Both my wife and I do not like spending too long at a resort. We like to look at cities, explore and try to understand different cultures. Our choice on a very belated honey moon was to spend two weeks in London, walk the Camino from France to Finisterre , then a quick few days in each of various Spanish cities, a month in Manchester, and back home.

The walk across northern Spain combined a lot, celebration of life (my wife received a clean bill of health after taking some very nasty medications - we got the news while in London), sight seeing, understanding history, experiencing history, understanding culture, an attempt at reconciling myself with Christianity, spiritual growth, philosophy, and so on. I have read books on the nature of cities, and I found myself studying what I was seeing. Did it fit what I had read? How does my own participation in the Camino fit into the pattern/dance of city life and existence? Also we talked about how one could work and live in the villages, towns and cities along the Camino, how people did things a thousand years ago, and the real differences between Canada and Spain - attitudes that run deep - into the nature of what is family. As well there was a certain ugly mystery that coted Spain almost like a fog (a plaque here, a memorial there, a street sign, a prison...) - the Spanish Civil War - and reflections of the same type of  silence of the embarrassing past with the cruceiro for the Spanish Armada in its rather poor repaired state in the middle of nowhere attesting to the same silence from a different time. This caused me to reflect on Canada and our own attempts at hiding the past and myself and what do I hide from myself? In some ways the differences of Spain helped to form new ideas about cities at home. Either rightly or wrongly, I think I have a bit of a feel for part of what is Spain and where did it come from. I don't feel like I came and saw a few things and that's it.

We spent about 5 days in Barcelona. We tried to do three museums a day. In five days I was burned out. What I really learned from 5 days in Barcelona was that you can not understand much about Barcelona in 5 days.

We spent a month in Manchester visiting my father-in-law's ex boyfriend. We rented an apartment. It was quite different from the Barcelona experience. I was not so overwhelmed. I enjoyed going to all the various museums - taking day trips to the surrounding cities and attending the local Quaker meetings. The ability to connect with a person and a community really improved the experience. I felt like I left with at least a limited feel for the city.

I concluded that to really understand somewhere, a month is not enough. A year maybe. I really wanted to go home at the end of 4 months. I am not really happy about the city I live so I guess I don't make that type of connection.

We did not watch any television that I can think of, outside of stuff in bars. I don't feel like there was time. We were doing too much.

Hope this covers what you are looking for.

_{aspiring to genteel poverty}

So generally holidays will be spent with other people. Persuading them to have beers they never intended and visiting places I never imagined.

I can't imagine going to a resort, or even sight-seeing because that would be on my own and I don't go there.

keep to the Fen Causeway

In short trips, I favor the local café over the museums... Much more chances to meet someone who'll show you things you wouldn't have seen otherwise...

A leftover of some of my urban studies in difficult districts. You just sit in a café and write, and drink, and write, and... Then you start all over again the next day... At some point, someone will ask what the hell you're doing here... You get him a drink and discuss, some other friend of his will also want a drink, etc...

After a few days you have access  to parts of the city you wouldn't ever have dreamt to see... And you have a much better viewpoint on the local problems (Meet my grandmother, my son in law, etc...)!

On longer holidays, it's about the same technique, this time with choosing the same spot for several years... Things get easier when you know most of the people, and when they get you drinks this time :-)

Of course it's quite demanding on your liver...!

"What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman

Then I spend 12 years in college and grad school, and never took a vacation or holiday of any sort.  I studied, and did nothing else.

Since quitting grad school, I've traveled quite a bit more.  Most obviously, I live in Japan now, and have for the past three and a half years.  Aside from that, I've spent two weeks in the UK (Orkney, Inverness, and Cambridge), three weeks in China (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shaoxing, Putuo Shan), and a month in Thailand (Chiang Mai, studying).

All of my trips have been solitary.  My friends have always been off doing other things, and I am always single.  I also don't meet people when I'm traveling, for a variety of reasons.  However, I find that when I'm by myself, I have dead-on intuition for finding interesting things to do, but that if I'm with people, I'm too worried about leading them down a blind alley to exercise my talents appropriate. When I'm traveling,  I don't really like to plan much of anything - I'll go there, and figure out what I want to do there, and often times I just end up walking in an expanding circle for hours at a time, seeing random stuff.  This is fun.  The resort thing seems pointless, both because they are quiet and boring, and because they tend to be in sunny places that don't agree with me so much.  I don't tan, and have weak eyes.

The UK trip was a lot of fun.  I was energetic, and did a ton of random sightseeing.  I don't really care if I don't know so much about the area, I just like going to new places and seeing stuff.  The first week was Scotland.  My main goal was to get up to the Orkneys and see Skara Brae, for silly personal reasons, so I did that, then spent some time in Inverness and saw some stuff.  I had nearly a week of sunny weather in Scotland, which people have told me is a sure sign of divine favor.  The second week was in Cambridge, where I stayed with a friend doing his doctorate in philosophy, and saw the cathedral at Ely.  This was a good trip.

The China trip was hard.  I did solid sightseeing in all the appropriate parts of the places I visited, but found that I was really suffering from a lack of energy.  I read a lot in coffee shops.  Being in China by myself, not speaking Chinese at all, was really hard, and it just drained me.   That, and spending most of every day walking. I'd been planning a more ambitious trip, but found I just didn't have the energy to arrange anything.  About halfway in, I got sick, fought the illness off, and then suffered a resurgence shortly before I was supposed to return, and spent my last day in Shanghai in the hospital.  Blarg.  That trip nearly burned me on travel, not because I didn't enjoy some things, but just because it was so hard.

More later.  Gotta go to work.

Like Zwackus, I can't relate.

For me, travel is above all about seeing places.

I do notice that for many people, travel is about getting from point A to point B, and then have experiences of whatever kind (people/fun/food/culture/places) at point B. But for me, seeing places goes as far that the actual journey (getting from A to B) is the highlight. One of the reasons I won't drive cars and prefer trains: I would have to watch the road instead of the landscape. But this can get me into trouble if I travel with other people, or if my co-passengers are of the type for whom travel is about talking to strangers :-)

As can be surmised, the concept of travel to relax is alien to me, and I don't like the false tranquility of resorts either. I also don't like pre-arranged group travels: when I travel, whether alone or with friends/family, it's usually me who does some organising: and that doesn't just mean hotels/camping places, but seeking out routes and interesting sights along the way and at stops. (I guess I differ in that from Zwackus: I usually know in advance what's to see.) Oh, and a good map is always a necessity.

A special thing about travel is the languages spoken around me. Not understanding a word can be fun, creating a strange detachment allowing observation from outside, but everyday use of languages one normally only reads or sees on TV is also fun.

Without getting too personal or mawkishly sentimental, has life fulfilled your youthful dreams, was it ever meant to, were they not supposed to be hopelessly unrealistic, and all the more fun for that, or have you had to taper your expectations rapidly downwards in order to make emotional ends meet, so that you border on the cynical when you see today's younger generation indulge in something of the same?

Well, being the flaming leftie and the career changer, I of course (1) am way short on fulfilled dreams, (2) tapered my expectations to stay sane (OK that's debatable), (3) didn't taper the dreams themselves...

I must admit I do react with cynism to youthful enthusiasm (and also fear that that enthusiasm could turn into a negative once confronted with reality).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

This method allows us to get a feel for the "civilized" urban part of the country of interest, including visits to museums, cultural features, nice restaurants, shopping, etc., but then when that gets boring we're off to a rural area. It's impossible to "see" an entire country on a brief trip, but this method allows us to try to get two weeks worth of familiarity with one small part of the country. You can learn quite a bit about a farming town in a couple of weeks.