tripgirl

I rarely post these kinds of general questions, but I am actually home today with a cold and since the house is clean, bills are paid, and everything else seems to be in good order, I thought I'd post a Friday thought

Sooo

Who is( are ) your favorite traveling companions as well as recalling a nightmarish one

While I am rarely without DH on extended trips, I am actually my own favorite travel companion.

DH and I usually separate during the day alot and off I go.. I enjoy learning the street names and generally enjoy walking around soaking up the atmosphere; where DH likes that too, but he is more bent on visiting a place's past through museums, etc.

And I much prefer to shop alone as well!

Nightmarish? We travel every spring with friends and so far no one has been too much of a pill....

Yours?

trafaelwyr

Ah, this is an easy one. I think my favorite traveling companion has been my oldest nephew (who'll be 16 in May!). I took him to Paris/London in 2004 and we had a great time. Then in 2005, I took him to Switzerland. I see my nephew as being like a little brother to me and since we get along so well, he was easy going with whatever we did or wherever we went. I'd take him on a vacation with me again, but with the current job I have now (that I started in late 2005), taking trips in the summer just won't happen anymore (altho, a winter destination would work). My sister has been a good traveling companion as well.

My only one nightmare trip from hell happened in 1998. Long story short, my then friend (a girl) turned into a complete psycho and was real defensive the whole trip, even when I tried to talk to her and find out what the problem was. I spent the entire trip feeling like I was bound up in an emotional straightjacket and that anything I said or did was being anaylized by her. Not a very enjoyable trip. My one saving grace was when I met up with my friend in London at the end of trip (sans psycho friend) and we did what we liked best: going to all the second hand record/CD stores in London!

carolyn

My favorite travel companion is my daughter. We are on the same wave length as far as sightseeing, and neither of us minds going off alone or going along with something the other wants to do. I tend to be more conservative with expenses, but she can usually change my mind. She should be my favorite--after all, I trained her from an early age.

I have never had a nightmare trip.

kerouac

I generally travel alone, but have sometimes traveled with two of my closest friends, who have both been nightmares.

Emmanuelle is a great adventurer and has a collection of the sexiest underwear that I have ever seen, which makes the trip almost worth it, but she is a late riser and is obsessed by ancient ruins to an extent that I would never have believed possible.

Ali would also like to be a great adventurer but accuses me of being an amateur whenever I do not know what to do in a place like Vietnam, as he counts on me to be able to handle every situation while he remains a spectator. And yes, he is another late riser.

I need travel companions who are ready to jump out of bed by 6:30 a.m.

Barb

You might want to read my trip report with the Divas from Oct. 2005. I am my own favorite traveling companion too. But I do get to meet up with some pretty cool people along the way.

rickmav

I've had lots of favourites. My sister-in-law Rose was one of the easiest people I've ever travelled with. So laid back. Also, my mom and sister - my mom because she has read so much and we are so in tune; my sister because she keeps me motivated. But the best is my husband. Enriches every experience I have.

My worst - a woman I worked with. Everyone warned me not to travel with her but I'm pretty easy going - how bad could it be? It was bad. She slept with virtually every guy that came within gunning range (she was married with one child), drank like a fish and basically posted our room number on the wall of the bar. Bad scene. I still have nightmares about it, and it was 20 years ago!

FainaAgain

Rick... do you still have her phone number

nytraveler

My beau is my favorite companion - since we are so in tune on so many aspects of a trip - and we get to spend so little time together when we're at home.

Worst travel companion: a co-worker who tagged on to my couple of days in Paris after we had worked a meeting. She was an absolute limpet - didn't want to spend any money on meals, didn't like my plans for sightseeing (she just wanted to shop) but was afraid to let me out of her sight. I managed to escape her the third day by leaving for an early breakfast outside the hotel - she ended up sitting in the lobby the whole day since she was afraid she'd get lost on the street.

tripgirl

thanks for all the chuckles, it's making my cold go away.....

I should add, there is one our of couple friends who we just adore and are sooooo easy to travel with, sooo agreeable on everything and sooo laid back, we love being with them!

mr_go

My LW, mrs_go, is an outstanding traveling companion. A Voyager First Class, as I like to say.

She keeps us well organized, and has an uncanny sense of direction at all times. She's a very handy co-pilot on the road, and a savvy veteran of the 'friendly skies'. And I have to say that her photographic skills have grown by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years.

Travel nightmare? Well, nothing can top the time when I was very young (like 8 or 9) and I was ditched at a gas station somewhere out west (by a certain Navigator who shall remain nameless). The joke was over after just a few minutes, so no real harm done...but I was starting to get a tad concerned.

LJ

One of my best traveling companions immediately came to mind because SHE was telling me about a nightmare companion of hers, just this weekend.

My auntie Lil (75+ and fabulously enthusiastic) went to Italy with a fellow golfer that she did not know well except from her country club. It was a first trip abroad for this lady though my aunt had been many times. This women (who was 15 years younger than my aunt) turned weird as soon as she got out of the country.

She had NO idea of what things in Italy would/should cost and, despite being financially independent, decided to stage a one-woman protest on every restauranteur, retailer, hotel owner etc.

She argued about EVERY bill in non-existent Italian(simply shouting in English loudly). When she and my aunt came to dinner while visiting my husband and me who lived just outside Rome, we took them out for dinner. My husband paid and left a little something behind. This woman TOOK THE TIP OFF THE TABLE (when she thought no one was looking.)

She took to going to bed at 7pm so she would not have to eat dinner. She took things from the breakfast buffets and put them in her purse. She refused to tip the guide they used.

My aunt ditched her in Florence in sheer humiliation after the woman claimed to have lost her credit card so she wouldn't be able to "split" any more meals/hotels.

Apparently, she then flew home first class and ranted to anyone who would listen back at the club about "those rip-off Italians'. She went on about it in this vein one too many times in a city where there are many Italian immigrants and was eventually asked to resign from the club.

So my perfect companion is everything this women was NOT. Well-researched, open-minded (and close-mouthed where that is called for), greatful for the experience, curious and enthusiastic. In other words, my aunt, my husband, my daughter and her young manand most of all my Mum who taught me how to travel well-may she rest in peace after many 90 years on the road of life!

tripgirl

LJ,

what a story!

Barb: I read your thread when you first posted it about the divas; I still think your experience might have taken the cake on nightmares!!

Thanks so far for fun reads, although this for sure cheered me up today, I feel a little nasal, so time to lie down... but keep it coming and surprise me with more good stuff when I wake from my nap.......

PalenQ

I have three: me, myself and I - these are also my worst traveling companions, especially when things go foul!

aegris

My husband is the ideal travelling companion. He adjusts easily when things don't go as planned, doesn't get worried or frustrated when he gets lost and can just generally go with the flow. He is also perfectly happy to let me see to the details (which I HAVE to do) and never complains when I pick a dud attraction or restaurant. He's good at seeing everything as a learning experience, good or bad.

I, OTOH, have to admit that I am the nightmarish travelling companion. I am very rigid in my plans and get upset when we can't stick to my mental schedule that I have exhaustively researched beforehand. I get frustrated easily when we get lost or I can't figure out the map. I hate to have a bad meal and will always wonder if "we should have gone to that other place" and am very picky about my lodgings and needing some "wind down" time. Invariably, I will also have the wrong shoes for whatever seems to be going on at the time.

I am getting more laid back thanks to my husband's graciousness and patience, but I am the very definition of Type A, so unless we're just running away to the coast for casual weekend trip, I will always be the nightmarish lout. Poor hubby!

rogerdodger

About 6 years ago I started to make a solo trip to Great Britain mostly using trains and buses to get around. My wife is a great travel companion but isn't into mid-winter train travel. I really enjoy just doing my thing. Pub grub, cheap B&B's, early to bed and only one person to blame if things don't work out as planned.

basingstoke2

I particularly love to travel with my 3 kids, but one at a time. For years I have been taking each in turn to Europe for a week or so. Just us, alone. It's trite, but it is great to see things through their eyes. A favorite moment with each is watching their eyes open wide and jaws drop when walking out of the train station in Venice and they first see the panorama in front of them. It happened every time. The sheer joy of DD dancing, yes dancing, in a Venice campo just out of happiness. Another time, my youngest son who was 18 and had just finished a hellish full year of intense chemo-therapy a very few months earlier bounding up the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius ahead of me as I trudged up behind watching him through a fog of tears.

That same son five years earlier was also my most frustrating travel companion when he was going through an early adolescent mentally rigid phase. We were in Paris for a week and he had made up a list of "famous sights." These he had to see and check off. If they were not on his list they were, by definition, not famous and not worth his time. Mona Lisa and a few others in the Louvre - check. Nothing else there worth seeing. Left bank - not on the list, didn't want to go (but we did anyway). And so the week went.

Tere

My best travel companion is also my daughter. I love to travel with her as we have the sanme tastes.

My worst nightmare was travelling to Prague for the first time 2 years ago with a friend that decided to do a breast job some days before our trip.....!!!! Well imagine our trip, she spent all the time with her arms tigntening her breasts, could hardly walk or go anywhere, and couldn't hold anything heavy!!
And then, one of the days she decided to take the morning to go to the hairdresser!
To top it all I love to taste local food and she is a " sushi and salad person" so just imagine my nightmare! Never again!!!!

suec1

For the most part I like to travel with my DH but he never likes to explore on his own, sometimes I like a "time out". Also whenever possible he turns on the TV to CNBC or CNN - I am always happy to just leave the TV off! Every once in awile I just leave him back at the hotel watching CNBC (what a waste of being in Europe!)

I ended up in Venice of all places with a woman who was afraid of pigeons - who'd have seen that one coming? Put a crimp in the outdoor cafe scene.....I guess I should have left her back in the hotel!

But my favorite story was when I went with one of my daughters on a high school trip. Fot the most part, the kids were better than the adults as far as "rolling with it". The high (or would it be the low?) point was on an overnight train from Rome to Vienna - we went to get into our couchette - all the women had big big bags - of course they could not get them up in the racks - four of them got into the six bed compartment, bags on some of the seats and then simply announced no one else could get in, it was full!

amyb

My favorite travel companion is my mom. I think I could write the companion piece to what Carolyn wrote above. We are both foodies, like art, theater and similar sightseeing and I truly enjoy being with her and seeing her excitement over new places and experiences. I wish she could still travel with me!

I have a few odd travel companions, but none I'd consider a nightmare, although I won't travel with any of them again.

suze

The only time I've had a bad traveling companion was when I joined with a small group of friends. One friend of a friend was a real JERK (veryone agreed, even the person who invited him along agreed).

I have successfully gone... solo the most number of times times, but also happily with my sister, with a coworker, with my cousin, with a single gay male friend, and with my hairdresser!
;-)