The short answer:
Not really.
The long answer:
When I was a kid, my family often used to go on lengthy road trips. I’m not sure why families decide to do this since, inevitably, the father spends most of his time driving, the mother spends most of her time complaining, and the kids spend most of the time asking whether they are there yet. I also find it strange that kids have such an obsession with getting there, for once they are there, they never find it very interesting. I guess it’s all in the journey.
We traveled to a lot of places around the country, and honestly, I don’t remember most of them. The other day, I happened upon two friends of mine who were listing the states that they had visited, but first they had to agree on what counted as visiting. The first rule was that you had to exit the vehicle you used to get there (including an airport if you were on a layover). The second rule was that these family trips didn’t count unless you really remembered them. That seemed like a big restriction, but then again, if I couldn’t tell you what I saw in Wyoming, I may as well not have gone. (By this reasoning, no one’s been to Wyoming.)
Perhaps these road trips have left me a bit jaded, because I don’t really enjoy sightseeing. Do I really care if I never see some given national monument before I die? Not really. I don’t think that on my deathbed, I’ll be wishing that I had seen Mount Rushmore. And that’s one of the good monuments. Most monuments are not nearly as interesting. Take Four Corners, for example. It isn’t a spectacular manmade sculpture, nor a magnificent natural wonder. No, it’s just a small plaque in the ground where people decided to make an arbitrary boundary one day. If they had wanted, they could have made another Four Corners with different states somewhere else—that plaque looked pretty cheap.
Even if I did feel like going somewhere, I’m not sure that I’d ever be motivated enough to overcome the hassle of the trip itself. First you have to suffer through a stuffy plane, train, or automobile ride. Then you have to be prepared to spend a lot of money for food and hotels and such. Then you have to accept the fact that it really wasn’t worth taking the trip in the first place. Then you have to suffer through it all in reverse. I’d much rather just lock myself in a closet for a few hours, burn some money, and then go watch TV.
But some people feel the need just to get away from it all sometimes. They envision basking on a white sandy beach on some tropical isle, sipping a mai tai, and admiring all the “assets” that the island has to offer. But I don’t enjoy beaches (as you may recall, I’m more of a winter person), I don’t drink, and any exotic local I approached would probably just tell me to kiss their asset. Maybe I should envision visiting Alaska instead. It’s a pretty enough place, especially for people immune to cabin fever like me, I’d drink lots of hot cocoa, and I think I could get Inuit.
Perhaps my problem is just that I don’t crave excitement. I can be content to stay inside for an entire weekend, or to keep my curtains closed for days, or to do the same thing day after day. And maybe this is okay sometimes, but I realize that I may be missing out on something. After all, a lot of people enjoy travel, so why can’t I? Maybe all I need is one really good trip, one that isn’t plagued by carsickness and annoying siblings. Maybe my paradise is out there somewhere in the world, and it’s my job to find it. All I know is I’m not there yet.
Cheers,
-qm
