novelty or comfort?

From Ira Glass's Act One, of This American Life on Vacations:

"My parents brought their favorite breakfast cereals with them, 10,000 miles to Hawaii.  They like the familiar comforts of home." 

If family vacations and travel are, at least in part, an effort to maximize our happiness, then what does this observation suggest about the allure?  I'm reminded of my college professor who took students to Asia and housed us in Western style hotels.  He told us that if we had culture shock at night, we would not be able to pay attention during the day.  Is this yet another, it depends, one needs to find the proper balance situations?

Are we looking for enough novelty to give us a new perspective mixed with enough of the familiar to allow us to appreciate the novel or challenging?    And that leads me to wonder about something we heard from Prof. Becker about diminishing cost even as we want more.  I need to think about this a little longer.  But it might be that having one's favorite breakfast is necessary in order to meet, or accept, or receive and relish, the novelty or risk of something unfamiliar whether that is simply a new food for lunch or a first try at surfing.  The breakfast provides capital to be spent on the surfing?