Travel musings prompted by altfriday5

[bolson]

1. How do you feel about travel? Like it, love it, hate it? Wish you did more or less or neither? Do you have wanderlust? Are you a homebody?
Hate it. Getting there is none of the fun. There are a few places I would like to be sometimes (mostly cons and other like-minded-people gatherings) but if I have to go far away that significantly decreases my chances of going. Air travel sucks. Trains are horribly slow. Busses are kinda sketchy (though I hear there are good ones between here and NYC, if I ever want to go there).

2. What's the furthest you've ever been from home (whatever that means to you) in terms of physical distance? How about culturally?
Physically, I've been a continental-united-states-width away. Visiting Boston while I lived in Santa Barbara, CA.
Culturally, I haven't been outside the US since I was very young, so aside from occasional chinatowns I'll have to count visiting Texas as my biggest cultural shift.

3. Are there places you'd like to go but haven't? What's appealing about them?
I want to visit Japan. I've long wanted to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August for their bombing commemoration ceremonies so that I can see the other side of the town history I grew up with in Los Alamos, NM.

4. Are there places you return to? Are there places you return to because you want to?
There used to be hikes I would do regularly or camps I would go to annually, but I don't think I have these things now.
Oh, but now I do have CMU's Spring Carnival. I've been back to that for the last 4 years, and I'm planning it again this April.

5. Travel is often associated with things like self-discovery and identity formation. Does it work this way for you? Why or why not?
It depends on what's on the other end. Hmm, I'm looking at 'travel' in all these cases as a means to getting to someplace interesting to be in or experience. I've never done 'the great american roadtrip' to just go and see things. I never had anyone to go with or a right time to go. Maybe a little part of me feels I'm missing out on this and rationalizing missing it by deciding I wouldn't like it anyhow. All that annoying driving and paying for gas and motels and tourist traps. Bah, Humbug!

Comments

[orelalaith.livejournal.com]

scarily enough (note: born and raised new yorker, chinatown in some incarnation for the most part), I felt more of a cultural shock going to Nebraska than Shanghai, Bejing, or Tokyo.

Seriously... there is a certain... I dunno, similarity between big cities that are a center of trade. admittedly... for the first two, I wandered around a lot more, and found pockets of... well, third world; which were very different.

I *love* travel... planes feel comfy and put me to sleep :)

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

trains ARE slow, but part of train travel is the journey, the process. if you want to Get There Fast, take a plane.

i've met wonderful people on the train, and i love seeing the land i cover, the space between where i live and where i'm going. i love seeing the sun rise and set over the landscapes.

i've gone cross country on a train, and i'd do it again. it's slow, and sometimes flights are cheaper, but i'd far rather take 3 days, hear people's stories, tell my own, and read books on a train than be hassled by security guards and crammed into an uncomfortable plane seat.

also: train stations tend to be in the middle of the city, so when you have a several-hour layover you can wander to a park, or a restaurant, or a museum and not just sit in a fucking airport.

[flexagon]

"Wherever you go, there you are."

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

I have been...advised...under no uncertain conditions that going to one of the commemoration ceremonies is Not Done. As in, can be very much unsafe for Americans, particularly those who are obviously not Japanese - which you, with your fair skin and curly red hair, would most certainly be. While in general, it is talked about as 'the bombs that fell' rather than the US bombing, there is still a great deal of anger under the surface that can come up, particularly at the time of the commemorations or the dates of the bombings.