For those who travel often, do you find yourself struggling with the choice between returning to the places you already love, and getting to know them better, or going places you’ve never been before? I find that, more and more, we do the former. I love exploring new places, but after I’ve allocated time to all the trips we do every year, and which I’d hate to miss, I don’t find there’s many days left. We do try and include a new place each year, but the trouble is that, if it turns out we love a new place, then it goes on the list of places we need to go every year! If I had unlimited vacation time, I’m sure I would do both.
There’s much to recommend both ends of the spectrum, as well as a good mix. Curious to hear if others face this same dilemma and how you approach it.
I don’t know how many years of travel I have left in me so we are in full explore mode. With the exception of returning to Costa Rica about every other year to introduce friends to the country, we are always going someplace new.
Sometimes new means we cruise and visit many ports. This month we start out in Cape Town for a few days, sail to 2 ports Namibia, St. Helena, 6 in Brazil, 2 in Uruguay, and disembark in Buenos Aires. We will spend 3 weeks in Argentina which will include visits to Mendoza for obvious reasons and Iguazu Falls because it is so special. Some people eschew traveling like this but we find it fascinating. There are not enough days in the calendar to go everywhere and spend a week or so.
Sometimes we make land based trips like a recent trip to Burgundy and a family get together in Cancun.
Big world. Too many fascinating places to see and people to meet to keep going back to the same places.
It isn’t so much a dilemma as it is a matter of personal preference. Whatever you do, immerse yourself, learn, and enjoy.
Your pardon, but it is indeed a dilemma if you want to do both and don’t have enough time to do both. The definition: “a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.” In this case, which to give up, as giving up either is equally undesirable.
I know both choices are equally valid, I’m just curious how other people weigh the options, and what makes them decide one way or another.
Do both. We’ll plan trips to somewhere new, but try and stop by a place we hold dear. A recent example was our trip to the Amalfi Coast which was new, but we spent time in Rome, which we love.
Sarah
I do understand the conundrum. My intuition is probably to explore, but there are some places which we enjoy so much that it’s foolish not to return, and others where we feel we’ve scratched the surface and want to explore a little more.
Indeed that is often the aim of day trips away from the ‘base’ location, as sometimes (e.g. Trento from Lago Molveno) a single day makes such a positive impression that a return trip for longer is an easy choice.
I always try to ensure the Italian holidays have a balance, not just of city vs. country, but also that they span the return or explore spectrum. E.g. our previous holiday to Italy was:
Explore: Bubbio, a charmingly understated small town, chosen off the back of a lovely walk in the nearby hills around Castino
Return/Explore: Serralunga d’Alba - a Barolo village we’d not visited, but we’ve visited other Langhe villages before
Return: Torino. Our 10th visit now, and an excuse to pack an extra hold bag for the return flight, filled with lots of food & wine goodies
The prior trip was more explore, with Molveno and Verona being brand new experiences, but we started in Bologna which is familiar ground.
It seems to be a happy formula for us, and starting or finishing with the familiar has worked either way.
I’m not sure why people are dismissive of the dilemma, Sarah. I feel exactly the same way. My wife and I love to travel more than just about anything else we do together. But we have two small children, so we are generally limited to 2-3 trips a year (mostly less than a week), which we do without them (the benefits of living near family). Its hard to do an international, multi-stop trip in that time frame.
Regarding how we choose between return or explore, we are currently focusing almost entirely on exploring. We try to go on at least one international trip a year. To us, it feels like we have a limited window of time to go on slightly more adventurous and/or adult oriented trips, and we are approaching this period of our lives as a time to discover new places that we’d like to return to someday at a slower pace.
Once our boys are a bit older, we’re going to want to travel with them. We’ll probably tend to go places that we’ve been before when we travel as a family, at least initially, for a lot of reasons. That phase will probably last awhile; I doubt we’ll do a big international exploring trip with our kids until they are teenagers. But I expect we’ll gradually transition to exploring as a family once our kids are old enough to hang and appreciate it with us while starting to “return” when we travel sans kids.
Assuming we’re in a position to travel after our kids are out of the house, we’ll probably try to do a mix, but that’s far enough away that I’m just speculating now.
I think you’re at a different stage of life from us. So I doubt our particular thought process is that relevant. But I completely resonate with your struggle.
I go through phases. A lot of times those phases are three or more years, so it may seem like I am a creature of habit, but really it takes a few trips to see and do everything. And, to really decide how much one likes a place. When I had way more free time for vacations (both personal and professional) I was way more interested in exploring. Now am I very dialed in to where I want to go.
My more recent holidays have been a mix of old and new and I have found that I enjoy slipping into somewhere familiar after seeing somewhere new. I tend to take less frequent, but longer holidays and this is because flights tend to be really expensive for me, so I get more value out of the flight if I go for longer periods. If I am going to Europe, it is fairly easy for me to stop off in Asia on the way there or back as we almost always have to change planes somewhere in Asia anyway.
Thanks for your thoughts, Jay. Similar to ours. I don’t think we’re at such a different stage, just a different situation. My husband has a six year old son, whom we have about 1/3 of the time. We miss him and wish we could have him more, but it does leave us with more flexibility when he is with his mother.
It is definitely a dilemma. I think a lot of the decisions are financially driven. We used to take 3-4 significant trips per year. Now that college tuition is a reality that has decreased. Domestic travel doesn’t really excite me too much anymore. Taking short trips here or there seems to be the norm. International travel - there are just too many places, like others have said, to repeat. (outside of Paris ). We do tend to go to the Caribbean pretty often as we dive but I do spread the locations around a little. We have stayed in the same house in Mexico three times but that had a lot to do with the couple that took care of us while we were there.
Overall going to the same place is easier and more relaxing/comfortable as you know what to expect, know where to eat etc. However, going to that new country, stepping off the plane knowing all there is to explore is a thrill that is hard to beat.
Sorry for assuming otherwise. Have you given much thought to when your step-son might start traveling with you? Obviously, if there are custody/cooperation/trust issues with his mother that creates additional considerations, but purely in terms of the pros and cons of traveling with kids and how to do it, I’m always curious how others approach the issue.
No worries - the way we travel, I can see how one might get that impression.
We do think about when we might start taking Oscar with us, and his mom won’t be a problem about it, thank goodness. He’s already been a number of places with his parents when he was quite small and they were still married. I know he doesn’t remember going to Japan at age 6 months, but he does know that he’s been there. I think it adds to a child’s sense of self, knowing they have been to far away places, and helps make the world’s diversity seem more real. I’d like to think it adds to confidence as well. So many American’s still think traveling abroad is a huge undertaking, I’d like Oscar to grow up knowing it’s something that not only Sarah and Dad do, but something he does, too.
That said, it’s a MUCH bigger PITA to travel with a child, as you well know, and the itinerary would necessarily be a lot different. Cost, too. We’re wrestling with the question. I want to travel with him, and expose him to new things, but I also feel somewhat protective of the flexible, fast, food/drink oriented way we travel now. I think a lot will depend on the next couple of years and how we see his interests, maturity and attention span develop, as well as his comfort with his dual family situation (his dad and I have only been married a year and a half) before we take the plunge on a longer, farther trip.
My apologies Sarah. I should have qualified my dilemma statement from my own personal perspective. It is not a dilemma for us and I think I explained why and how we make our decisions in my full response. My wife and I are retired, our children are grown, and our parents are deceased. We do not have to consider anything but the budget in planning our travel and we choose to explore rather than return to a “second” home on our vacations. Quite frankly though, even when we were traveling with children, we chose to introduce them to the world so they saw many places over the years. It was part of their education and ours as well.
I like to visit new places. I like the sense of adventure. It is more tedious planning for completely new versus going back to somewhere you know already though.
I like new places. My wife likes to return to old favorites. Hard to argue with her that Paris or Amalfi Coast are excellent destinations. We do some of both.
The constraint now is two young kids at home – which makes it impossible right now to do the sort of travel we used to do.
Nice post Sarah. I definitely feel the dilemma as well. We love travelling and I really enjoy the research/planning aspect. I also can attest to the difference in travelling as a couple vs. travelling with kids. Our two (boys, aged 10 & 12) have been to Europe several times (France twice, Spain once and the oldest to Italy when he was 10 months). I think they appreciate being able to travel and I feel good about exposing them to the wider world. It is a great way to have experiences that feel unique and that we experienced together- that is the best part. Having said that, the experience is completely different when they are with us. There is a great deal less spontaneity, especially when it comes to meals.
We haven’t been to S. America and are hoping to schlep to Peru/Ecuador for our next big family trip, probably in 2017. The wife and I are taking our first post-kid solo trip that is longer than a weekend next Spring- Vietnam for two weeks.
I certainly feel that dilemma as well. Our “kids” are grown and we are retired. This really allows us a lot more freedom than we had in the past. As of now, we tend more to new destinations. Todd, we must be related as we just returned from Ecuador/Peru and it was our first time in South America and our next plan is Vietnam/ SE Asia.
I guess to answer Sarah’s question it is a combination of time, finances, and age that govern our choices. When we were working, we naturally had far less time to travel. Now, at a different stage of life, we try to get out as much as possible. Another thought is health and fitness. After returning from the Galapagos and Machu Picchu, we realized that this is an “expedition” that needed to be done before we got much older as it was fairly strenuous. On the other hand, returning to a favorite place such as Rome, is far easier and can be done at a later age. As a few older friends have told us…“Do it while you still can.”
We explore, explore, and explore. The idea is get in as much as possible while we can handle the pace of never really more than 2-3 nights in the same hotel/city. We also like to drive and the less traveled path yields the best memories. Some day, when I’m tired of getting lost, then we’ll revisit our favorites and take friends with us.
I have two very close friends that return to the same place every year. That’s what they enjoy.
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). We do tend to go to the Caribbean pretty often as we dive but I do spread the locations around a little. We have stayed in the same house in Mexico three times but that had a lot to do with the couple that took care of us while we were there.