My personality has always been to obsess over something for a time. Once I obtain said obsession, whether it be some new shirt or home item, I move on to the next. I forget the last obsession and hone in a new one.  Like with items in my life, I tend to do the same with travel. I think I want to travel non-stop. I try it for a while by spending three months gallivanting around Europe. I find after three months, I am too tired and cranky to keep this up, having no real constant home. I read about another traveler, wandering from place to place solo. I go try it out in Ireland for a month and realize while solo travel is uplifting and creates a deep sense of self, I miss those travel moments with someone I know. Like with my latest material obsessions, I guess I tend to want certain travel styles, but in the end, I know my style. I’m the homebody traveler.

There might be snow, but it's home.

I enjoy nothing more than slipping into my own bed at night, waking up to know my Internet should work. The coffee will be hot. I am perfectly content on spending the day at home. I am a homebody in every degree. As a toddler I would be dumped off at my grandparents for I hated to shop with my mom. I would rather stay home.

To make this confession might turn off some travelers of the world. I should love the adventure of going from place to place. And while I do, there will always be a pull in me to return home for break, to lounge on the couch and soak up all of its comforts. Of course, I wouldn’t be writing here if I didn’t love to leave home every once in a while. I love so many things about travel, but not solely to make it all that my life is.

I read many other travel sites, articles and blogs, telling me of different travel styles: solo, couples, long term and nomadic. I hear each and every style’s benefits. I am constantly hit over the head with that obsession. Do I want this style or that one?

I'm leaving on a jetplane...

Be True To Your Travel Style

After 24 years, I have finally accepted my travel style, the homebody traveler. While I enjoy heading to a new place for a few weeks or even a month or two, I have to come back down to earth, come back home. I have to soak up a constant life before I head back out on to the road. I have to appreciate what I have and when I have it in order to find many aspects to travel endearing.

I travel pretty much every month of the year, but I also have an apartment I call home. I enjoy traveling throughout these two extremes, a home life and a travel life. Without the two, I would not be honest with my travel style. If there is one thing I have learned from trying other travelers’ styles it is that I fail miserably when I reject my travel style. Just because it isn’t the long-term style or the solo style doesn’t make it foreign. Every travel style should be different and no two are alike.

You Never Know Until You Try

Truth be told, I never would know that the homebody travel style is for me until I gave other travel styles a go. Getting up in Ireland, traveling to new places everyday or every other day, I grew exhausted. I knew this nomadic travel style wasn’t for me.

Sometimes we can be bombarded with other traveler’s styles of moving around the globe. In the end, you really don’t know what might be for you until you try it. I used to think I could never travel alone, and then I did. While I don’t think it is exactly my style, at least I gave it a go. While being a nomad isn’t my style either, at least I tried it.

Changing Travel Styles Is Not A Sin

You have announced to the world you are a nomad or that round the world adventure for a year comes to an end. What now? I often find these moments in transition interesting to experience and observe in others. I am guilty of worrying about changing what I have laid out. In the end, travel styles change with age, position and circumstance. Don’t be afraid to admit it’s not what you want anymore.

There is my confession. I’m a homebody who also loves to travel from time to time. I have been a nomad enough to know I’m not a nomad. I can be a solo traveler and I cannot be. I can travel long term and I can’t. I know my travel style now and I will embrace it from my cozy couch at home to the lumpy couch half way around the world.

How do you define your travel style? Have you tried traveling with other styles and found they didn’t work for you?

I booked a night in between Dublin and Kilkenny in a nothing town, along a nothing road. The only hotel I could find in between here and there pictured itself far better than it was. I arrived to find nothing as it appeared on their website. In fact, the photographs online were for a different property. Looking back now, the website is mysteriously under construction.

 In 2011, I stayed in countless places across the globe, some the definition of perfection and others the definitions of grimy and gross. That hotel in Ireland, in between nothing and next to nothing, reminded me hotels should uphold a certain standard for guests. While I could go over my favorite hotel experiences, I would rather highlight some of the worst in hopes accommodations around the globe get the hint in 2012.

The Bed and Breakfast with Questionable WiFi

Nothing gets underneath my skin more than a property advertising free WiFi throughout the hotel only to fail at providing this service. When you travel and work at the same time, you need a reliable connection, especially if you are paying nightly for it. I told the owner the WiFi was not working. His response, “It’s working just fine.” He ran back to the office, no doubt to reset the modem for the Internet mysteriously came back. Hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts of the world, please invest in a reliable connection. More travelers will book with you if you do. And hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts of the world, please don’t advertise WiFi all over the property when it only works in the lobby.

The Hotel That Treats You Like An Inconvenience

Somewhere along the road, hospitality left the accommodations industry. Suddenly, some properties realized the guest was an inconvenience. Throughout several nights this year, I checked into hotels I felt didn’t want me there. I was a nuisance. If I needed something or had a request, I was met with anger and disapproval. Hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts of the world, treat your guest like you are glad they are there. Sometimes that can make all the difference between a good experience and a bad one. And for those considering going into the hospitality industry, make certain you can be hospitable.

Surprises Charges

I do my research. When I book my accommodations, I know what services are included in the room rate and which are not. However when I am checking in and suddenly I have to pay for Internet or surprise parking fees spring up, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t hide what you charge for and what you don’t. Make it clear on your website. When I arrived to a standard chain hotel in Savannah, I learned I would pay a significant charge to park my car and that the advertised free WiFi was only in the lobby. Be upfront with your guests in the booking process.

The Inn With Questionable Housekeeping

When I was robbed in Ireland, when someone thought my wallet was their own, I immediately knew it occurred at my guesthouse. While I have experienced some of the best housekeeping this year, especially in Mexico where they would fold my towels into animals, I also experienced some of the worst this year. When you are in a room and a man from housekeeping knocks only once and then proceeds to start coming into the room with an excuse of “I’m just checking things, sorry,” you have probably lost my business and trust forever. Housekeeping shouldn’t seem shady, whether by trying to enter when there is no reason or locking the door while cleaning a room.

The Unclean Room

You have probably encountered an unclean room or two. That hotel in the middle of nothing in Ireland was one of those rooms. Stains covered the walls and carpet and yes, the sheets. If you can’t get down simple laundry practices, you have lost my vote. Hotels, hostels and guesthouses don’t have to be palaces, but they should at least be clean.

What other ways do you think accommodations could improve in 2012? Did you encounter any places in 2011 with these problems or other issues?

My bag took a tumble down the escalator as I made my way to airport security. Before being intercepted by a man, I watched in horror that I could possible take down someone before his or her flight. I could just read the headlines, “Girl loses control of suitcase, injures 1”.

The scene at the airport, especially around this time of the year, is usually one of complete and utter chaos. You have your novice fliers, those who are just headed to grandma’s house, their one trip of the year. Then you have your families, clustered together with a mom just hoping all will go smoothly with the three year old. And of course there are the expert travelers, those who have done this before, usually in a mad dash, and in this case, losing their suitcases on escalators they are in such a hurry.

While the holidays can be a stressful time in the airport, I have managed to get through these chaotic spaces unscathed. I guess I can’t say the same for the people I have tried to take down with my suitcase.  While I might not be George Clooney in Up in the Air, I do know how to breezy through an airport in the quickest of fashions. It usually involves avoiding several types of personalities. However, there are those people, those who make this impossible at times. These are the people I can’t stand in airports.

The Middle of The Road Saunterers

I encountered one of these just a few days ago. A mother of two and with her husband gets into the security line and decides this is the time to sightsee. She keeps stopping to look all around, as though she has never been in an airport. A whole line waits behind her with different stress levels. Some are worried about making tight connections while others like me enjoy the peace and clam that comes post security.

The middle of the road saunterers usually pick the middle of a walkway, escalator or line to just relax and enjoy the scenery. They are out for a Sunday drive in the airport apparently. These are people you must avoid at all costs and spot a mile up the road. If you are battling a tight connection, they could be your downfall. Middle of the road saunterers, please step to the side and saunter. You are not the only one trying to get somewhere.

Even this goat knows to step to the side on Mount Evans

Bluetooth Chatterboxes

The Bluetooth chatterboxes usually get to the gate and stand with their carry-on suitcase and laptop, chatting about some meeting that needs to take place or how Bill should have sent in the files. Why do you need a Bluetooth when you aren’t driving? If you are stationary, would it really be too much trouble to hold a phone to your ear so I know you aren’t just talking to yourself?

The Bluetooth Chatterboxes sometimes talk into their Bluetooth while in airport security. This is equally troublesome for yet again I think you are talking to me or to yourself. I once witnessed a woman chatting endlessly on her Bluetooth as she entered an airport bathroom stall. Can’t the conversation wait so that flushing toilets aren’t the background music? Airports are not always appreciated, often glazed over with Bluetooth conversations. Get off your Bluetooth. The meeting can wait and Bill will send the files. Watch the world of emotions going on around you.

Gate Hoverers

Gate hoverers only belong in one place, somewhere far, far below the earth. When the airport attendant gets on the speaker to announce the order for boarding, that isn’t your sign to get up and hover. When the airport attendant gets on a second time to tell you to please sit down until your boarding number is called, that is still not the time to get up and hover.

Gate hoverers truly only make the process worse. I know you are overly concerned about overhead space or perhaps you just can’t stand to have someone in front of you, but take a seat. You are delaying the departure of this plane and probably someone trying to weave through your grouping to get to their own gate.

A sunset hovering over the gate hoverers at DIA

The Power Tripping Security Agent

I walked up to airport security a few months ago. The security agent asked me if I had flown before. I said, “Yes, don’t worry. I don’t have a full-sized bottle of shampoo in my bag that I will be shocked when you take it away.” He responded, “I’m guessing that has happened to you before.” No, sir. The power tripping security agent usually lacks a sense of humor and will insult your intelligence in the process. They make some comment, knowing full well you have to grin and bear it.

I always look for the security line without these agents, but sometimes they are unavoidable. They can make you cry. They can make you angry. They are best avoided to ensure a pleasant airport experience.

Go ahead, open up my bag officer. I pack light!

Who can’t you stand at the airport?

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I stood with two travel companions in a German supermarket. The food selection was decidedly German. I wish we had a whole section for pretzels in the U.S. When it came time to get in line, I placed my basket on the moving conveyor belt as a very German looking woman sized me up and down. As she started scanning each item, she threw them down the line. I just stood there, motionless, unable to assess the cultural differences of this situation. A giant line was forming and I was still frozen in a German supermarket. One of my friends quickly started to bag the items, laughing at me for just standing there. And as I stood like a clueless traveler, I realized supermarkets are some of the best places to see cultural differences.

In the United States, supermarkets seem to get bigger and bigger. Unless you are using the self-scanner, there is usually someone to bag your groceries. I am not some supermarket princess who needs a person to bag my groceries, but you realize what this act says about America. People are buying cartloads of food, usually excessive in size. Meanwhile abroad, they generally don’t have a refrigerator big enough to accommodate a small portion of the American supermarket.

When I lived in Italy, I discovered the cultural norms of the Italian supermarket. There is always an entire aisle dedicated to pasta. I never knew so many different shapes of pasta existed until I visited the Italian supermarket. Then, there is the line situation in Italy. If you form a line to wait for the cashier, someone will cut in front of you. This fact never ceased to annoy me. Little old ladies were usually the culprits. I would have just a few items and someone with a jumbo cart would decide their groceries took precedent over mine.

I also discovered that in an Italian supermarket, it is extremely bad form to not let these little old ladies cut you in line. Italy is all about edging closer to the next person. It is everyone for themselves and if you’re not pushy enough, you will be left behind, usually at the end of the line.

The cultural insights of an Italian supermarket continued each week, like when I learned you should never give the cashier a 50 Euro bill to break at the beginning of the day. They will just give you this blank stare, as if you just gave them Monopoly money. Then there is the whole element of produce. They don’t have codes to key in for produce at the cashier’s desk. You must print out the stickers yourself when you pick out your fruits and vegetables. Make this mistake and a whole line of Italians will impatiently grunt at you for your foreign error.

On my trip through the south, I popped in a supermarket in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. Cultural differences in supermarkets are even apparent in one’s own country. When you travel with a beer expert, you can bet you make lots of stops in local supermarkets to assess the local beer situation. A man with the thickest of southern accents decided we wanted his advice in selecting a beer. When asking for something local, he said Blue Moon was a good option. Knowing full well Blue Moon is out of my home state of Colorado, this would be the first and not the last time someone in the south told me Blue Moon was a local beer. Supermarkets in the south, especially in small towns are more of opportunities for social engagements.

You see all types in the supermarket. The hurried. The angry. The overly friendly. The sad. The unbelievable. While traveling, we can get caught up in trying to see the sights or dining out in the best restaurants. Rather, I think we also should get a taste of our destination’s supermarkets. The values of a place are helplessly apparent with every turn of the aisle. And yet, we are really not so different based on where we shop for food. There is always that gentle old man with his basket, smiling as you pass in front of the jams he is surveying. Like an airport, train station or bus depot, lives are converging in supermarkets and so are cultures.

Do you like to visit supermarkets when you travel? What major cultural differences have you found?

It is the eve of the last month of the year. December is a month I seldom travel. It is a month designated for family time. Each weekend seems to spur an event or occasion. It is also the final chapter of the year, a time for reflection.

And on the eve of the last month of 2011, I couldn’t help but think back on my travels for the year, as many of us do throughout this time of ending and beginning. What I have concluded about my travels this year is that I learned something about travel I didn’t realize before. The realization comes after travel, when you are home reflecting on experiences. Travel should make you wonder how you did this, how you got through that. It is almost mystical in a sense, a hazy memory in the past. Questioning its reality only makes it that much more special.

Last Minute Travel

When an opportunity presents itself, especially in regards to travel, I have learned you have to seize it. Invited on a press trip to Mexico, really by chance and not so much by choice, I found myself jetting off to Ixtapa without knowing what I was doing here. As the snow fell in Colorado, I dug out all of my summer clothes and headed south of the border. I watchedcoconut candy the color of a highlighter set being made in a modest village. I wandered through markets in Zihuatanejo and observed the close proximity of freshly cut meat to children’s toys. I arrived at the miraculous in Petatlán, a statue to Jesus adorned in lime green.

Before this year, I had never taken such a chance on travel in such short notice. I know many would not turn down this opportunity unless they had a commitment they couldn’t get out of or an obligation to meet. Luckily for me, my office can move with me. Mexico opened my eyes to the brightest of colors and the remarkable sheen to traveling last minute. You don’t have time to think about what you are doing, if it’s right or wrong. In essence, travel worry time is eliminated. You go into the experience wide eyed and leave that way. There is no time to prepare for what you will see and that might be travel’s best gift. A lack of preparation gives you the rawest view of your destination, the most unaltered and unbiased perspective.

Solo Travel

After braving it in Mexico for several days, without knowing a soul, I think I was even more prepared to head to Ireland all by my lonesome. As I have mentioned before, I was a bit of a solo travel fraud. I had made the occasional trip by myself, but I had never set out to do something completely alone, without visitors or friends joining me along the way. In March, I left for Ireland to drive on the wrong side of the road and discover what it means to travel solo. I talked to strangers and sheep, on more occasions than I anticipated. I discovered Irish humility with every turn of the bend. I was robbed for the first time abroad.

I can’t say solo travel is for everyone and I can’t say it is completely for me. However until you take one trip alone, no matter how big or small, you can’t completely know yourself. At least that’s what I learned. A few week’s ago I said to a friend, “I can’t believe I did that, drive around Ireland for a month all alone.” It is the unbelievability of travel I don’t think I had seen before. Solo travel is a great way to bring this about in yourself. You are forced to recognize yourself with a new-found confidence. It becomes unbelievable once you return home and all the more powerful you came, you saw and you conquered, solo.

Travel In One’s Own Country

This year, I traveled my country. So often you hear Americans don’t travel, they lack passports and culture. What is seldom brought up in those articles is that the United States is massive. This year, I found myself nearly traveling from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic. A wedding out in California spurred a road trip across Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. I found the loneliest highway in America and appreciated the lack of activity. Loneliness can be good for you. I returned home, only to plot another road trip, this time across America’s South. Beginning in Arkansas, I made my way across Tennessee, North Carolina, down through South Carolina and Georgia and up through Alabama and Mississippi. I spent a weekend in New York City, revisiting a city so unique and overwhelming.

The two road trips were different, but their meanings were the same. I set out to get to know parts of my own country I traveled mostly on family road trips as a terrible toddler. I wanted to get to know where I am from on levels many don’t deem worthy these days. Glamorous and fulfilling travel doesn’t have to be off in Moscow or on the streets of Paris. It can be in one’s own country, a notion I picked up this year.

Next year no doubt will bring new realizations, new appreciations of why I travel. I don’t know where I am going, how I am getting there or whom I will go with, but I know I will go.

What have your learned about travel in 2011?

Everyday of travel involves countless items, tools that facilitate the entire process. I don’t always pause to thank these products, nor do I always notice how instrumental they can be on my travels. It seems like a clique around Thanksgiving that Americans actually pause and consider what they are thankful for in life. And while I am thankful for friends, family, life and the like, there are just some items I will be forever indebted to on my travels. Call me a materialist, but I’ll raise a glass and a mouthful of turkey to these travel items.

A GPS on Solo Travels

They say true travelers don’t need a map, but I have yet to meet a completely true traveler. Perhaps they are all lost somewhere and have no way of telling those of us with maps, “You’re smart after all!”. I am thankful I had a GPS in Ireland to get around on my first completely solo trip. Sure, Jody and I had some rough times, like when she led me down a dead-end lane on my first day of driving on the wrong side of the road. And sure, she told me to take a potholed sidewalk near Doolin to get to Galway. When I was met with a fork in the road, she would tell me to turn right, only to see a sign that said don’t turn right. Considering that the Irish seldom put up signs to tell you not to do something and a black beauty of a horse was staring at me, almost telling me to not listen to her, I followed my instincts.

With all of the wrong turns and bad moves my GPS told me to make, she also made sure I always got to my destination. There is comfort in knowing, especially when you are alone, that someone has your back and can find the way, eventually. Without it, I think I would have spent the majority of my time on the side of the road, trying to figure out the way. If you are planning a solo trip with a vehicle, a GPS could be your saving grace. True solo travelers need a GPS.

A $40 Miraculous Tote Bag

I’m not sure there is anything this bag can’t do. I was plagued by a tragic curse of travel tote bag misfortune. Each night before a trip, I would begin packing a brand new tote bag I had purchased. The zipper would fail me. The bottom would fall out. The stitching would decide it just couldn’t keep it together. And then, I found you, my black tote bag that miraculously fits my jumbo computer and makes it feel like it is just holding feathers for my safekeeping. You hold my bursting makeup bag, computer, ridiculous airport approved Ziploc with all manner of liquids and even a smaller purse. When your strap broke on one of my travels, I doubted you. And then, I discovered your metal rings made it easy for the traveler to repair with simple tweezers. When you find your $40 miraculous tote bag, hold on to it. It’s a keeper when you travel. There is a certain security while traveling in having a bag you can trust.

Hardback Red Moleskin Notebooks

To remember travel, we document with photos and written word. Without my hardback flashy red moleskin notebooks, this would be a great challenge. Avoiding the shaky handwriting that comes on a piece of paper without proper support, I can whip this pocket-sized notebook out and go to town with documenting travel moments and memories while standing, sitting and maybe even while doing cartwheels. It seems so simple, but I am willing to cough up $10 for these little red books of memories. When I am a little old lady, they will probably make for a good laugh.

The Cup of Coffee Post Airport Security

Airports might be some of the most bittersweet places on earth. You are either incredibly excited to be going somewhere or incredibly crestfallen to be going home from an adventure. It is bittersweet to both say hello and goodbye in these places. They carry so many different meanings at different times. And perhaps the most bittersweet element to airports is airport security, where you are poked and prodded, demeaned and made into cattle. And yet, we all have to go through it to get where we are going. There is no greater relief for me than passing through security, grabbing a contemplative cup of coffee and watching the world go by on uncomfortable seating. This is the sweetest cup of coffee I buy. It relaxes those nerves of getting out of airport security alive and allows me to take a moment away from my computer and phone and just soak up all that is bittersweet about an airport.

What are a few travel items for which you are thankful? Do you treasure any strange items or cups of coffee like I do?

My sister was set to leave for England. Being a brand new doctor, it was her only time off for some 200 days. It was a trip she was anticipating with each passing day, until she received this email from the airline:

“Dear _____,

We regret to inform you that a cancellation has affected the following flights:

(Flight numbers listed)

We apologize for this disruption and any inconvenience this might cause you.

Thank you for choosing (Insert airline of your choice here).”

The message included no explanation, no phone number to call to figure out if she had been rebooked. As she put it, it was like a bad rejection letter, leaving no sign to get in contact. You weren’t selected to be important today. She received this email in the middle of the night, hours before her plane was intended to take off. In the chaos of leaving for the airport at 5 AM, she didn’t notice the airline had made this decision for no reason until reaching the check-in desk. Out of some miracle to the travel gods, the man behind the counter rebooked her, amidst a frenzy of other passengers curious as to why this could happen.

I realize other travelers have been treated poorly by the airlines, perhaps even more so than this. There should be an explanation on the email or at the very least a phone number to call to address the problem. In the process of these canceled flight rejection letters, a little bit of our love for travel dies. I always arrive to the airport incredibly early for fear of a problem, something outside my control that will impede my ability to travel. I know there are bound to be problems in any area involving massive amounts of people and big companies. Travel however is something you plan months for, you budget years for in some cases and is so dependent on certain times and certain places. If anything in that thread gets pulled, our travels can fall apart.

Looking out for airline kindness

I witnessed another lapse in airline kindness, perhaps on a different scale. While the canceled flight rejection letter no doubt disillusioned my sister and myself on an airline and way of business, I was disillusioned yet again on a recent flight back to New York City. There was a flight attendant with a Judy Dench haircut and colored-rimmed glasses. If she had a smile, I never saw it.

My mom and I boarded easily with no need for the overhead bins for we had checked our bags. A foreign man seated next to us had all the room he needed. When Ms. colored-rimmed glasses came around to close the bins, she began forcing his bin shut. She slammed it multiple times and then yelled, “Whose bag is this?! It doesn’t fit!”. The man got up silently and turned the bag as she continued to yell at him that it wouldn’t close. I don’t think he even understood exactly what she was saying. He finally turned his bag to allow the bin to close. Then, she took action again. She grabbed his smaller bag and asked him to put it under his seat. There was no lack of room in the compartment, especially since my mom and I didn’t have bags. She was just doing it to make him uncomfortable. It wasn’t necessary, just something to show power and to humiliate.

Frustrated with the airlines? Me too.

Her unkindness towards a foreigner made me cringe. If I was treated in such a way by another person in a country not my own, I couldn’t help but be soured on that country and that experience, at least for a time. This is the reason stereotypes are formed about cultures. One person in transit is unkind and conclusions are drawn in an instant.

The flight attendant wasn’t finished being unkind. She came around asking what we wanted to drink. I said, ‘Water with ice”. She quickly retorted back, “Ice or no ice?!?”. I said “Ice.”. Again she said out of further frustration, “ICE OR NO ICE?”. I nearly shouted, “ICE!” and I think it finally registered with her. She couldn’t hear me, so it was my fault. I half expected to have ice throw in my face. There is no doubt a person out there who could fill her shoes and benefit the airline, someone who loves flying and what they do.

This was clearly a case of a woman who hated what she did. She had a giant chip on her shoulder. Maybe she had had some bad experiences with passengers before that scarred her, but that is no reason to treat well-behaved passengers with indignity. Just like the “My airline broke up with me letter”, the airlines need to consider just how important their kindness can travel. The foreign man could return home with a different view of a country. The glamour and integrity of airline travel is dying. The only remaining glimmers of hope are those souls at the check-in desk, able to make miracles out of airline company fiascoes.

Have you experienced unkindness with the airlines?