Wednesday Factoid: Traveling

Today's Wednesday Factoid is . . . Do you wish to travel a lot?

Nope.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'm really not into traveling. Which is weird because I do it fairly frequently--especially since I started getting more involved in asexuality activism and ended up attending various events in other states and even other countries (well, one: Canada). But I'm not really that into traveling. I don't enjoy being away from home and not being able to control certain things about my environment and my company. I love getting to see friends and family, but doing so usually involves such discomfort as sharing space with pets, functioning in a home that is colder than I like, eating when everyone else eats, and not being able to retreat into my Internet world or a book as often as I would otherwise.

But I'm still more interested in the people than the places. I'll still enjoy getting to see famous monuments, go to cool museums, do activities I can't do at home, or take in different environments, but I don't relate at all to wanting to travel just to see a place. I kind of like in-between places while traveling, like airports, airplanes, and buses, but even though I have no phobias about those things or about traveling, I just don't crave it. I'd rather stay home.

Sometimes people who hear me say such things feel compelled to regale me with stories of how inherently fabulous the rest of the world is and how limited my life will be if I don't see everything while I can, and what they don't seem to get is that I recognize the value of traveling. I reject the notion that I am incomplete or "not truly living life" if I'm really not a big fan of traveling or doing make it my priority, though, especially since you absolutely cannot do everything in the world with the limited time you have and saying you must travel to have a full life is like saying you must read all the most important works of literature to truly know humanity. People have different priorities. I really wish people didn't treat their own interests and inclinations as universally necessary for a complete life for everyone else.

I've still gotten many valuable experiences and happy memories out of traveling, though, and I wouldn't do it differently if I could go back and change it.

Cool places I've been:

Tokyo (Japan)

Kamakura (Japan)

Nagano (Japan)

Columbus (Ohio)

Melbourne (Florida)

Plant City (Florida)

Sedona (Arizona)

Phoenix (Arizona)

Las Vegas (Nevada)

St. Augustine (Florida)

Sarasota (Florida)

Jacksonville (Florida)

Chicago (Illinois)

Tarpon Springs (Florida)

Ann Arbor (Michigan)

Anna Maria Island (Florida)

San Francisco (California)

Disney World: Orlando (Florida)

Atlanta (Georgia)

Charleston (South Carolina)

Myrtle Beach (South Carolina)

Washington, D.C. Metro Area (technically Virginia)

Charlotte (North Carolina)

Princeton (New Jersey)

Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

Winston-Salem (North Carolina, where I grew up)

Wilmington (North Carolina, where I grew up)

New Jersey (where I was born)

Vermont (ski trip!)

North Carolina (some campground)

Gainesville (Florida--my college town)

And . . . Tampa, Florida, my current home!