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What’s your travel personality?

What’s your travel personality?

by | Sep 8, 2021 | 0 comments

Knowing your travel personality is essential in finding joy from your travel experiences. Your travel personality is determined by how you identify yourself as a traveler. Knowing whether your travel is motivated by a thirst for adventure, to experience different cultures, or soul searching is essential. The fundamental descriptions of travel personalities are adventurous, curious, and laid-back types. If you have a luxury travel personality and end up at budget accommodations, you will, of course, not find enjoyment in your trip. Therefore, matching your travel personality with your travel plans makes a tremendous difference in the joy of your travel.

Travel personalities can range from adventurous to laid back. Adventurous travelers are usually up for anything. They are bold and independent, but they are thrill-seekers at the end of the day, and their travel choices will reflect this. Adventurous travelers are full of ideas and like to try new things. They also tend to be spontaneous, so planned trips with scheduled itineraries are not ideal for this personality.

In the middle of the travel personality range is the curious traveler. These travelers will want to try every bucket list or unique travel experience. However, unlike the adventurous travel personality, they will be attracted to in-depth tours with experienced, historical guides. Their thirst for knowledge will also often find them spending lots of time at noteworthy sites and long days of travel.

At the far range of travel, personalities are the laid-back travelers. These travelers are usually happiest at a beach destination. They are also very close in personality to spa travelers. They are generally not fussy about the destination and prefer calm and relaxing activities like the beach or pool and spa packages. In addition, they are not too fond of organized travel.

There are plenty of travel personality types to choose from. The adventurous, curious, and laid-back travel personality types are but a few. Some travelers may also be a blend of personalities. Travelers may be experiencing something in their life that makes them prefer a particular type of travel that may not fit their true travel personality.

Knowing how you identify your travel personality will go a long way in helping you to choose not only where you’d like to go but what you’d like to get from your travel experience. A bit of soul searching will help you try to find what vacation best suits you. However, if you’re planning a trip with others, knowing about their travel personality may help you design a better trip to suit everyone.

Do you know your travel personality? Do you think it’s important to know? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

5 Covid friendly hotel stay tips.

5 Covid friendly hotel stay tips.

by | Dec 16, 2020 | 0 comments

Having flown as a career for over 20 years I have stayed in many hotel rooms and so the experience has taught me a lot about what to look out for in terms of cleanliness.

1. Check the hotel sheets. No one wants to sleep on possible dirty covid sheets. I can’t tell you how many different times I have gone into a hotel room just dying to shower and get into bed and found that the sheets have not been changed. If you do this when you first get into the hotel room, there is plenty of opportunity for the hotel to fix the issue before you are ready to go to bed.

2. Make sure the sheets are visibly dirty before you check out of the hotel and prevent any possible Covid spread. I think it’s just a matter of kindness to the next guest and just plain hygienic. Don’t feel bad as the hotel should automatically be doing this anyhow. I always wiped the bottom of my shoe across the sheets before I checked out.

3.Place a face towel or hand towel on the bathroom counter to place all your items on. Especially in this time of covid you do not want to transfer any germs to your face or hands. It’s also a visual reminder of anything placed on the counter and it helps in not forgetting items like jewelry in the bathroom.

4. Take an extra washcloth and wipe the toilet seats down. I think we all assume that the hotel room has been cleaned thoroughly but my experience has shown that the toilet seat is often overlooked.

5. Treat hotel room floors like airplane bathrooms and never assume it’s just water. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed through hotel corridors and seen the remains of a hotel room party gone wild. Let’s face it, the hotel does not have the manpower or capability to thoroughly clean hotel room floors, nor do they often have time between checkouts. Covid can be easily spread through bodily fluids.

I hope my tips have been helpful, check back in for more of my lived travel experience.

Your choice to travel is yours alone.

Your choice to travel is yours alone.

by | Dec 13, 2020 | 0 comments

For years I have had to battle the question of my travel experiences. When it was professional, it was “how can you leave your kids?” When it was personal it was again about the kids and whether I should put their needs first. Recently the question was “what about Covid?”

There will always be questions no matter your choice. The only right choice is the inner choice you make and life is too short not to put yourself first.

I always choose me! This might seem selfish, but I cannot be a good mother, wife, or friend if I am stressed out and unhappy. I have learned that more now since becoming an empty nester than ever before. My kids are grown, and I honestly believe that they would not have me make any different choices than the ones I made. Of course, they have not always been happy with my choices, but at the end of the day, I have.

You can be replaced easily at work, marriages fail, children grow up, and tomorrow is never promised. Life is too short not to travel, not to take a vacation, not to get a massage, not to put yourself first. Choosing to travel is a gift to yourself that you can open as many times as you desire. My choice is to travel, it’s the gift I give to myself.

Have you ever been judged for your choice to travel? Let me know in the comments. I bet I’m not alone.

Travel envy.

Travel envy.

by | Dec 13, 2020 | 0 comments

Having traveled both professionally and personally, I can certainly attest to the travel envy often directed to me even though unheard and unseen but very present.

As an international flight attendant, my job took me all over the world. It was not uncommon for me to fly to unique destinations such as Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Bermuda, or Madrid within the same month. At the same time, I was still a mother and a wife and had to contend with all that those roles entailed. I quickly learned when trying to establish a relationship in the community, to gloss over my job. Mentioning destinations seem to bring on the envy of travel and I would quickly say “I’m a flight attendant” and change the subject as many seemed to hear my destinations as a brag. I would get responses along the direction of “oh how nice” or “that’s wonderful.”

It was not unheard of to get responses like “what about your kids?” or “how does that work with your husband and kids?” With my explanation that it was just a job like any other, I would inevitably get the response “it must be nice!” To me, that was the code for travel envy. I quickly learned in conversations to say that I was “going to work” or “going on a work trip.” Always conscious to never say a destination.

As an ex-pat in Europe and Asia, there were plenty of opportunities to travel in those areas. Thankfully I had learned from my professional travel experience to not discuss my travel plans in depth when having conversations with family and friends. Here too, the refrain “it must be nice” was also heard.

It was an honor and privilege to be a flight attendant for over twenty years and to fly to so many unique destinations. However, it was also a job and many times after long haul flights, the only part of the city seen was the hotel room. My personal travel was quite different as destinations such as Bali or Bangkok were planned with itineraries and time to complete them all.

I can certainly empathize with the travel envy now that Covid has canceled so many travel plans for me. But I know as long as I travel, there are many others whose dream of travel is unmet. So, I am very careful in discussing my travel plans and limiting or tailoring those discussions to the audience.

Have you ever experienced travel envy? How do you handle it? Does my story strike a chord? I’d love to hear your take.

5 must have items that stay in my carry-on.

5 must have items that stay in my carry-on.

by | Dec 10, 2020 | 0 comments

As an avid world traveler who has done this both professionally and personally, my carry-on is always semi-packed. Here are my tips and advice on the 5 items I consider must-haves and should always be in my carry on.

1. A lingerie organizer bag (details on another blog post). The one I use has two sides, one for clean underwear and the other for dirty. You never want to get them confused!

2. An electronic organizer bag (blog post coming). With people being so connected it is so inconvenient to lose connectivity and most hotels do not provide enough power outlets for the technology we use in our daily lives.

3. A toothbrush which in my opinion is even more needed than the electronic organizer. Many people pack this in their suitcase but with the chances of your luggage being lost, I like to always have this at hand.

4. A medicine bag with items like Tums, ibuprofen, cold medicine, etc. I tend to also have eye masks, face masks, prescription medications, band-aids, Neosporin, alcohol pads, and such (more on another post).

5. Finally I always have a small makeup bag with the basics like mascara, lip moisturizer, lipstick, makeup remover cloths, toner, and face moisturizer. These are always found at beauty supply stores and pharmacies in travel sizes.

You make have other priorities for your carry-on. If so, what are they? I’d love to find out.