So, why DO you travel?

I guess some people like traveling more than others but I find it so hard to understand how anyone could have no desire to venture out of their home country ever!? even just for a week. A friend of mine is like that and I cant comprehend it at all.

For me its a combination of all the things previously mentioned seeing new places, getting out of your comfort zone and so on but I also love the little differences like going food shopping and seeing the local take on the same products you have at home but with different flavors that you've never heard of before.

Haci Richard wrote:I think we're all running away from something. Maybe it has something to do with our mothers...

I have always, in North America, traveled for both work & pleasure but when I sold my business, did a 6 mo CA trip then bought a RTW ticket for a trip that lasted 11 mo, I believe that was karma.

Having decided to relocate, before I left on the first trip, as I could no longer tolerate the BS involved in living in Canada one of the goals was to find a country to relocate to. While on my travels my outlook on life changed & definitely was a changed person when I returned to Canada & saw the circumstances my mother was living in at a fairly high end nursing home, had to be placed there during my trip. So I made the decision to get her out to.

Flew back to El Salvador, purchased a house & moved us both down to paradise!

Of course I had to incorporate a bucket list road-trip on Route 66 on the drive from Ontario to El Salvador before she flew down.

busman7 wrote:

Haci Richard wrote:I think we're all running away from something. Maybe it has something to do with our mothers...

I have always, in North America, traveled for both work & pleasure but when I sold my business, did a 6 mo CA trip then bought a RTW ticket for a trip that lasted 11 mo, I believe that was karma.

Having decided to relocate, before I left on the first trip, as I could no longer tolerate the BS involved in living in Canada one of the goals was to find a country to relocate to. While on my travels my outlook on life changed & definitely was a changed person when I returned to Canada & saw the circumstances my mother was living in at a fairly high end nursing home, had to be placed there during my trip. So I made the decision to get her out to.

Flew back to El Salvador, purchased a house & moved us both down to paradise!

Of course I had to incorporate a bucket list road-trip on Route 66 on the drive from Ontario to El Salvador before she flew down.

Wow, congrats on the move busman! How easy/difficult was it to move everything down there and start fresh?

As a kid I was very attracted to world geography and read all the biographies in our elementary school library of the new world explorers by the time I was 11 years old. Luckily my family subscribed to National Geographic Magazine and had a globe. By the time the educators started asking, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" guiding me to prep courses for university education with some sort of career at the "finish line" I'd allowed myself to be distracted from what really turned me on. So at 57 years old I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up but always KNEW what I didn't want to do. So sometime in my 20s I came up with only two basic goals in life- adventure and learning. That's what turns me on to traveling the world. I LOVE it! Like Chinese philosophy life is in constant motion and only when that motion is interrupted do we experience problems. Very simple, use it, improve it or lose it meaning both your body your mind and your net worth; growth in any form is exhilarating and healthy. On an 8 month trip now across Asia to either the island of the Med. Sea or to east Africa and looking forward to a 9 month trip to Latin, south and North America in 2012. YIPPEEEE! Life is Good!

Sorry for the extremely slow response K2, never checked this thread after I posted.

The biggest challenge was the bureaucracy in Ontario, Canada making the travel arrangements for mother & dealing with incompetent doctors who have a definite "God" complex. The drive down crossing 4 countries borders with all my possessions in a minibus went better than expected with only a couple hours delay at the borders.

Due to my nearly 2 yrs of travel + being brought up in Quebec, the cultural adjustment was not that difficult.