The Art of Manliness really hit the nail on the head for me today, writing an article on the virtues of traveling.

You must know this about me by this point:  I love traveling.  Live for it, live by it, dream about it.  Chortle at people who fear the adventure of an unknown new city, new people, new lifestyle.

The most important subtlety here that AoM really harps on is the experience of traveling – that if you really go on a great vacation, you’ll have a story you can share with your friends for ages.  I’m glad that most of my friends had a “fun” time in Santa Fe over spring break, but they’ll never fully understand my experience in traveling into the mouth of hell, which I got to enjoy while driving and boating to Bocas del Toro in Panama.

I’m glad that somebody else in the world gets it.

Here’s my favorite quote:

What vacations do not offer, however, is the critical element provided by real travelling, an authentic experience. You may brag at work for a couple weeks about how many mojitos you drank last spring break, but you’ll be talking about your experience meeting a real Masai [sic] warrior in Kenya or the time you rode on the back of an elephant through the jungles of India for the rest of your life.

Funny, because I’ve actually met Maasai warriors while traveling in Tanzania.  I wear the handiwork of one of the warriors’ wives around my neck every day.

From my own experiences:  I absolutely love staying in hostels.  The author’s right, saying “you are always sure to meet quite a few interesting people in hostels, which only adds to the experience.”  Having backpacked around Europe on my own for nearly a month, I can’t stress the value of hostels enough.  It takes a special kind of person to stay in a hostel, and you’ll instantly be provided with entertainment, conversation, and if you’re not terribly unlucky, partners in crime adventure.  This probably wouldn’t fly well for families, but I’d venture to guess that at that point, you’ve probably got all the adventure you need just in keeping the kids from barreling down flights of stairs (not that I’d know anything about that).

I’d argue the same about trains, though for me it was actually cheaper to fly point-to-point across Europe, thanks to stupidly cheap airline companies like RyanAir, EasyJet, WizzAir (who for some reason let me fly from Berlin to Budapest for a flat $6.00) and price-hunting site skyscanner.net.  But talk about experience – for the small price premium of a month-long train ticket, you’d get to see the entire countryside of Europe.  I was lucky enough to take the train from Geneve to Interlaken and back, absorbing the gorgeous Swiss countryside with time to go skydiving in between, for kicks.  And the train might have even worked out cheaper in the long run, if I was careful to work out overnight flights and shave off a few nights of rent in hostels.

I’ll never understand why my Wash U buddies in Madrid were so disinterested in checking out early and taking the European continent by storm, but I suppose it’s their loss.  Some of my other favorite experiences, off the top of my head:

• Making friends in Oslo, Norway via a conversation about how the bar places pillows over the urinals in the bathroom (it’s for the drunk people to rest their heads).
• Accidentally stumbling into a gay bar in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a quiet Monday night, befriending some Danes, and letting them introduce me to their straight female friends.
• Deciding on a whim, “You know what, why don’t I buy a ticket to Sweden for the afternoon?”  And doing it.
• Getting sick all over the bathroom at a friend’s house in London, because I’m hopelessly bad at mixing hard cider and dark beer.  (Sorry, Jules.)
• Getting hopelessly lost and exasperatingly hungry in Paris and wandering into a bar  because there was a cute dog sitting in the doorway.  Nobody spoke a word of English; we ordered using hand gestures.
• Eating whale stew.
• Stopping for waffles in Brussels and listening to the guy behind the counter weave in and out of four different languages in a single sentence.
• Soccer lunatics in Prague.
• Did I mention the skydiving?

Please, for your next trip, don’t just vacation.  Adventure.  Experience something totally wild, new, and unimaginable.

Then, tell me all about it.