When you travel, do you do the things you want to do or the things you think you should do?

Do you see a church, a museum or a ruin as a sight you should do when visiting a destination or are they places you actually want to visit? And do you consider chatting with a taxi driver, tour guide or security guard as an equally engaging and rewarding experience that can reveal as much about the destination as the sight you're visiting? The way we travel and how we experience places is something I find myself continually pondering, especially after reading the comments to my post Vanity Portraits of Today's Young Ego-Trippers, along with the responses to the Travellers vs Tourists debate on Eric's TravelBlogs.com. In her thought-provoking comments to my post, Sandy writes: "The discussions about going into yet another church/museum/ruin that they would never have visited in their own towns was a discussion I recall overhearing 25 years ago. I am also reminded that we aren't very well trained to be tourists. I know that for all of the travel I've done, it took me fifteen years to work out, as you have, that the destination and the moments unique to a site are enriched by engaging with locals in a non-touristy and meaningful way." While I have to admit that after three months of researching books in Italy, I was less inclined to visit "yet another" church than I was at the start of the trip, I normally like to see Italy's churches as art galleries, hiding wonderful masterpieces within, but I'm a fan of art and architecture. I only visit museums I really want to experience; I love contemporary fashion, design and technology museums in particular. And get a kick out of exploring archaeological ruins, especially those that are more than just a pile of rubble or are atmospherically located; I like to imagine how people might have lived, and believe the history of a place reveals so much about its present. But I often wonder why people work their way through the highlights lists in guidebooks, ticking off the must-do attractions if those things don't really interest them. If you love churches, museums and ruins, go for it! But if you don't, then only seek out things that interest you. If you're a sports fan in Milan, skip the Duomo and fashion quarter and see a football match at San Siro Stadium or take a car for a spin around La Monza. If you're a foodie in Dubai, give the malls and desert safari a miss and do a tour of the city's shwarma stands and Indian sweet shops. You like meeting locals? Enrol in morning language classes then spend your afternoons at the local markets, cafes and bars. I've always wanted to write a kind of anti-guidebook, a guide to all the things that are worth experiencing in destinations that are left out of the books. What do you think? Now what kind of traveller are you? When you visit a place do you do the things you think you should do or do you focus on the stuff you want to do?

Pictured? When we were in Alice Springs a few months ago we spent an evening at the speedway - right after we watched a local football match.

Sightseeing: taking time to take in the sights - or not. How do you 'see' the sights when you travel?

When you're visiting an attraction, how long do you spend at a sight? I'm talking about a specific museum exhibit, an individual painting, a natural phenomenon and so on, at scenic attractions, ancient ruins, historic churches, city museums, art galleries and the like. Are you a stroller? That's to say, do you stay in motion, wandering around the place taking in the scenery as a whole, glancing here and there, but all the time you keep moving? Or are you a stop-and-starter? You stop, look, think, perhaps have a read of an interpretive sign on the wall or the description in your guidebook or a pamphlet, take another look, then you start all over again, stop at the next sight, look, think, etc? You get the picture. It's something I find endlessly fascinating. Sometimes I spend more time taking in the way people experience attractions than I do taking in the place myself. I've always wanted to sit with a stopwatch and see what the average length of time is that someone spends in front of a painting. And compare a highlight with a standard sight, say, the Mona Lisa with a painting by an unknown artist. I enjoyed seeing these people, pictured, taking it easy and enjoying the rugged beauty of their surroundings at The Twelve Apostles earlier this week on the Great Ocean Road (in stark contrast to the young tourists I wrote about here). I also found amusement in a family who were taking photographs... the father snapped a pic of the mother and one of the children in front of a rock formation, while the teenage son was looking in awe at the size of the waves. The youngest daughter had obviously had enough, however, and started skipping back up the path to the car. "It's not time to go back yet, Ruby. We're not done here yet," her mother shouted out to her with a bemused smile. Well, Ruby was certainly done. How long does it take you on average to do a sight? And how do you prefer to do it?

That was then, this is now: how we travel

How differently we travelled when we were younger, when we tripped about the planet as 'travellers' rather than as professional travel writers. We've just finished four consecutive days of travel between three countries (we've just finished updating four books), involving four hotel stays, three rental cars, one border crossing, and two (delayed) late night flights. As I've been queuing at X-ray machines and passport control counters I've been thinking about how differently we travel now in terms of the choices we make:
* THEN we would pack our backpacks as light as we could, knowing we'd soon be filling them with souvenirs and other bits and pieces, NOW we cram as much into the Samsonite wheelie bags as we can - clothes for all seasons, guides, books and research materials, and every bit of technology imaginable - offloading things when we're done with them, leaving bags about the globe with friends, posting things back to family, and paying excess baggage when we have to;
* THEN we would take overnight buses and trains if we could to avoid forking out the cost of a hotel room for a night, NOW we do anything to avoid the late night trips and (when we have a choice) will happily pay more to travel at a more civilized time;
* THEN we would store our luggage at the hotel and wander around the streets for hours and hours killing time until our departure (and have sponge baths in bus stations if we had to!), NOW we will happily pay extra to get a late check-out so we can make more productive use of our time (and avoid sticky journeys!);
* THEN we would hang out in the departure lounge and read a book if we had a long wait for a connecting flight, NOW if we have to transit we head straight for Information to find out if there's a business lounge we can pay for to work at for the day - with their showers, internet access, complimentary drinks and snacks, and free magazines (hint: just peel off those "don't remove from this lounge" stickers), the lounges can actually be great value;
* THEN we would take public transport from the airport into the city to save money, and explore places by train and bus, NOW we hire a car straight from the airport and explore on our own wheels, purely for the convenience and freedom it allows;
* THEN we would see as much as we could in the time we had available, even if it meant travelling to a different town or city every second day or so (you know, "If it's Tuesday it must be Barcelona"), NOW we stay as long as we can in the one place, preferring to rent apartments over hotels if the project allows, and getting to know one destination more deeply than many places superficially;
* THEN we would get up early, race around and see as much as we possibly could and go to bed as late as we could (not much different to researching a guidebook actually), NOW (when possible, i.e. when we're not researching guidebooks) we prefer to take it easy, only seeing what interests us and instead doing what the locals do, even if it means heading out to eat at 11pm and sleeping in late.
While most of the changes to how we travel now are driven by work - the neverending deadlines, the need to work anywhere anytime, to not waste a second - I wonder if some are also the result of getting older and wanting to take things slower. Have you changed the way you travel?