This quote from your essay resonates SO deeply with me. “…whenever I can, I love sinking my teeth into a place. To stay somewhere long enough to not need a map, to have time to make local friends, to determine a favorite and a least favorite café, to feel like I lived there, and to form such a tight personal bond with the place that I leave feeling homesick.” I could not agree more and this is what I strive for as much as possible when I travel. I recently spent five weeks in Rome working remotely to try giving “real life” a try vs vacationing to see if I liked this city as much as I did while vacationing there. (I 100% did and my love for it only grew!) I took a couple long weekend trips to other cities in Italy. Each time I would arrive back in Rome, an intense feeling of peace and happiness would wash over me because I felt like I was back “home.” I feel very homesick for Rome. Maybe that will be my place at some point. That’s the goal. ☺️
I spent a snowy day in San Marino with friends in the early 90’s and thought it was a really cool hill town. I love Italian hill towns, And I even loved Assisi with its tourist hordes. I do agree that traveling to rack up countries is not the way to go. While I have a list of countries and states that I have visited and a suitcase that wants to visit every continent, I’m not interested in picking destinations based on adding countries to my list. I want experience that I will enjoy and cherish not a trophy to add to my list.
This quote from your essay resonates SO deeply with me. “…whenever I can, I love sinking my teeth into a place. To stay somewhere long enough to not need a map, to have time to make local friends, to determine a favorite and a least favorite café, to feel like I lived there, and to form such a tight personal bond with the place that I leave feeling homesick.” I could not agree more and this is what I strive for as much as possible when I travel. I recently spent five weeks in Rome working remotely to try giving “real life” a try vs vacationing to see if I liked this city as much as I did while vacationing there. (I 100% did and my love for it only grew!) I took a couple long weekend trips to other cities in Italy. Each time I would arrive back in Rome, an intense feeling of peace and happiness would wash over me because I felt like I was back “home.” I feel very homesick for Rome. Maybe that will be my place at some point. That’s the goal. ☺️
I spent a snowy day in San Marino with friends in the early 90’s and thought it was a really cool hill town. I love Italian hill towns, And I even loved Assisi with its tourist hordes. I do agree that traveling to rack up countries is not the way to go. While I have a list of countries and states that I have visited and a suitcase that wants to visit every continent, I’m not interested in picking destinations based on adding countries to my list. I want experience that I will enjoy and cherish not a trophy to add to my list.