I watch the Amazing Race pretty religiously. It’s fun to see the places that they visit, and the show does a good job of highlighting the most popular cuisine and attractions of each of the countries.

Friends of mine that are fans of travel always want to apply to be on the show. But I think it would be terribly dissatisfying to race around the world that quickly. You couldn’t see anything.

Applicants to the show must be willing to travel for 30 to 40 days to be eligible to apply. Take away some of the days of flying and traveling, sleeping and resting and general production snafus, this probably leaves around 20 full days of sightseeing.

But “sightseeing” is certainly a generous term. Teams are so stressed and are trying to complete challenges at a breakneck speed. They can never see the beautiful oceans, historic museums or even eat the country’s food because they are too busy yelling at their teammates. I remember last season when an older Asian man always wanted to sample the food of the country where they were visiting, but he was constantly scoffed at by the other teams.

There’s something about Amazing Race that seems indicative about the way Americans travel in general. Travel often seems to be more about carving a country into the bedpost, so to speak, or to say that you have been there and done that. Pictures are more important than actually looking at a painting or pondering an ancient church. It’s almost as though we want to hit more countries, quickly, rather than actually learn new things about different cultures.

This idea really hit home for me when I visited Paris. I went to visit the Musée d'Orsay on a very busy Saturday. The museum was packed shoulder-to-shoulder for each of the paintings. But rather than examining each painting, most people were taking photographs of the paintings, saving a replica of a picture that they didn’t view with their own two eyes for posterity.

There’s something to be said about staying in one place, getting to know it, understand it a bit better. But there’s also plenty to be said about wanting to visit new places, one after the other, snapping up what you can about culture, cuisine and people.

I don’t want to say which is better, but one seems to me to be more satisfying.

How do you like to travel?