The Resistant Traveler Defined

This blog is a different approach to travel commentaries. I do not want to travel. I like to stay home in my own environment. Many people, maybe even most, find foreign travel to be exciting, enlightening and they have a desire to see the world. I call myself the “Resistant Traveler” and I write for those individuals who don’t care about traveling, but who maybe in a relationship, or married, to a person with either wanderlust, or a need to travel.

First, we need to define a couple of terms; vacation and travel. When my wife, Dianne, first told me that she likes to travel I heard the word vacation. She wanted to be sure that I also wanted, or would at least be willing, to tour the world and travel, but she used the word vacation. While I love my work, and really don’t care whether or not I leave home, I am willing to take a vacation. Dianne told me how she had been to France, India, Yugoslavia and more. While I had no desire to travel to these places, I agreed early in our relationship that I was willing to do so. As a reminder, she used the word vacation, but what she meant was travel.

The first hint of the difference between travel and vacation was evident on our honeymoon to Hawaii. For most people a trip to Hawaii involves relaxation, bathing suits and sunscreen. For me it was maps and road trips. Please realize that Hawaii is just a few islands with a limited amount of streets and highways. I must have driven every mile of every street and highway visiting viewpoints, shopping centers, and housing developments and comparing each hotel to the one where we were staying. My wife has a requirement to see if she can find shoes that she would like while on “vacation.” Did you know that Hawaii has 197 different shoe stores? Even though I don’t drink coffee, I did find the tour of a coffee plantation to be fascinating. I learned how coffee was grown, selected, graded and dried and it’s all done by hand. People all over the world love that drink made from hot water poured over dried out and ground-up plant parts.

We both now agree that my wife likes to tour and travel and that does not mean vacation. She has a desire to see everything that she has not yet seen before and will continue to be on the move from sun-up to sundown, or until she drops. On the other hand, I like to vacation. That means I arrive somewhere to read, relax, nap and pay no attention to a clock. Sometimes Dianne will accidentally use the word vacation when she means travel. I never accidentally use the word vacation to mean travel.

In this blog I will cover travel from the perspective of someone who does not want to travel. I will cover situations, funny events, what we did, where you may want to stay, what to see, where you may want to eat, and hopefully stay away from tourist traps.