What's my travel style?

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This question is rather vague, but it sounds like you enjoy experiential travel, where you visit a place and try to involve yourself in local experiences. For me, that tends to produce greater lasting memories than looking at a museum or attraction.

Sometimes, you can get this by planning a trip around local special events. Some such events may be primarily aimed at tourists, while others are local affairs. Examples of this kind of thing include:

  • The Pushkar Camel Fair
  • The Alice Springs Camel Cup (I like camels, ok?)
  • The Tapati Festival on Easter Island
  • Cultural events, such as the Last Night of the Proms in London, a ball in Vienna, Oktoberfest, the Glastonbury Festival, or the Edinburgh Fringe.
  • Parades, which can be anything from massive televised events like the Rose Parade to a fun quirky small town parade someplace
  • Burning Man, music festivals, and other mass gatherings

You can find guides to such events around the world. Travel and Leisure has a Festivals + Events page as does Lonely Planet and Rick Steves for Europe.

It's also possible to infuse some experiences into a more typical trip to mix up the blocks of "shrine or something else boring" time with something more fun:

  • I often like to attend local sporting events when I travel, which is a fun way to meet locals and see a local event (and sometimes an interesting sport: Australian Rules Football or Sumo, for example). Concerts and theatre are less social, but are also memorable experiences
  • There are websites that could lead to time or a meal with locals. Meet up with strangers from the internet
  • Taking on some volunteer work while you travel is a great way to get away from the traditional set of tourist attractions
  • Outdoor activities are a good choice. Rent bikes and explore. Ride horses or camels or mules or whatever they've got where you are. Get outside the city and go hiking. Even just go to a local market, buy picnic supplies, and relax together in a park where locals hang out

That said, as experiential travel is gone from something people do to a marketing buzzword, it's worth keeping in mind the advice of NomadicMatt—Experiential Travel: Just Another Way for People to Take Your Money. In short, be leery of packaged experiences, but do try to make your own.

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