> whereas travel exposes one basically automatically to many new experiences
Tons of people just travel to "destinations" that have resorts and beaches and are very sanitized to be completely not-new at all
Once you've been to one of these resorts you've been to all of them, it really doesn't matter which country they are in
Could be, depending on how much they give up for traveling.
> The reason why I'm asking is that my impression seems to be that there is a lot more acceptance for obsession when the obsession is considered extroverted and conforming to society's expectation.
Maybe it's also related to the accumulation of things related to the hobby.
If you see somebody's collection of model trains and their tracks, it's pretty visceral that they must have spent lots of time and money on this. Same for basically any other hobby that involves collecting this (that aren't tiny, like postage stamps).
If, on the other hand, you hear that somebody has traveled a lot, that doesn't hit home to the same degree..
Maybe another factor is that we tend to associate at least some forms of neurodivergence (autism and AD(H)D at least) with hyperfocus on a few topics, whereas travel exposes one basically automatically to many new experiences. Haven't really thought that through yet...