I’m considering going to London for a poker tournament which will inevitably turn into a vacation where I don’t even end up playing the tournament.  I have  a friend who is basically a local and he’s creating an itinerary for all of us.  This just got me thinking about how much I hate sightseeing despite my love for traveling.

I don’t actually mind seeing truly unique and extraordinary landmarks, locations, what have you.  I actually enjoy doing this.  If I take a trip to Egypt, I will make it a point to see the pyramids.  What I really hate, however, is sightseeing only for the sake of sightseeing.  You can basically waste multiple days in some of the smallest  towns in America if you were hell bent on going sightseeing.  There are things to see everywhere.  On a trip I made to Copenhagen last winter with a few friends, one of my friends insisted that on the second to last day we make a trip outside and go check out some museums.  I’m not all that into art but if Copenhagen had some super famous museum like the Louvre, I’m all for checking it out.  If it’s just some ordinary museum though, I’d rather not waste my time.  When you only have a week’s time, there are just so many better things you can be doing than seeing something that you will not remember three months later.  (Insert friend’s name here), I bet you cannot remember a single thing we saw in that museum.  I think this is a pretty good test for what’s worth seeing.  A few years later when someone asks you what you did in random city, the things you can name are probably the things worth seeing.

I think the best things about traveling are tasting the local cuisine and experiencing the culture.  Sometimes the latter is hard to do, especially if you don’t know any locals.  Almost all of my best experiences traveling have resulted from either befriending a local or knowing a local.  So many of the best things you can do in a foreign city are not listed in the tourist guidebook.  I’ll make it a point when I travel to try and avoid super touristy areas as much as possible.  What’s the point of traveling to some foreign city if you end up spending all your time with a bunch of American tourists?