Just like a fingerprint, everyone has their own quirks and foibles when it comes to their travel philosophy and style. Not wanting to seem aloof, here are some of the loops and ridges of my own travel fingerprint.
I like to plan. Yes, I know it’s an awful thing and everyone says how important it is to hang loose and just take things as they come, but I just can’t do it. I confessed to this travel sin in an earlier post and was excited to see how many people were in the same traveler OCD group with me. Some would say that my predilection to plan every moment of every trip is a deep-seated desire to ensure that nothing will go wrong. I sort of disagree with this.
Rather, I think part of it simply is the excitement of a trip. I guess I probably should have been a travel agent because there are few things that I enjoy more in this world than planning a trip. It starts with looking at a map (yes, I’m old school, but I love maps) and charting out a preliminary route. Next are some online searches, testing the waters of airline fares and how much of a hit to the wallet to expect. After weeks or months of playing around with various ideas and itineraries, the moment of truth arrives, the button is clicked and bang! I have a plane ticket. From that point on, everything happens fast with hotel bookings, public transportation mapping and day-by-day overviews of what to do. In my defense, even though I typically do over plan our trips, I very rarely, if ever, actually pay attention to the plan. What the act of constructing the itinerary does for me though is bring to life the city or country in advance and make me eager and excited to explore, see and learn.
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I have two types of carry on bags, based on my mood and persona that day. The first is an old, kind of ratty messenger bag that I love to carry around in urban settings. It’s perfect because while it may hold guides, maps and water, the bag alone doesn’t single me out as a touron. There’s also something very adventurous about the bag, which sounds infinitely odd and slightly pretentious, but so be it. When I adorn this pale brown bag I am no longer Matt Long, white collar worker and travel blogger, but suddenly I become Mateo, traveler and explorer. It’s a small conceit, but one I enjoy. The second carry on is a Patagonia daypack that I picked up from REI before our Bangkok trip in 2007.
I have an odd relationship with REI. Whenever I’m in there, I feel like the biggest poser in the world. I’m usually surrounded by super fit kayakers and rock climbers who are debating the finer points of whatever device thingies they use. Whereas I fumble around, play with some of the toys and end up leaving with some ridiculous purchase, like my safari hat and walking stick I bought for my Galapagos trip. Despite having spent hundreds of dollars in a failed attempt to look like a super crunchy, organic food eating, nature stud, I have only succeeded in looking like a suburban white guy who gets lost in the local grocery store. The backpack though is the only REI purchase that I have used for more than 10 minutes and which I actually still like.
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The three things I always have in a carry on, no matter where I am or where I go are: Halls cough drops, tissues and a pen.
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I have purchased Diet Coke in at least 25 countries, more than water or any other “necessity.”
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This has been discussed by many other people, but I have a hard time returning to places I have already been. Life is short and so is my vacation time. I treasure it as Gollum did his ring. In the back of my mind, I know I desperately want to return to Paris, Hawaii and Bangkok. I would even seriously consider living in these places full time. Every time I consider a return trip though, a little voice in the back of my head starts to whisper. I start to worry that if I don’t see some other places now, that I never will and ultimately I can always return to places that I know I like, right? It’s a constant dilemma and while I have started planning my return to Paris and Bangkok many times, it always turns into Madrid or Marrakech. Ultimately, winning the lottery would help solve this dilemma, but I won’t be holding my proverbial or even literal breath for that to happen.
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I have a lot of other travel idiosyncrasies, but no need to further alienate readers by revealing the totality of my weirdness at once; mental overload and all.
