3? But at that point we might have kid #2 who would then be a small infant (hypothetically for now, but that is the general plan), making travel even less fun.

I think it'll be most enjoyable when kids are old enough to understand something about different places, and to maybe read books before the trip that put the different places in context - maybe 5ish?

[cris]

one of the entries that I will probably never get around to composing is how I had a lot of fun in Australia with virtually zero prior research. Like, I didn't even really know where Melbourne was on a map until three days before I left.

Everything I did was made up based on using mobile internet apps and travel guides; and just played totally by ear. It's probably only something that will work in certain countries with the necessary infrastructure to support English language mobile web apps, but that's starting to get more and more common nowadays.

[spitcurl]

I spent my 20s traveling to cities (Remember those handy geocities gothic web rings, full of dark city travel tips?). By the time I could afford overseas travel, I was done rushing around, and wanted to slow down and absorb more, so I tend to focus more on small towns and villages, so I can pretend I live there for a few days...but I still think I try to cram too many places and things in, and want to figure out how to slow down and relax even more.

Northern Argentina/Uruguay was a stark reminder to sloooooow down even more, and find even calmer, smaller, quieter places to visit. I liked the cities well enough, but I was at home in the small towns/middle of nowhere.

Cities are great now for short bursts of travel, like a long weekend getaway. I wish I could spend a month or longer in one place. Even when I can swing 2-3 weeks, it feels like trying to do too much in too little time.

Traveling across Canada on motorcycles (or Argentina) would make for an epic Slow-Travel trip.