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It has been written here and elsewhere that there is more value in using your money for experiences instead of buying stuff. I fully agree.
Experiences with family and friends are most important especially as you get older, but beyond those, what experiences stand out for you?
Most of our traveling was after we retired. We isolated funds for that purpose. While working, our travel was limited to business events, mostly employer paid. That’s how I had dinner at Mar-a-Lago Club.
During working years family demands, two mortgages and college expenses limited travel. So, when those were done and we finally got the chance to travel, we really went for it — and the result was a host of memorable experiences.
Here are few of ours.
Kissing the Blarney Stone – and getting dizzy
Walking on Hadrians Wall – those Romans could build
Being stopped on the road as a twenty minute long herd of buffalo crossed
Attending an Papal audience in St Peter’s Square
Placing a prayer in the Western Wall – surrounded by armed soldiers
Walking on a warm lava flow – with steam rising
A home cooked meal at a friends house in Bordeaux – best meal of my life
Walking on Omaha Beach – I brought home sand so I will never forget
Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau – no words to describe, but tears to remember
Eating French Fries on the Eiffel Tower – pretty soggy
Making snowballs atop mountain Etna in August – kind of weird
Crashing in the Arizona Dessert in a hot air balloon – we ran out of fuel
Walking among penguins in the Falklands – fascinating and smelly
Hovering over the Statue of Liberty in a helicopter – a bit scary, but quite a view
Sailing the canals in Amsterdam – almost as dirty as Venice
Riding in a blimp over Manhattan – attracting attention
Being quarantined in a ships cabin for two weeks – get to know your spouse
Being yelled at by a Russian soldier in the Kremlin – a better understanding of Russia
Sailing though Panama Canal – read the book The Path Between The Seas, by David McCullough
Riding a camel in Morocco – one off the bucket list
Walking the field of the Charge of the Light Brigade – a history lesson
Riding on the Maid of the Mist under Niagara Falls – wet and incredibly noisy
Playing golf with Jim Furyk – those pros make you feel inadequate
Walking Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields and finding my great, great grandfather’s name on a Union roster – emotional especially since I have his full military/medical records. He fell off his horse an got a hernia
And many others …
One observation I have from having done a lot of travel particularly when younger and much more into packing a small pack for a week or two then grabbing a flight and seeing what I could fit in.
It’s often not the “brochure” sights and the perfect grammable photos that stay with you. It can be the other stuff – smells and sounds or the conversation with a local or the wildlife you happened to see. So much so that I don’t believe that it matters how big or extensive the list (in it’s way that’s just another version of collecting stuff) but rather how you felt at the time and the fondness (or relief sometimes) with which you remember things. So nearly being driven off the road by a redneck Utah cop has its own place in my memories possibly more than seeing the Taj Mahal.
I get your point, but are there any “rednecks” actually in Utah?😎
Ah interesting etymological question. And am I using “redneck” as a an adjective rather than a noun to heuristically indicate attitudes, education and conservatism? Or perhaps it is a reference to the Scottish Covenanter sense of the word to signal both religious rebellion but again a certain degree of conservatism?
I’ve always felt this experiences vs ‘stuff’ is a bit of a false choice. The pursuit of experiences (largely through travel, at least in terms of this thread) and tangible things are not mutually exclusive. What is really being discussed here is, I think, the ratio of spending on travel vs things. Or perhaps it’s an emphasis on one over the other?
A nice car to drive, an apartment for our son, college tuition for our children, a screened -in porch that gets a ton of use — are instances of directing money toward material goods rather than investing in experiences that yield on-going value. Yes … the car, the apartment, college, and the porch all involve subsequent experiences.
And these purchases don’t preclude pursuing travel related experiences. But to suggest that there is more lasting value in money spent on experiences vs things seems a gross generalization. I would say it depends on the lasting quality of the experiences and the things. For me, an awe-inspiring trip to Yellowstone beats a pair of expensive shoes. But does a trip to London with rain falling every day while battling Covid beat a $3000 high end audio system that provides 1000s of hour of entertainment? Maybe not.
The opportunity cost matters, doesn’t it? What am I getting from the big screen TV I want to buy? And what am I giving up by upgrading my TV rather than investing that money in a 5 day European river cruise for my wife and me? Assuming I can’t afford both …
Agree it is a false dichotomy, that – apologies if I am offending anyone – often seems self-congratulatory.
You can never fully know another person’s circumstances, and what drives their choices. To paraphrase Morgan Housel, Nobody is crazy.
Buying a new car is a different experience for someone who has never been able to afford one.
Of course everyone buys stuff as well as experiences.
If you’re a car nut it probably matters to you that you bought the model with that nth degree of performance over a more standard spec because you get your experience out of that difference in acceleration from the lights or the tighter handling in the bends. So buying stuff delivers “experience”.
To someone else buying standard spec may be fine because what matters is where they go to in the car and having the funds for hotels etc en route.
So individuals can be on a spectrum. Though I’m relatively frugal with purchase of consumer (non)durables there’s loads of stuff still that I’ve bought and scarcely used. Equally there are trips and travels I’ve repeated not because there was something I missed the first time or because I’d been everywhere else but because they delivered some degree of contentment that I don’t get from owning status goods etc.
Of course the position is blurred – I see many RVs and boats in people’s yards that were probably bought with the best of intentions in enabling experiences but subsequently go underused and depreciating. Sometimes we even fool ourselves that financial commitment into an “asset” will be the thing that makes us free up the time or organise our lives to use it. The usual answer is it probably won’t – if you didn’t have the urge to travel and stay in motels or tent camp then having an RV will probably not change your basic drive.
This is a personal point of view thing. Having 13 grandchildren, helping to fund their college and paying for college for four children, driving a nice car, a second home and the experiences of travel there is a place for everything.
To me family experiences are first, then travel related and any other stuff like cars, houses, TVs down the line.
Experiences from our travel come up in discussion regularly. We can be watching TV and suddenly they are showing a place in Italy, France, Germany or wherever where we once walked and all the memories are there.
Years of experiences in our vacation home with the children growing up are priceless and with grandchildren as well. It all keeps changing, but we have memories. Plus a Google Nest in our kitchen constantly displays our thousands of photos.
For me many places we visited made history come alive with a new perspective sometimes pretty dark.
“We can be watching TV and suddenly they are showing a place in Italy, France, Germany or wherever where we once walked and all the memories are there.”
When my wife and I are watching TV and a place we have been to pops up I say to my wife, Have you ever been there? And we both have a chuckle.
When you see places like the Coliseum in Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, and you’ve been there it is no longer just a picture like in a magazine. You can picture the surroundings, and if you have had a private guided tour like we tend to do, you can also put the place in historical context as well.
We’re generally in the experiences over things camp, and have become even more so in the last couple of years of only having what we can carry. That said, you make a good point in that “things” can make experiences possible/better. Your screened in porch is a good example. My wife enjoys cooking, and enjoys doing it in a nice kitchen with quality equipment. If we ever have a house again, it will have that, and it will be worth it.
Red Square and Lenin’s Tomb.
Walking the Great Wall in China.
The 38th Parallel in Korea.
Seeing a rocket launch in Baikonur.
Auschwitz and Dachau.
Riding in a canoe on the Mekong.
And like you say, many more.
My most recent:
A year ago finally having a dream come true, that being able to walk Augusta National golf course. As I started up the first fairway I became quite emotional. Augusta National is nicknamed the most beautiful place on earth. I like watching golf and have been enamored with gardening and landscaping, so it doesn’t get any better.
I was fortunate to attend the Masters four times. It is truly a special place with incredible grounds and landscaping. I can relate to how you felt.
For me, as an Everton fan currently watching the final game at legendary Goodison Park, I’m remembering the first time I visited the stadium, when I was a year into remission. Everton won and afterwards, with the help of a friend, I snuck onto the pitch and took a penalty kick into the Park End goal. (Then we got kicked out.)
Others:
Performing with a chorale in St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.
A walk on the Great Wall on a clear day, the lights of Shanghai at 2am, fireworks in Hong Kong, soup dumplings and other experiences from a dozen trips to China.
Watching a glacier calve in Alaska.
A pickup basketball game with some kids in Venice.
A helicopter ride around Mount Waialeale on my birthday.
Misty mornings at Pistol River State Beach in Oregon, with the tide so far out we could walk around the sea stacks.
Singing a duet on TV with Noel Paul Stuckey of Peter Paul and Mary.
Burning all the hair off my legs and melting my sneaker soles at a lava flow in Volcanoes National Park.
Making a theater full of people laugh while performing in Fiddler.
A wild thunderstorm in Rome while touring the Coliseum.
Camping out in the redwoods in our van.
My first kiss with Sarah and getting married in the back yard surrounded by blooming rose bushes, 18 years ago last week.
A very nice list, some real winners.
Mike – good stuff. My youngest son just turned 40 – his bucket list included seeing his beloved Man City at Etihad. He bought 10 tickets and the whole family – 3 generations – went in mid-March. The staff couldn’t have been nicer and it was a great celebration.
I can’t agree more, the experiences with family are all at the top of the list. But it’s rarely about the place, more about the family.
There are more, but the experience is family. Is there anything more important?
Not all experiences require an expenditure of money, but being retired allows us to attend many events (sporting, dancing and school) that our grandchildren participate in. This makes for great experiences for us and hopefully for them too knowing that Grammy and pop-pop care (and are able to) watch them in competitions and games, while we cheer them on and compliment their efforts. We do also take our kids and grandkids on a family vacation once a year and whether it’s doing some tour or just being together on a beach, we make great memories NOW!
In 2016, with 3 of my 4 children and wife, we hiked up to Inspiration Point in Zion NP. It’s a difficult 8 mile round trip hike. The view at the point is spectacular, almost indescribable. The trail is now closed indefinitely because of a rock slide. It’s a day I’ll never forget.
Sounds amazing. We have been to Zion so i can imagine the difficulty.
You actually are above Angels Landing to the north, on the east side of the Virgin River, looking down the canyon.
Travel has been an enjoyable part of my life, but I don’t consider it to be among my top experiences although travel did facilitate some of them. Some of my experiences facilitated travel.
I’d put having children on the list. I exposed them to all sorts of experiences, and to do so meant I had to take on a few challenges. For example, I’d never camped as a youth but the kids were interested so we enrolled them in Cub Scouts. This being a volunteer organization at the local level required parent involvement. A 4-day weekend was my first camping experience.
As they grew and moved on to Boy Scouts I went along as a volunteer. There were weekly meetings, monthly campouts and annual summer camps. I was initially a driver but as they progressed I became more involved. Eventually I became Scoutmaster, having been trained (Woodbadge, etc.) and I had mastered sufficient skills. The group canoed 90 miles through the Quetico Provincial Park, backpacked in New Mexico (strenuous level) and winter camped at -25F.
It wasn’t until later that I got to do some of this alone with my sons. I was formally acknowledged for the achievements of that troop and I was given the District Award of Merit as outstanding volunteer. It was totally unexpected. None of that experience would have happened but for the children.
What a wonderful way to give to your sons and your community!
I have quite a lot, hard to choose. Some, like the Taj Mahal, are on everyone’s list. (I’ve ridden a camel three times, in China, Morocco and Jordan, and have no plans to do it again, and it took me several days to recover from Auschwitz.)
Crossing from China to Pakistan on the Karakoram Highway.
Crossing Russia by train (with home stays along the way).
Riding the “toy” train up to Darjeeling and staying in the historic Windamere hotel.
Being in Kolkata for Durga Puja.
Visiting the Iguazu falls and standing right above where the water starts down.
The glaciers outside El Calafate in Argentina.
The flight out of Kathmandu to see Everest.
Luang Prabang in Laos before it got popular and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, ditto.
The mosaics in Ravenna (twice), and Monreale in Sicily.
My first experience of Venice, riding a vaporetto down the Grand Canal.
I could go on, and on…. BTW, for those who may feel concern about traveling solo, I (female) was traveling solo for almost all of these.
It occurs to me that I should mention that while the memories are priceless, the travel was not, generally, expensive. I’ve only taken three pricey tours (Smithsonian, China, ’97; GeoEx, Bhutan, ’01; MIR, Uzbekistan, ’16) and two “cruises” (Hurtigruten up the Norwegian coast; the very bare-bones Navimag up the Chilean coast). Most long haul flights were on FF miles, followed by trains, buses, marshrutkas, shared taxis etc, with an occasional car and driver in cheap countries (e.g. Romania, Georgia, India). I slept in old-style B&Bs, pensions, small local hotels, etc.
According to Quicken my most expensive trip was in 2015, which was entirely in Western Europe (plus Boston), and included several weeks in notoriously pricey Scandinavia, the Hurtigruten voyage and more flights than usual. It ran $221/day, and could be compared to $175/day for Japan the following year. Earlier trips were much cheaper.
I am so impressed by you! (And not just because of your travels.)
Why thank you, but I’m really quite ordinary. Had some luck along the way (some good, some bad).
Quite a life of travel experience. I regret we never made it to the east.
I didn’t mention the catacombs in Rome. I am claustrophobic and it was a big mistake being talked into going in.
We didn’t cross Russia by train, but did cruise rivers for two weeks from St Petersburg to Moscow with stops at small villages and homes along the way. My favorite part of European travel was home visits with meals – especially when no one spoke English.
We spent a week on Malta once. It was like being in the UK with lots of Italian restaurants.
I’m a bit claustrophobic too, which is why I chose not to go into a pyramid. I also draw the line at mummies and skeletons, and the casts of dead bodies from the eruption of Vesuvius.
Gibraltar is even more of a British outpost.
One time that comes to mind was when we were riding our motorcycle through FDR National Park in North Dakota a few years ago and were surrounded by a herd of Bison who had decided to use the road for their trek. We got ready to jump off the bike and use it as protection if needed, but they peaceably meandered on by. And then not more than 10 minutes further down the road a herd of wild horses crossed the road in front of us. Oh what a day that was!
This happened on the last day of an extremely memorable Boy Scout high-adventure backpacking trip in Wyoming. We were three adult leaders and seven Scouts, traveling in wide open spaces along a rough unpaved road.
We suddenly came upon a flock of hundreds of sheep being herded by cowboys on horseback. Eventually (but not right away) the cowboys realized we were behind them, then it took them a while to work the flock to the side and allow us to pass. Once we negotiated that delay, we were rewarded with a shredded tire. We still had a very long drive ahead of us and I wondered if we would make it to the airport in time. It all worked out fine, but that part of a trip from 17 years ago is still etched in my mind.
I can picture that in my mind. It must have felt like you had been transported back in time to witness true cowboys doing their cowboy thing! I’m envious!
While we were waiting for the buffalo to pass by some coming up the yellow line on the road one saw its reflection in a car door and charged the car. Nobody hurt, not my car, but there was quite a dent in the door.
Yikes! I guess we were lucky!
I would agree. While not nearly as comprehensive as your travels, the memories of many dozens of trips , going back to childhood family vacations, are far more memorable and meaningful than anything I have ever owned.
In 2004 we did a special 4 week trip in China during which we saw many interesting things. One of the most thrilling, but not for good reasons, was seeing the 71m tall giant budda at Leshan.
This is a budda that was carved into the sandstone cliff of a river sometime over a thousand years ago. When you visit if you want to see the budda you must descend one-way stairs also carved into the sandstone on one side of the budda, and return coming up stairs on the other side. Over the centuries, moisture from the river and millions of footsteps have rounded the edges of the wet steps, and the sandstone is slippery. There are no handrails. As a tall person, one cannot stand upright in the stairwells. Many Chinese want to visit, crowds are large, and there are a lot of people trying to use the stairs forcing one to go faster down the slippery stairs than is safe. Once you get into the line and pass a certain point, you are committed to the descent.
My spouse, who didn’t understand the setup of this location, thought that our car, driver, and guide were meeting us at the bottom of the stairs and when we arrived at the base and there was no car, wow! The trip down was so scary that she didn’t want to go back up.
I was in China, and visited Leshan in 2004 too! Besides dealing with the stairs I took a boat ride to get a good frontal view. I’m not usually keen on very big statues but I quite liked that one.
When we were there leaning up against the giant toes, we looked at the folks out really bouncing in those boats in the rapids and wondered how they kept from losing the contents of stomachs…..we didn’t have an opportunity to ride them….
That’s is an adventure. Quite an experience indeed. We haven’t made it to Asia. I’m guessing she made the trek up.
Enjoying conversation and a spiced potato sandwich from a man making them under a tin lean to in Yemen.
Could do this all day, but I’ll leave it at that. Not necessarily the most meaningful, just the first that comes to mind.
It’s fun to recall experiences, right? I can still smell the fresh bread from the market in Tangier.
We did an Alaska cruise after we paid off our house and it was so great. After Brother’s recent death, we planned some fun things to do this summer and will be talking about taking a big trip next year. Fingers crossed. Chris
Have fun. I still use an Eskimo blubber knife I bought there many years ago. .