The joy of anticipation

When I get back from a trip, I am usually pretty good about sorting my photos, but I have yet to do that for Spain 2017 - Gaack! has it really been over 3 years!!!
Anyway, that sorting would have me remember, and I am more inclined to remember when I go back into my photo files for photos to use on FB posts, or presentations to my social groups, or details about that trip for budget purposes or to remember that favourite 'whatever'. Earlier this week I purposely went back to that file for a Feb 2019 to Grand Cayman Island, because February is my worst month, and I needed a memory of heat and flowers and beach.
I am reaching back more often this past year. Looking forward is too uncertain and everything I have considered seems destined for disappointment, so there is no joy in it. I can't totally close the book on thinking about future travel, but it's only an infrequent dip of the toe. Time will tell, however; and then it will be all about the future.

I always told my mom ,"But I don't want to live on my memories,"when I would whine about being home from a trip and maybe a year away from another!!
Just wish we had a crystal ball now. The flights look good and maybe not so crowded but then I think of people who are sick and can't travel and feel like a not nice person.
I will be turning 69 soon and just want to go before pieces start to fall off. 😊

I always make a scrapbook of our trips so I can be sorting pictures and reading my journal for weeks and weeks. I don’t rush it. My husband and I have been watching videos of travel also, talking about where we want to go next year. Hopefully our September trip will come off. He is getting his vaccine tomorrow and I am hoping they will have some leftover for me. He has a late appointment.

I think all of us on this forum are planners. Planning, in itself is a bit of a hobby. It takes time and is something constructive to do (research, booking, etc). So, I can see that it would bring more joy. Remembering is a bit more passive. I create travel books with our photos and journal entries from our trips and that is a fun way for me to enjoy and appreciate the memories too. It’s fun to refer back to them as we try and remember the name of restaurants or museums, etc. I also love when places we’ve been pop up on tv or in unexpected ways (seeing the contestants on Amazing Race struggling with punting on the Thames for instance, knowing we’d struggled just like them, made it so much fun to watch). Recently, my daughter had an earth science assignment related to the Blue Grotto in Capri and was excited because she’d been there. Those little bits of memories and experiences come up unexpectedly and bring joy.

I love planning trips, have planned several in the past year, at least up to the point of committing to anything, which of course I can't. Several good ideas in the plan bank, anyway.

I also like going through photos from past trips. I use a slideshow as a screen saver and periodically change it, then enjoy my wife figuring out which trip it was (simple homespun pleasures....). Then we reminisce till it's time for the next meal or getting the mail or whatever the day's highlight will be. ;-)

Friends were always glad to see us return from trips, asking how they were and listening politely, sometimes for as long as ten minutes, before moving onto the next topic. We've gotten used to this and we still love them. And we reciprocate when they come back from elsewhere.

Today I was on a walk at one of the wonderful parks in West Seattle with my granddaughter when a subject of our shared dining experience in a Paris cafe came up. We were trying to remember how to say to the waiter in French “the bill please”. And we both had a chuckle and a moment. Memories to cherish and share between us. Just touches my heart...........

I do love to plan and look forward to new trips but, hey, love those memories too.

I did not read the article as it is behind a paywall for me. But, I think the joy of reminiscing acts a bit like a drug and spurs me on to planning. I usually start planning as soon as one trip is over - oh, the fantasies that develop into plans!

My memories are almost always about things I never could have anticipated: the taxidermy store front in Innsbruck that brought me up short with delight - I have a cousin big-time into this so I took many photos. People may have thought I was strange. The Night Fever service at Munich's Der Alter Peter church which was such a juxtaposition to the Christmas Market frenzy taking place outside. The time I realized while hiking around the lake at Hallstatt that maybe it was no longer a good idea for a woman of an age to be alone where no one knew where and on a gravelly, hilly path - slip and fall?

I was a junior year abroad college student in the 70s and had some experiences typical to my age and the times. They are usually delightful to reflect on, but mostly because they spur me on to further adventures.

Exploring online has helped get me through this year, starting with Sarah Murdoch's Cucina Quarantena. I have a lot on at work, so I am trying to keep travel angst at bay. I know the things I like and have a bunch of options I want to explore. Here's hoping!

My memories are almost always about things I never could have
anticipated:

Me too. It's the unexpected surprises that I seem to talk about the most, but I often I get blank stares because it's about something that unless you were there, it means nothing to others.

Friends were always glad to see us return from trips, asking how they
were and listening politely, sometimes for as long as ten minutes,
before moving onto the next topic. We've gotten used to this and we
still love them. And we reciprocate when they come back from
elsewhere.

Do you think part of this is the social media culture? I agree that when we see friends and discuss vacations, those discussions are just one of many and not the focus of an evening, but is that because so many of us live vicariously through Facebook vacation posts that are going on in real time and so post vacation talk can be more limited? I love it when friends post vacation photos and I follow enthusiastically. My wife has a huge following of friends and family (huge compared to my small circle of real and Facebook friends) who constantly comment that they look forward to our trips because they feel like they're their with us.

Allan,

Do you think part of this is the social media culture? . . .

No, I think this is part of human nature, and was just as true 40 years ago. It seems to me me that most people we know are just not that interested in these strange faraway places. Some people think you're just bragging. Most people are not good at organizing and preparing a "presentation" to fit their audience. A recitation of what you did and what you ate is of no interest to me, unless we're thinking of going to the same place.

But to answer your question, I don't enjoy planning, but I'm very good at it. So, I start pleasantly anticipating after I've got a plan in place. After the trip, I think there is a lag time of several months before we start reminiscing about it. My wife makes a small scrapbook (via Snapchat or similar) with the best of photos, and thats about all we look at it later, a few times before it goes on the shelf.

When we've traveled with other people, there is more pleasure later when you have someone to share memories with.

As a mostly solo traveler all my adult life, I agree that having someone to reminisce with makes a difference. My first big international trip was solo at age 19. It was a Med cruise and I remember that for several years, something would remind me about a part of the trip, I would turn to the person beside me and say, "Do you remember when...,oh. That's right. You weren't there". If there were emojis back then, it would have been followed by a sad face :-( I had one friend who had been to some of the same places, so we could discuss them, but that missing of someone to share those memories with was very impactful during those very sociable 20's. A friend came to Italy with me in 2002 and we still fall over each other remembering the crazy one way ancient roads in Montevarchi and always getting stuck in them after missing the turn to the train. When either of us thinks 'frustration', we say Montevarchi and burst into laughter. No one else gets it.
Now, there are Meet Ups for travelers, so those of us who like to share travel slide shows with fellow enthusiasts can do so. It has been a lifesaver to have monthly Zoom presentations to see 2 parts of the world while sitting in front of the computer.

I know I find no enjoyment in future travel planning right now. The uncertainty is too great. Too many hopes and 'fingers crossed' plans have been dashed this past 11 months, and I no longer have the emotional energy to think that far ahead.
But, I gave my verbal retirement notice yesterday, so any travel opportunity after August 1 comes with fewer restrictions, as I don't have to consider the work-imposed ones :-)

So yeah, posting trip reports and photos and such comes across as
boasting or bragging to most people. They may be polite and tell you
to your face how much they "loved your post and pics" but people who
post that stuff but don't realize their Facebook friends are really
disinterested in all of it are deluded.

The exception: this is a special interest travel forum full of
strangers, and this is an appropriate site for posting trip reports. I
enjoy reading most of them, and occasionally I glean a good idea from
some of them. But I really don't care to see your pictures...I draw
the line there. I can google a destination and see all the
professionally shot pics and videos I want to see.

I may have to turn this into its own post, because now I'm curious. My opinion is the complete opposite of this. At first I have to wonder if it's a generational thing but I'm going to assume we're from the same generation-I'm 56 with two retired brothers in their 60's. I love hearing about friends and family travel and follow along daily when they're away. But I belong to the RS Europe Group Facebook page and while I enjoy the photos, I don't have the same emotional investment as when my friends post. Maybe I'm a weirdo.

Dana, you made a great point, many of us love planning, and it’s a hobby. I think if I had my career to do again, I now know I’d have loved to be a travel agent.

Planning is more exciting than looking back. However, about 7 years about I purchased ProShow gold, a photo video/music program. I now spend hours producing my own vacation pictures to music. It takes awhile to find the music, and about 35 hours to put a big trip together. They are wonderful and so much more fun than just looking through a photo album. Our Italy 2015 one is 50 minutes long. We watch it over a bottle of wine and the music brings it all to life. So much fun!