Why I Don't Like to Travel

     I think I'm feeling a little dyspeptic and curmudgeonly today, in part because I've been looking at expedia, homeaway and other travel sites. Also, this post is at least partly in response to my friend Meryl Baer's post called Top Ten Reasons I Travel. And so I hope this is taken with the tongue-in-cheek spirit in which it's intended.

     Besides, it's not that I hate traveling, detest vacations, or am afraid to be away from home. I say, if you want to travel, go right ahead! It's just that, sometimes, I get the feeling that if you're retired, and you don't travel, then people think you're not making the most of your retirement, and you're somehow letting everyone down.

Are we having fun yet?

     Now, I admit that I've been going to Florida, or else Arizona or southern California, every year since I left work in 2002. But the motivation behind that is not the search for adventure, but the search for warmth, the need to escape cold, snowy weather. I simply want to stop shivering for a couple of weeks.

     B and I have also taken some vacations that require a few hours of driving -- to Cape Cod, western New York, South Carolina. We've made many trips to Pennsylvania where B has family. But I do it . . . not reluctantly, really, but I do it hesitantly, because . . . well, because I don't really like to travel.

     Why not? Here are my Top 10 reasons:

     1)  I don't like to drive. I mean, I don't mind driving around town, but the prospect of a three or four or five hour drive leaves me with a feeling of dread. Driving is so boring, as you stare for hours at the unending and unvarying ribbon of road ahead of you, only punctuated by the drug-addled truck driver who lumbers uphill at 40 mph, then careens downhill at 80 mph (and you know his brakes don't work!), or else the occasional crazy NASCAR wannabe who suddenly jumps into your rear-view mirror, then tailgates for ten minutes before lurching around and shooting ahead, usually without so much as the use of his or her direction signal.

    2)  I hate flying even more. The long, traffic-choked trip to the airport; the police-state atmosphere of the airport terminal. And then . . . they pack you into this aluminum tube and jettison you off into the skies, whether it's dark or raining or snowing, no matter what. And that's before air turbulence sets in and the wings start flapping up and down!

     3) I do not like walking around and looking at things -- like a museum, a park, a "picturesque" neighborhood. Or, why-oh-why do we always at some point when we're on vacation, end up in a mall?

     4) We have friends who've been trying to get us to go on a cruise. See # 2) above, except you're trapped on a big smelly boat, not in a claustrophobic cylindrical tube, and you're not breathlessly waiting for the air pocket portending sudden death, but that first lurch in your stomach signaling a major episode of food poisoning and the subsequent violent emission of bodily fluids.

     5) Then you get to your hotel. I don't stay in the presidential suite of a five-star hotel. I'm in one smallish room that smells of disinfectants, with two big beds and barely enough room to turn around. It's simply not as comfortable as my bedroom at home.

Which one is mine?

     6)  Along the same lines, a lot of things you do when you travel are exactly the same things you do when you're at home! You eat; you sleep; you go for a walk; you sit on a lounge chair and read a book. Why is reading a book on a hot sandy beach, slathered in creams and oils, while still exposing yourself to skin cancer, any better than sitting at home and reading a book in the comfort of your own well-worn easy chair? Then there's golf. I like to play golf. I have my usual group at home, and we play at any one of about a dozen perfectly good public courses available to us within a half-hour drive. You go on vacation, you end up with a bunch of strangers on a golf course that's too difficult, too unfamiliar, too frustrating . . . and to add insult to injury, it's too expensive!

     7) You inevitably get lost.

     8) I don't like being a "tourist." I don't know what I'm doing. So it makes me feel like a "mark."

     9) The alternative is the packaged tour. And that makes me feel like a "customer" who's buying a standardized "product" . . . and the person who's smiling at me is smiling only because they're angling for a generous tip.

     10) A lot of places you go -- especially if you go too far -- they don't even speak English! What are you supposed to do then?!?

     Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to expedia and homeaway and figure out what I'm going to do this winter. Florida, or Arizona? I gotta book a flight, and find a place to stay, and figure out what I'm going to do. Hey . . . I said I didn't like it. I didn't say I don't do it!