Complex Numbers

Trippin'

What does “vacation” mean to you? Alone time or time with friends and family? Staying close to home or traveling far afield? Spendy or thrifty?

When I had an office job, the only thing I usually wanted to do on vacation was spend time alone at home, to try to recover from work. I took the occasional trip, sure, but every time I did that, I needed a week to recover from the trip, and work is not the best place to do that.

Travel can be tiring. It took me a long time to finally decide what I wanted to get out of traveling - not days packed with activities, but a few activities and a lot of rest. Plus dining and drinking, of course; those are my primary purposes in travel.

As for location, doesn't really matter. The only distinction I make is between day trips and longer journeys. On the longer ones, I prefer to stay in hotels. After talking to other people, it seems I'm the only person who actually enjoys staying in hotel rooms. Well, most hotel rooms. I've had some stinkers - literally and metaphorically. To me, though, that's all part of the adventure.

And in case you missed it, I don't camp. Shudder. My idea of "roughing it" is staying in a three-star hotel.

Which brings me to the budget issue.

I believe in the idea that the best use of money is not stuff, but experiences. I don't lack for stuff, but I also don't go out of my way to collect it (well, except for shot glasses - I have a pretty good collection going). That's why a lot of my vacations are road trips. That's also why I've been known to blow money on first-class plane tickets, sometimes, when I'm not driving. You know the best thing about flying first-class? It's watching all the harried steerage passengers stumble past while I sit back in a generously-proportioned chair, with a gin and tonic in my hand.

It's glorious.

That said, I try not to go overboard on the expenses. I'm going to Vegas in a few weeks. Vegas can be expensive, especially if you gamble, but I scored almost-free lodging along with a "resort credit" promotion, which consists of a lot of free food and beverages - which, as I've noted, is the purpose of travel for me in the first place. I probably wouldn't be going if not for these perqs, at least not next month; August in southern Nevada can be... exhausting.

Before you ask, no, I'm not sticking around for the Area 51 joke. That's in September. I plan to be safely back on the other coast when (if) that happens. You can bet I'll be watching the news, though.

So yeah, when I travel, I do have a budget. It's just that my budget is usually fairly generous, because for me, travel is my main entertainment these days. Yes, that includes a gambling budget - I try to stretch that out over the time I'm there; it sucks to run out of money before I leave.

I've heard all the arguments against gambling, and I even agree with most of them. But to me, it's just another form of entertainment. I once saw a YouTube video of some guy who claimed to have spent over $20K on tickets to a major sporting event. That's his choice; it's not one I'd make, but to each their own, you know? Point is, my gambling budget isn't that high, and I can make it last longer than a few freezing hours in a stadium. Sure, the odds are stacked in favor of the casino - but is that not the case with most of the things we all spend money on? If the owner, or corporation, or whatever, wasn't making money, they wouldn't offer the event or product.

Next year, I plan on spending a good bit of money on a trip to Scotland. Even there, single-malt scotch is expensive, as is shipping the good stuff that they keep to themselves back to the US.

So that's a vacation for me - going somewhere, drinking, and basically enjoying whatever the place has to offer. When I get home, I'm still not doing anything productive, but at least for a while, I did nothing productive somewhere else.