Can You Repeat a Travel Experience?

Adventure is a State of Mind

Do you like to return to your favorite vacation spots or do you prefer to explore new places? Some people like the comfort of returning to a familiar location over and over. Some people find repetition boring and want a completely new experience with every travel adventure.

Neither approach is right or wrong, in general, although one of them might be right or wrong for you. What is most important is that you think through which approach you prefer.

Let’s Do It Again!

There are benefits to returning to a location. If you had a great experience the last time, why wouldn’t you want to replicate it?

Returning often makes everything easier – you don’t have to think as hard about how to get around or where things are located. If you find a restaurant you love, you have the opportunity to return and eat your favorite meal. If you have a favorite hiking spot, you probably also know the best place to park your car to get you to the trailhead.

Additionally, if you are returning to a foreign country, you have additional opportunities to improve your fluency with the language. Familiarity with the language and customs of a country can also add to your confidence which, in turn, can increase your enjoyment of the overall experience.

There’s So Much to See!

Many people have a long bucket list of places they want to visit, so they feel they are missing out on new opportunities if they return to someplace they have been before. The world is a big place. There are 195 countries. That’s a lot of trips if you want to try to visit them all!

Even if you manage to check every state and country off of your list, that still doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything. Lots of people will tell you they’ve been to Kansas. What many of them actually mean is that they’ve driven through the state on I-70 on their way to Colorado, or they’ve spent time in Kansas City. Technically they’re right – they’ve been to Kansas. They can check it off of their list. The reality, however, is they’ve probably missed out on the subtle beauty of the Flint Hills or the amazing geographical rock formations found in places like Mushroom Rock State Park or Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park.

Seeing new things and having new experiences are some of the greatest joys of travel. They add to our enjoyment of life, and they’re a large part of why travel is healthy for our brain.

Sharing the Fun

My friend Melissa and her husband, Steve, repeatedly travel to Aruba. She describes it as her “happy place.” It’s not a big island, so some people might expect that returning time and time again would eventually become boring, but Melissa is quick to point out that every trip is different because they invite different people to join them each time.

As I’ve discussed before, we all have different interests. Each time you travel with someone different, their interests are likely to influence your trip, including proposing ideas for things to do that you may not have thought of yourself. For example, when I was in Paris with my niece and friends, one of the friends, Amy, is an x-ray technologist and had an interest in visiting the Catacombs there, in part because of her training and knowledge of human bones. If I’d been on my own, I don’t know that I would have planned that specific excursion, but I was happy to go along with Amy, and I found “Les Catacombes” fascinating! Even though I had been to Paris before, it was an opportunity to see something I had not seen before.

Even if your travel companions do not request to do something different from what you’ve done in the past, there is a chance you may see things differently when viewed through their eyes. If nothing else, you can experience some things anew through your companions’ first exposure to them. For example, the second time I visited Barcelona, I was with my husband, Greg, and two friends who had never been there. I still remember coming up from the metro, turning them around, and seeing their awe-filled reaction to the Sagrada Familia Basilica.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Heraclitus

Never the Same River

It’s clear that there are benefits to both revisiting a favorite location and choosing to travel to someplace new. It could be argued, however, that even if you return to an area, with or without different travel companions, you never have the same experience.

Each trip’s a new trip. Each day’s a new day. When you return to an area, there are things that will have changed. Businesses come and go. Seasons change. Nature is dynamic and constantly remodeling the world. This means the beach you love may change after a storm, or earthquakes may impact the schedule of a geyser. (This has happened to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.)

Even if the place you are visiting has not changed much, you have changed. Many people have had the sad experience of visiting someplace they loved as a child, only to be disappointed in it as an adult visitor. But the opposite can be true as well. Perhaps you visited someplace as a child or young adult but weren’t able to enjoy some activities because of your young age or limited funds. As an older adult, however, you might return and have a more full experience because of having more opportunities.

It is also possible that your tastes have changed over time. Maybe you’ve grown to appreciate certain types of art or architecture or food that you didn’t the first time you were exposed to them. Returning with new eyes (and taste buds) will be a completely different experience.

Make a Conscious Decision

As with so many things in life, the key to feeling good about your choices is seldom about figuring out what is the “right” choice, especially when there really isn’t one. Instead, what is important is thinking about what is the “right” choice for you.

Too often, we sleepwalk through life, just letting it happen to us instead of deciding what we want and going after it. If you enjoy returning to a location over and over because you want to get to know it in more detail and depth as it changes over time, go for it! But don’t just go there only because that’s what you’ve always done and you’re afraid to try something new. That’s a recipe for boredom.

If you love to experience new things and explore new places, go for it! But don’t just go someplace new because you want more checks on your bucket list. That’s a recipe for feeling unfulfilled.

Where is someplace new that you want to explore? Where is someplace you love so much that you want to return and learn more about it?