Apparently I'm a terrible travel companion. I'm inconsiderate. I abandoned my party to go off and wander alone. I speed through museums in under 10 minutes and spend the next several weeks ruminating on the experience to where I have a fond memory of that time while my traveling companion thinks I didn't enjoy myself at all.
This was not something I ever knew about myself until it was brought to my attention on two different occasions, one by my daughter and one by a teacher colleague of mine when we went out on various trips together.
On the trip with my adult daughter, I had a tremendous amount of mom guilt realizing that I was ignoring her needs while unintentionally catering to my own. On future trips, I will work to keep that in mind and stay with her to help her enjoy the experience because that's more important to me than experiencing the trip the way in which I am most comfortable.
With regard to the teacher colleague—why are you so damn clingy? That's all that goes through my head. Why are you so needy that we have to stay together the entire time? Maybe it isn't a matter of clinginess, maybe it's just her experience is enhanced by sharing it with somebody. My experiences are enhanced by staying in my own head and playing in that creative world using my environment to do it.
But as she was explaining to me how I should wait for her, I all I could feel was a smothering and a need to nudge my shoulder away from the clinginess.
The lesson learned: if I care about the person I'm with I'll take into account their traveling style and make sure that our styles match, or can at least be comparable or flexible enough to both enjoy the experience together. Truthfully, the last thing I want to do is spend time and money and go with somebody who I have to do it the way they want to do it. That will not work for me unless it's my daughter.
But I also came up with a couple of creative ways to enjoy the experience even if it's not on your terms. Even if you have to consider another person especially if you're somebody who stays in your own head all the time then bring a part of your hobby with you to keep you brainstorming to think about a connection. For example, if I if I'm a scrapbooker or journaler, or artist then I could sketch pieces of the trip of what I see while my traveling companion is enjoying it. We could be together and yet I'm still in my head able to escape in some small way.
But for me experiences must serve a purpose. I must have a reason for going even if the reason is to get lost in my own creative mind in my own head asking myself questions that I don't know the answers to and ruminating on what ifs and thoughts about the people who created these works of art or history. What period in history were they part of?
Since I tend to ruminate weeks or months after the experience, then my mission while I'm present is to take in as many details as I possibly can and think about how I can use those to build my memories once I'm no longer there. This also helps me stay distracted with a purpose while I have to be in the vicinity with the traveling companion. That way they're still getting their experience and I'm shaping my own.
The big idea here is that the quality of your experience is almost always within your control and to harness your control freak tendencies to intentionally strategize agreed experience whether you're with somebody or not.