We're in that phase now lol. What once seemed cool and important -- No one wants or needs.

 

Thats exactly my point, in the grand scheme of things stuff just doesn't matter. All your stuff gets thrown away but the way that memories of experiences stay with you and those you shared them with for you and their whole lives never gets thrown away. Every experience you have of consequence has an impact on the person that you become.

When I'm gone, my kids will still remember the trips we took to Disney World, and the trips we will take them on elsewhere in the world as they get older and the times we spent together...they're not going to still have my car in a garage somewhere most likely. Even if they did...the physical car isn't what they would be holding on to it would be the memories of experiences we had with the car. If they want to go off and graduate college and backpack through europe vs buying a car...then I think thats a great idea.

 

I'm quite a bit older than most here and after all these years my wife and I still talk about our parents and things we did while growing up, places we went, things we'd have for dinner, other experiences etc. like they just happened. Our kids are doing the same these days lol.

 

Agreed with both of you but one thing I do believe is that my kids really won’t appreciate the experiences until they get older. Like Bob just said, my kids just think these experiences just happen LOL but one day they will appreciate it, one day…

Funny thing is a couple weekends ago I was shopping for cars with my son and I can’t tell you how uninterested he was. Sure he liked certain ones over others but overall he was just not interested like I would have been. It’s just a different mentality with the younger generation. For me and others at that age it was freedom.

 

Some people just doesn't seem to enjoy travelling...it blows my mind as well but I just sum it up as we all have things we enjoy and we cant expect everyone else to enjoy it as well.

The statement about looking at pictures on a screen is almost the same is where I draw the line though lol. No matter how many pictures I look on of Machu Picchu it doesnt come close to when I was there. How am I suppose to look on a picture or video of a river and feel like I am there, breathing the air, hearing nature, swimming in the water. The journey to get to these places is also a huge part of the experience. Going to attractions around the world I am usually in awe, experiencing new cultures and people way of life, interacting with locals can't be had through a computer screen.


Regarding the topic, my most important factors are
1. How the car looks - it can be the best car in the world, if it looks like a Nissan Juke then its a non starter.
2. Comfort which includes how well the powertrain responds - after driving a Rental VW Taos with more turbo lag than a 1000 hp Supra...no way I could live with that
3. Cost of repairs
4. Fuel economy - I have been driving a lot more and last year I spent around 5,000 on fuel. I don't regret it but I do sometimes think I am being wasteful and should probably not daily a vehicle that gets 17 mpg. However, I am currently in the market for a new daily and it gets 15 mpg so.....

 

I agree. We don't have kids but of course we are a family. I did not want to move to Los Angeles and leave Knoxville but we did it just for the experience, and my spouse's job..

(Rhetorical) Do you know how cool it is to CONSTANTLYYYYYYYYY see areas we used to hang out in Los Angeles all over the place on TV? LA has a really great skyline, not the best but very nice. We went downtown every weekend bc we lived close to the subway, went to Chinatown to eat and explore, and we'd always visit Grand Park and then take a zigzag walk through all the major skyscrapers, the tall ones 700' plus like the cornered Wells Fargo building or the 1081' tall US bank tower. We always grabbed a drink on the rotating rooftop lounge of the Westin in all the movies like True Lies and In The Line Of Fire.

That's exactly why we did it, so when we are older (it's been 10 years almost), hey, we lived our lives for the experiences. I can't wait to tell my nephews and great nieces/nephews or anyone what LA living was like in 2014-2015 when we are old and in rocking chairs. We didn't live downtown but we lived in the thick of Hollywood/West Hollywood at the bottom of Mullholland Drive, it took 2 minutes to drive to the top from our apartment.

About the other, it isn't about nice stuff, life. I think a comfortable home or apartment or condo is a must though for sanity but many don't even have that unfortunately.

 

Totally, experiences don't have to be travelling...

LOL, exactly.

Exactly, that was a great experience for you that helped to make you who you are. It gave you perspective and experience with an entirely different way of life that you otherwise would not have had.

My cousin for instance was raised in southern WV, very rural and a certain way of life. He moved to Martinsburg which is still WV but much closer to DC and more "urban", and then he lived in FL for a year. He moved back to our hometown in WV and is very happy, but he had the experience of living other places and was able to choose the kind of life he wanted.

In terms of homes, a nice comfortable place to live is important. I see a lot of people paying so much of their incomes towards a huge home they don't need though and it keeps them from being able to do other things.

 

My parents used to always tell me to try move away once, even if it's not forever (LA wasn't planned forever but we left early). We couldn't get the hell out of there fast enough, but we had so many memories. Married at the Beverly Hills Courthouse for $127!!!!!!! Hah. One of the several reasons is it was just too far away... it's very hard to get all the way back out East when you live on the west coast, I was warned about that and it was true in our cases.

What I want from cars are that 6.2 Mercedes bark of an exhaust that I heard every 5 cars there lol to keep it on topic. That was when the gulling SLSs were out, and they were everywhere. One of the best exhaust notes I've ever heard.

 

Could not agree more. Machu Picchu is one of the most incredible places we've ever visited, and the related stay in Cusco at over 11,000 feet was a big part of the experience. One of the friends we went with is originally from Peru, and he was the only one to suffer from altitude sickness.

 

One thing that you all are missing from this discussion is that, with Google Street-View, it's not just looking at still images or photographs. You can actually move and "drive" down the road and see what is all around you just by clicking the mouse and the 360 degree views. In fact, I've actually repeated some entire trips on-screen that I took across the Appalachians (and to the shore) when I was younger.


And, BTW, good posts, bitkahuna. You have good perception.

 

I get it.

Ever hear of Jamestown, TN? Fentress County? Google it. Very poor town, where my step-mom was raised. 7 people in a 2 br house. 2000 people. It has its charms and it's beautiful country but it's very drug heavy etc, etc. the usual with small towns with not much money at all.

I didn't grow up there but I visited plenty when they lived there. People just use the last 4 numbers of the phone number when giving it out, and always have.

 

My priorities were different for every car I have either purchased or leased. I bought the AE86 in 1994 before they were of any interest to anyone. It was a car I could afford as a new college graduate with a crappy job as a management trainee in a rental car company. My buddy had one and let me drive it. It was fun and he knew of one for sale.

The GS300 was 8 years old when I bought it. I was a new homeowner and had a fairly steep house payment plus student loans. I wanted the nicest sedan I could afford without too much financial stress.

The 2015 IS250 was because I wanted a brand new car for the first time in my life at 43. I leased it because I wasn’t sure if I would like it enough to buy it. The 2016 IS350 was a step up and more fun. Fuel economy wasn’t a concern and really the 250 is really not much better than the 350 for MPG.

The Civic was because I was not in a great career situation and it was affordable and nice enough. I bought it off the lease because it made financial sense. Not having a car payment definitely creates some financial flexibility. The car doesn’t impress anyone but I don’t care about that.

Personal finances are a consideration and sometimes I had to forgo trips because of the pinch. Now, I travel more. I love Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic and have been many times over the last 15 years. For me, there is no substitute for being there or anywhere I travel to because there are so many components of the experience that you cannot get from a screen. Local cuisine, the feel of the weather, and so many other factors are important to me and there’s no substitute for being there. To each their own, of course.

 

The distance from family is really hard. Much easier to live within driving distance. Haha on the courthouse! I got married in Vegas.

Its just not the same thing at all lol

Sounds similar to where my family is from. My Dad grew up in a 1 BR house with 6 people (my cousin now owns that house, its been renovated and expanded but the original house my Grandfather built), and my mom didnt have indoor plumbing until she moved to Baltimore when she was 7. Today tourism has made it different than it was, but when I was a kid it was very poor. I grew up here in the DC area.

Crazy thing is my Mom and Dad are from the same place, just different sides of the river. Her great Uncle was married to my Dad's Great Aunt, but they met in a bar in DC.

 

This is how i feel as well.

I came back from London recently and also went to Goodwood Festival of Speed (absolutely insane experience btw) with my kids. My boy loves cars and he is 7 now but obviously he is very jaded at this point lol. At his age I wasn’t even in US yet and i had a scrap book of pictures of cool cars that I collected only dreaming to see one in person.

We all strive to give our kids the best possible life but it’s definitely not easy for them to understand that other people are not as fortunate.

 

Its definitely not, but the right time will come when they will understand.

I remember when I was a kid my Dad and I went and took a big thanksgiving turkey to someone he knew who was down on his luck, this was in the late 80s early 90s and the economy was not good. I was 9 or 10 probably. His company always gave everybody a big turkey for Thanksgiving. As we left and drove off I remember my Dad explaining to me that friend of his was one of his friends/competitors, and he did exactly the same thing my Dad did for a living, and how fortunate we were and how not everybody is as fortunate. Their company had laid him off and my Dad thought he should have that turkey on their dime. Thats probably the first time I really realized that people who are just like you can fall on hard times and sometimes your good fortune is just that, good fortune. It stuck with me.

Just make sure they realize $300 a month is a lot of money lol