What did I miss?

So I'm reading this novel, set in California, on a cold Sunday afternoon in Texas.  It's not my favorite novel, but it's interesting, primarily because it tells about a time and place I know little about: California from the late 1800s to just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Jane Smiley's representation of that time is brilliantly done.  

Since I was recently there, I feel that thrill of recognition when she writes about San Francisco, and I regret spending my only day in the city in such a touristy way: riding the cable car, walking around the now very commercialized fisherman's wharf.  I regret not going to Chinatown and I regret not doing more research before I went there.  As I read, however, I'm hovering around the parts of the city I did see, and Marin County, and the Bay Area.  The drive over the Golden Gate Bridge was glorious--as were the scenes of the city from the bay and bridges and overlooks in Marin.

I'm wondering today, as I always wonder after a trip: What did I miss? Where should I have lingered longer?

I've always liked this quotation from the Zen tradition: "The way you do anything is the way you do everything."  It may or may not be true, but it intrigues me.

The way I "do everything" is looking at particulars.  I have a scrappy grasp of history and geography.
The way I travel is looking for whatever my eyes are drawn to,  the way scenes are framed and lighted from a particular vantage point.  I take snapshots, actual and metaphorical.

Some travelers set out with a sense of the bigger picture, having done the research ahead of time.  These are good people to have as traveling companions.  Jane Smiley would be a great traveling companion, pointing out how the little things fit into the bigger picture, shedding light on how one thing affected other things.  Earthquakes and influenza and war.  Marriage and divorce.  Dislocations and immigration. Ferries, horse-drawn carriages and the inventions of automobiles.

In life and travel, however, I'm not one of those people.  Over-planning can diminish the magic of surprises, back roads, small forgotten towns in the middle of nowhere.

And yet: Next time, I'm going to try really hard to explore the maps and guidebooks--so I won't miss a single thing.

I would like to be a perpetual traveler, doing it one way one trip, another way the next time.  I'm going to need more than just this one lifetime!