Horses for courses for me. For wildlife and portrait work if I am using a lens under 400mm then I normally venture out hand held. Over 400mm then it is a monopod, but if I know I will be there for a while then I will pull out the tripod with a gimbal head.

If I ever do cityscape or landscape it is always a tripod with a ball head.

For travel photography I normally take a light kit so handheld is normally the go, but it I need to take a long shot then I will use some type of improvised support.