re: Is there anyone here who has zero interest in international travel?

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I was all for traveling across the globe in my teens and 20s (90s-00s). However, I've lost the desire for public transportation, airports, TSA, crowds of idiots, tourist attractions, and spending tons of money on week long trips. Yes, I now only want to travel in America (and North America). If I can't drive there--or take a very short flight and rent a car--I don't want to go. I'm 49, btw.

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Completely agree. But I’m 68. I have a Band of Brothers tour scheduled for my 70th, but after that I will have seen and experienced enough international travel.

I’ve been to 37 different countries. I’m done…

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Been to 73 different countries. I have left each one with a new perspective and appreciation for a new culture. Travel if you have the means the Earth is a big and neat place.

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I haven’t been to nearly as many, but I’ve traveled far more than most. Every time I spend time somewhere else, I’m simultaneously struck by the number of things that I take for granted as “the way things are” that wouldn’t even occur to some other people while also walking away stunned by just how much we all have in common.

One of my favorite little moments traveling was in Japan years ago. My wife and I were touring some temple complex and noticed a ton of people. At first we thought they were Asian tourists. Then we realized it was parents with their small (probably six years old or so) children with the parents in suits and dresses and their kids in what were very clearly expensive, formal kimonos. The parents are a mix of stressed, happy, proud, and everything in between, ushering their kid around, taking pictures, etc. Here I was, literally on the other side of the world, surrounded by people with a culture I didn’t share, a language I couldn’t understand, and a writing system I couldn’t even read. Yet, everything felt so… familiar. Could have been a first communion at a cathedral or any other such coming of age event and the vibe it elicited would have been exactly the same. It didn’t matter that I had no idea what they were celebrating, because I understood exactly what they were doing.

That moment has never left me, all these years later, and I think about it often.

We are 4 days from rapping up 3 weeks in Portugal and Croatia. I cannot get over how much more in shape the population is in those countries compared to the fatties in the US. The women in both are amazing but Croatia may have the most beautiful I've ever seen.

Croatia added to the list.

I work with a guy who is 70 and has never been outside the state of Louisiana. He also has no kids and has never been married.

That’s sad

Present

I have traveled to Europe. I wasn’t impressed.

Those idiots have no ability to standardize an outlet plug, I know the rest of their culture has other issues. And this is supposed to be the most advanced international country outside the USA.

I have no further interest in travel. Watching people piss in a hole or watching chickens run in and out of living rooms just isn’t for me.

I work with lots of people like that. It blows my mind.