I don't know how to travel.

Whenever I go places where I haven't lived, everything just flashes by. It feels the same as cursorily reading about a place -- just a snippet here, a snippet there.

Maybe one way to deal with this is to read about a place until I get curious. Then I can treat it as a research project: there's a list of concrete questions to answer.

Or maybe pester a couple of my friends there, and spend some time doing what they like to do.

Other than that, I have no idea how to proceed. Which leaves me with the vague suspicion that most travelers really have no idea what's actually happening in their own hometowns, let alone their travel destinations.