I find this interesting in light of the upcoming presidential election, as the current occupant of the White House has showed less interest in international travels (before 2000) than any president that I can remember (including his own father, who obviously had a lifelong interest in the world beyond the U.S. borders)...and his opponent is considered suspicious by *some* people because he speaks fluent French, as if knowing a second language is a character defect.
I am NOT trying to make political points...obviously no one is going to (or should) cast their vote based on the number of stamps in a candidate's passport (anybody know, does the President of the U.S. have to carry a passport when he goes globe hopping?). But I do think the difference says something about the outlooks of the two contenders. Whether that difference is electorally significant is up to the individual voter, of course.

You say youre not trying to make political points, yet you are the only one talking politics. Regardless of our affiliations, can we please leave the politics off of this board as we will no doubt be inundated by it in the coming months. It's just that this little message board is my one "break from reality" during my otherwise routine day where I can read other adventures and travel ideas, not the daily "he said, she said".

I agree with PersonX in that I feel as if I'm in a novel. But what I love most, which I don't get everyday here in NYC, is other people's willingness and perhaps even wanting to interact with me as much as I want to interact with them! Love it!

For me traveling starts when I begin to plan a trip, which is often many months in advance. Then I start learning all about my destination - I visit several message boards (Fodors is the best), I search the internet, I take books out of the library, I rent related movies. I feel I am already there in my mind, the trip has begun. I love that. A trip comes in 3 stages - the planning and dreaming, the actual trip, the putting together of the album after the trip when I relive it all. I'm always planning something. It's not that I don't love my life at home either, but traveling surely enriches it.

BTike, You're right. One of the best things one gets from travel is a widening of perspective -- the ability to see situations from points of view other than ones own. We are citizens of a small planet. J.

My husband is in the military and we are stationed in Italy. Heck yeah I'm gonna travel while I'm here-are you crazy!?!?!

yclarke123 has it right. But I would add a 4th, coming home. I plan obsessively, love it while I am doing it, & love to come home. Isn't that grand!

For me it's about feeling connected to the rest of the world - I love history, archeology, religion, art - learning about different cultures and feeling like I'm on a continuim? with the past, present and future. I travel for those "magical" moments when I feel a "oneness" with mankind! The more I travel the more I know we're all not very different from each other and that encourages me and gives me hope for the future.

In addition to the reasons I gave earlier, I would like to share with you something I heard on the radio this morning. They were talking about Ricky Williams (an American football star), who is now somewhere in Asia. One guy was saying that the Asians will all recognize him and they won't leave him alone. Another person on this radio show, who has travelled the world, was trying to tell him that American football is not universal and people there will not know him. But this dumb puppy insisted that the Asians will know him because they can watch football on satellite TV. While it's probably true that they CAN, we travellers all know that most likely they don't. Here in the US, I'm sure we could get Japanese soccer on satellite TV, but how many Americans would watch that? And would we recognize a Japanese sports hero?

The point to all this is that I HATE such stupidity, and when we travel, it broadens the mind and steers you away from this type of ignorance. I feel like a much wiser person for travelling, and so are all of you.

I am fascinated by both the question and the variety of answers. I am 60. As a kid, the biggest dream I had was to visit New York. It was only a couple of hours away and I was from a large city, but New York seemed like the center of the Universe to me. After school I took a job in a travel agency and then began really seeing the world. I almost look at it as continuing education. We can only comprehend so much of other cultures from history and geography books. Actually walking the streets, talking to the people, visiting the shrines and museums, really gives us so much better an understanding. It also makes me realize how lucky I am to live in a time and a place where I have the freedom to do such things.

I believe if more people took the opportunity to travel and get to know the rest of the world we might have less fighting and more understanding among people from all over he world.

I travel because:
-I want to help my mom fulfill her wishes of traveling around the world
-I didn't have the money in college to be an exchange student, making up for it now that I earn my own $$$
-I love soaking up different cultures
-to visit/meet up w/old friends & meet new friends
-it widens my perspective on how others live
-interesting to walk thru cities and see the art I studied in school
-it makes me appreciate home (NYC)

GSteed - I agree. Perhaps we are simply programmed to migrate. Have just finished reading Bruce Chatwins 'Song Lines' ... in which he suggests, among many things, that the most 'content' communities are those who for generations have been nomadic. Settled communities (ie - our modern world) have become detached from the land, the environment which so frequently reminds us how weak we are, our priorities are now more about gaining and displaying our wealth and in doing so we often get stuck in one place .... thats why we all feel 'restless' from time to time - time to move on. It's in us genetically - whether we heed this call to satisfaction or not is another matter. IMO.

TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE!

Because nobody in my town sells Salzburg TeeButter to go with the strawberry jam, kaisersemmels, and coffee.
AND...even though we have Starbucks all over, none are in the same league as ANY street corner Snack Bar anywhere in Italy.

Oh one more...to hear that taped voice on the Vienna trams and subways announce the upcoming stops(ie "Shottentor, U-Bahn, Doktor Karl Luegerplatz")
Priceless.

I travel simply because , for whatever reason, I get a high from it. Planning the trip, coping in a strange place (no matter the language), looking at the photos afterward and reliving it and starting the planning for the next trip. One trip can be touring historical sites and one can be sitting on a terrace overlooking an Italian Lake reading; another can be snorkeling in an oft visited place. Every experience is different.

I travel for several of the reasons already stated, the history, the sites, to sit in a bar with a spectacular view and watch and talk to people in a different environment. One thing that I've not seen mentioned is that all this travel gives you a sense that all people all over the world no matter how different they seem from "your little box" all want the same things when you get up close.

Maybe if foreign travel was compulsory from an early age people would be more tolerant of each other and the world would be a nicer place.

And when I say travel I don't mean catch a plane, get a bus to the 5* hotel, get a bus to the tourist site and go back to the 5* hotel, I mean real travel where you actually learn about the culture of the place through interaction with people other than tour guides and waiters who probably aren't from the country anyway.

With the aid of a little phrase book, being prepared to make a fool of yourself by incorrectly pronouncing the words and a smile it's amazing the response you get wherever you are in the world, from being offered a bed for the night on Crete having missed the last bus back across the island to being invited to a wedding by a guy in Thailand for no apparent reason other than I tried to talk to him in his own language (so badly we ended up speaking English). The views, the sites are all fine. It's the people I really travel for.

Simply because travelling is romantic - just thinking about it sets my heart aflutter. Does that make me an "addict?" I think so!

"I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years olds old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentray sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interet guesses."

We vacation to get our minds off of work. We've seen most of the USA and now
will see Europe. Life is good, and to be able to see the things most people only read about (AS WE HAVE!) is almost
like a dream come true. Why do we travel? Because we can.

I would rather think of myself as a traveler, not a tourist. I go to experience, not see. For me there is a difference. I am always reminded of the story about a friend of mine who toured Europe and the only thing she could bring away from her trip was the fact that she couldn't get ice in her tea in Italy. That's a tourist.

I'm an Army Brat. Moving around the world was a way of life and doing it for the twenty years my father was in the military imprinted travel on my soul forever. I haven't tired of traveling yet and hope to be able to trasp across the world with my granchildern in tow before I leave this planet.

I believe travel to be an important part of my life. Sometimes we can forget that our own lives are not the center of the universe. To touch a new culture, to experience a new language, a new food, to walk where great people have walked, to touch the stone where people have died, to know the sunrise and sunset in a new land, I believe is knowing where you belong on this earth, and maybe, will give me a new understanding of the world and it's difficulties.

Each time I prepare for a trip, I become excited for the new adventures I am about to embark on. And each time I return, I bring back a new understanding of the world. Will I ever tire of it? I don't think I will. I'm a traveler at heart!