As OnMilwaukee.com gears up for Travel Week, which takes off Monday and features seven days of articles and blogs about destinations in Wisconsin and beyond -- and allows OnMilwaukee.com reader bloggers to win a free trip to Riviera Maya -- I've been thinking about the nature of travel and what role it plays in personal development.

I believe that traveling is one thing that can help create a thoughtful, well-rounded person and is, at the same time, fun.

Maybe it's my personality, but I can't bear the thought of spending a week on a beach. I would go insane. I've got about two hours of beach in me now (although I had more as a kid).

When I travel, I do a lot of research in advance and I create a detailed itinerary, including all of the things I hope to do. But I'm not a regimented travel psycho. I don't mind altering that itinerary on the fly or trading out a day programmed for museums with a day just wandering aimlessly.

To use France as an example, if I'm going to spend, say, a week in Paris, I want to know more about Paris and Parisians, not just have my picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower.

So, while I'll visit the Louvre and climb to the summit of the Eiffel Tower --and have my picture taken -- I also want to enjoy an ice cream in the Luxembourg Gardens watching kids push toy boats around a fountain with long sticks. And I want to listen to the guys argue and joke while playing petanque and to sit among the cackling kids in the guignol hut. And I want to take the Metro out to a park on the outskirts of the city.

I want to order a beer in a bar and a crepe on the street and I want to browse around in department stores and at book stalls (even if they sell books in a language I don't read). I want to communicate with the people I encounter and I want to read the newspaper (OK, maybe I have to buy La Stampa instead of Le Figaro, but it still gives me news from a perspective different than the ones I get at home) and I want to switch on the TV for a little while before bed.

I want to get out of the city, too. At a farm in a tiny village in France, I got an unforgettable, two-day lesson in how accomodating, friendly and forgiving the French can be, single-handedly destroying the common misperception that the French are snooty and / or hate Americans.

And as much as it sometimes sucks, I enjoy the hassles and pitfalls of trying to navigate unfamiliar territory. Each time, I've learned something useful.

After my trips to France, I've had lots of touristy photos, sure. And I saw lots of touristy places, too. But I came home with a greater appreciation for France, French culture and the French.

Another key to traveling, of course, is to remember that you're most likely on vacation (unless you're a business traveler). You're free to wander around all day long and spend the money you saved for your trip, something you don't have the luxury of doing at home.

It creates a false reality and one that is almost invariably enchanting and leads to discussions of how great it would be to live in that enchanting place. I don't need to tell you that your mind -- and your heart -- are playing tricks on you. I fall victim to this nearly every time I go somewhere.

But, it's OK. Going somewhere also makes me appreciate coming home again. Because, man, after a vacation, I'm exhausted!