1. I'm attracted to nonfiction on my own so lack of plot lines and characters aren't necessarily a drawback. (Statement does not apply to graphic novels.) Anything I view as a quirky travel book is more likely to get read, so you're never going to see me list Lonely Planet, but eventually you'll see a booklet on the anarchist history of Boston. (Besides, you're talking to someone who's taken mental note that the school has exactly one bicycle repair book and wants to finish reading it.)
2. I have more time to read about farther-away places while taking the T or Amtrak than go to farther-away places. (Fun fact: I barely book read at home and do most of it out of the house.) So there's going to be more places read about than visited. Then there's two things that actually drive my travel, gay pride and visiting people. Which means joining the Dyke March was more important than stopping in Barney's Beanery, even though I read about in A People's Guide to Los Angeles on the plane ride over (in a previous day and age, it had a "No Faggots Allowed" sign.) Or meeting-up with the household of 3 from my Westover days takes weight (but getting lunch with them at Oki-Dogs helped me check-off another LA to-do item.)
And I do visit some of the stuff I've read about. On one of my New York visits, I walked around and found almost everything except one statue listed in the Tompkins Square Park section of the Blue Guide and visited a chunk of the Harlem locations. During earlier visits, I was visiting the "radical spaces" listed in the back of the Slingshot organizer and got to e-mail them that one of the spaces didn't exist anymore.
Then my idea of tourism would involve generating the list of goth shops and adult stores where you can buy your BDSM equipment. Which resulted in a conversation with an employee at DV8 in New York and learning about TES from the flyers. Or me finding/going to Ipso Facto with my uncle (place where I got the leather coat) and adding more time in the store because we got into conversation with the guy behind the counter about the God module and Convergence and such. So some of what I put on my to-do list isn't always going to be in my travel guides.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-12-24 05:59 am (UTC)2. I have more time to read about farther-away places while taking the T or Amtrak than go to farther-away places. (Fun fact: I barely book read at home and do most of it out of the house.) So there's going to be more places read about than visited. Then there's two things that actually drive my travel, gay pride and visiting people. Which means joining the Dyke March was more important than stopping in Barney's Beanery, even though I read about in A People's Guide to Los Angeles on the plane ride over (in a previous day and age, it had a "No Faggots Allowed" sign.) Or meeting-up with the household of 3 from my Westover days takes weight (but getting lunch with them at Oki-Dogs helped me check-off another LA to-do item.)
And I do visit some of the stuff I've read about. On one of my New York visits, I walked around and found almost everything except one statue listed in the Tompkins Square Park section of the Blue Guide and visited a chunk of the Harlem locations. During earlier visits, I was visiting the "radical spaces" listed in the back of the Slingshot organizer and got to e-mail them that one of the spaces didn't exist anymore.
Then my idea of tourism would involve generating the list of goth shops and adult stores where you can buy your BDSM equipment. Which resulted in a conversation with an employee at DV8 in New York and learning about TES from the flyers. Or me finding/going to Ipso Facto with my uncle (place where I got the leather coat) and adding more time in the store because we got into conversation with the guy behind the counter about the God module and Convergence and such. So some of what I put on my to-do list isn't always going to be in my travel guides.