I probably won't make a good travel buddy because I wake up early (no matter how much I want to sleep in, I always wake up early) and go to wherever it is I am going before everyone else has had breakfast. The advantage of this is that I get to enjoy the place (especially if it's a touristy one) before the droves of people come.
An example of this is the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto. The beautiful photos we see on the internet that had us putting the bamboo grove on our to–visit list is always a picture of tranquility. To catch this zen moment means arriving early.
There were only half a dozen souls at the bamboo grove at 830am.I arrived at the grove around 830AM and there were only five or six other people there. When I passed by the grove again in the afternoon, around 2PM, there was a sea of people. I am sure everyone who was there at that time had an "expectation versus reality" moment, and not a smidgen of zen.
The 2pm crowd
