Have you, as an adult, spent any time in the places of your youth?

Going home on leave is always a strange experience. I’m not sure if I feel the same about it, like if I don’t like it or still like it. It was fun to visit the old trails and forests where we sued to play and party, but the actual town and community don’t feel the same.

I’ve been back to my childhood hometown several times as an adult. Eating at favorite restaurants, checking out my high school, driving through the little ‘down town’ area. It’s very nostalgic, for me. One day pretty soon, I’d like to take my own kids there and show them around a bit.

Also, cookie man… you have always been a nostalgic, sentimental, um, gentleman.

Yes, I have, and now I don’t live too far away. I like to just sit in a place sometimes, clear my mind and let the old feelings and perceptions wash over me. It’s an interesting exercise in how I think differently (if I do) about various things, helps with perspective, sometimes.
Waste of time? Never. What would you be doing with that time that is so much more important than understanding your whole self, from childhood on?
And yes, you are a nostalgic, sentimental I’ll say it buffoon. We have a club. We serve cookies at the meetings. Join us.

My brother bought the family home and part of the woods on the farm where I grew up. He had a party at a cabin he built in the woods and I wandered off into the woods and just relived some memories. Places I found a cow hiding her calf, fence lines I walked with my dad in the Spring, repairing the fence when it needed it, places we cooked chili in the Winter on snowmobile rides. It was nice.

I live in my childhood home. So, aside from that, a lot of places… because not a whole lot has changed around here. :) I also like nostalgia and sentiment.

Yes, I have. I am always surprised at how my memory differs from reality. For example, there was a “Big Rock” (that’s what we called it: the Big Rock) that we used to climb in my childhood. We had different techniques for climbing the different faces. I felt so accomplished when I made it to the top. When I saw it as an adult, it was not that big! I towered over it.

I don’t think traveling down memory lane is a waste of time at all.

@marinelife Works both ways. I was always the fearless one that got the job of climbing the silos and adjusting the blowers that moved the chopped corn into them. We had one that was 90 feet tall. What the hell was I thinking climbing that without any safety gear.

When I’ve been able to then yes, I like to visit old family towns and look at houses, parks, mainstreets, countryside and soak it it for a spell. One of my best memories of my grandfather who also raised me first is as an adult, I did all the driving and we re created our old annual roadtrip across the states. We sought out motels we used to frequent, cafe’s, landmarks for fishing stops, old families migration routes, etc.

I still live in the small town where I grew up. I often reminisce about how it was.

Thank you for the great answers so far. Keep ‘em coming.

follow-up question
Since you all agree this isn’t a complete waste of time, now I’m thinking I might make a photography project out of it. Whataya think?—

I say go for it. Viewing the pics will bring you joy when you cannot make it home sometime.

Can you go into town or newspaper archives and do a “now and then” comparison? That would be cool…

Not yet. But I did have a dream a couple of nights ago that I had moved back into the house where my family lived until I was eight years old. It was fabulous.

Once every few years, I go to the town where my grandparents lived to visit their grave, and drive past their house. There’s a little nostalgia involved there, and it’s nice.

If you do make a photo album of it, copies of it would also make really nice birthday or christmas presents for your siblings or grandkids

At some point or another I have managed to get back to all (my dad was in the Navy so there was a lot) of places of my youth. For my 18 birthday I went back to Dartmouth where I hadn’t been since we left when I was about 6 years old. I also went back to place I lived for a few years after my birth.

I lived in a small, affluent town that is about 8 miles from where I am now (I’m at work now). I have not been there on foot in about 10 years, at least. I did go to the park in the town about 5 years ago, and it was very nice to sit and reminisce. I love this town and I gave this a “GQ” because it reminds me to make plans to go visit it sometime soon.

Yes, to the photography project. If I had any skills at all in that area, I’d do it myself!

I recently moved to another state, after having lived in my birth state my whole life. I spent my whole adult life in another city from where I was born, but my birth city is the larger metro area near the suburb-type small town I lived and reared my own children. Before I left the state I drove over to the old neighborhood, drove around doing pretty much the same thing as the OP. Then, I parked and cried. I realized I had pretty much lost touch with everyone from those days, save a few and, and of course, my family. The neighborhood no longer even looked like a place where human beings should reside. Really really awful. As I cranked the car and began to pull away from the curb, I thought how fortunate I am to have been blessed by getting out of that neighborhood by landing a great job (right of high school) and living my adult life in a much better and cleaner neighborhood. But then, my past is why I am who I am now. I wouldn’t really change anything.