and......I bet you read confessions of a Chianti tour guide...Too Much Tuscan Sun

To add to the "confessions" I made earlier in this thread -

I actually enjoy Disneyland. It's a completely different kind of vacation than going to Europe, but enjoyable to me nonetheless. Hey, vacation is vacation - at least I'm not at work.

I don't look down on people that aren't interested in traveling to Europe, or would rather take their vacations to places that I have no interest in. As long as they're to places they enjoy, more power to them.

I buy at least one tube of toothpaste to bring home and use during the times I can't travel.
I love maps but have never mastered the art for refolding them. Hence my travel bookcase contains a large bulky section of abused maps.
All carte d'orange, museum tickets, brochures and little subway maps are taken home and eventually used to wallpaper various rooms of my house. This way I can gaze at most major cities and locate myself.
Future travel tickets are purchased way in advance and at that time the packing begins. Size of suitcase ms to increases as the date for travel draws nearer.
My animals (6 dogs, 2 cats, 1 parrot, 1 horse, 1 rabbit, 2 pigs) are missed terribly. However they will be spoiled rotten as usual when I return. I have been known to follow strange Airedales in foreign cities.
I also have been looking for that perfect suitcase and pair of jeans. Money is no object and I know that my life will be completed once those objects are found.
Although I am a rather talented cook at home, I have seldom eaten in a "good" restaurant in Europe. I love the morning, afternoon and evening pastry shops along with a cup of coffee and people watching. Also I eat late breakfasts in museum cafeterias.

Further confessions:

I am either a cheap drunk or a cheap date depending on your outlook. I can only consume one glass of wine before I reach capacity. My first trip to Rome was a solo journey. I ordered a glass of the house Chianti and they brought me half a carafe. After drinking the whole thing it took me awhile to remember how to get back to my hotel!!

I hate American beer, but have just discovered "European" beers. They really taste so much better to me. I can handle the "blonde" ones and pilsners so problem so now I can feel a part of the local community. I had 6 of them while in Croatia and Bruges. I feel so grown up!!

I just returned last week and already have 3 trips vaguely outlined in my head. Now all I need is money and time. Thanks everyone for all your confessions.

I purchase a CD that has some relation to location I am visiting (Bjork for Iceland, Sibelius for Finland, etc). Not only does it put me in the mood during that long flight over there but when I am back at work I can torment myself with memories of trip while trying to drowned out the office noise.

I try to find an English site for a newspaper where I will be traveling. It's all part of the over-thinking travel planner. I again torment myself with reading Aftenposten & Kathimerini every morning long after the trip is over. I guess I just have to take solace in the fact I know what is REALLY going on outside the US.

Travel souvenirs are just a damn good reason to buy unique and well designed jewelry (can't come home empty handed!!). It's also a highly effective method at tormenting that twit who just can't fathom why I spend money to travel to Europe but positively gushes over anything on my person that was purchased there(yes, it's petty but you know exactly who I am referring too).

I suffered from some strange sort of withdrawal when I decided it would somehow be tacky to bring that great backpack, that has served me so well, on my mother's dream cruise to Alaska. It also confused me tryng to pack like regular people do.

I have given up on American chocolate - frankly it's not worth the torment or the calories!!

Thank you all for your posting. It was an odd "fix" for some kind of weird "jones" it appears we all suffer from!!

KESinmn, you know there're lots of places in the US where you can buy European chocolate...Trader Joe's and World Market, to name but a few. Believe me, I KNOW!

I spend a lot of time trying to think of ways to afford more trips to Europe!

I have a hard time deciding which countries to visit on my next trip.

Since someone brought it up, here's another confession from me:

I love Disney World. But then, it's only an hour away so it's not like it's an economic investment to go. Epcot's World Showcase is a cheap substitute for Europe (albeit a pale reflection).

And I did read Too Much Tuscan Sun, myself. I thought it was a hoot.

The only places I really want to travel to are all in Europe (specifically northern and western Europe). I had to come to terms with that and break it to my husband that I don't really want to take the trips we have talked about to the Amazon jungle, the Panama Canal, the Australian outback, the African plains. . . .

I book the annual spring-break vacation in the fall, to give me lots of planning and obsessing to enjoy through the cold and dreary winter.

There is a canvas tote that has accompanied me on my European travels and that I cannot bear to throw out. It's all frayed at the shoulder straps and corners, and I still carry it everywhere. I don't care what people are thinking when they are staring at me with all those loose threads coming off the shoulder straps.

I am hoarding the hotel soap, shampoo, and bath gel (Annick Goutal's "Eau d'Hadrien") from my honeymoon stay in Paris ten years ago. I haven't used any yet.

During each trip I write in my travel journal obsessively, and it becomes the best souvenir in the world.

I speak French a lot better than I can comprehend it. Actually, that's true of every language I speak.

I can't understand my friend who says she can't go to England yet because she has to save up for the trip and yet will this year blow big bucks to spend a few days with her husband and two little kids in Las Vegas, which she believes "now really caters to kids."

I love a hotel with a good breakfast buffet and can eat enough at the buffet to last me until breakfast the next day. But I try mightily not to because I want to be able to enjoy all the delicious local foods I encounter during the day.

I get depressed -- almost clinically depressed -- whenever I reurn from a European trip. I can't even look in my travel journal for months, the pain is so great. Often the only way for me to snap out of it is to start planning the next vacation, which gives me something to obsess about.

I check this Fodor.com forum maybe four or five times a day! Love you guys!

I choose novels to assign in my class based upon whether or not they provide an excuse to travel somewhere to collect pictures--Hence Oliver Twist and a January London trip.

I cry just a little bit during the first half hour that I'm back in Paris. Never when leaving, though, because I know I'll be back.

I never drink coffee in the US, but need it every day oversees. On the other hand, a daily glass of wine is necessary no matter where I am.

I carry too many books with me on a trip, and then rarely refer to them.

I haven't bought a new laptop in 7 years because I'd feel too bad if it got stolen/lost/broken in Europe, so I still log around an absurdly old and slow iBook.

I'm an English teacher, but I've yet to make it to the British Library after several trip and weeks in London. Shhh... I'm afraid they'll take away my degree.

The internet would be a much less enjoyable place without this board. Do the same dynamics that prompt us to travel overseas prompt us to travel here, as well?

Oh, zeppo, you ask a good question! Most people like to travel (I think), or at least like the idea of travel, but not all that many like to TALK about how much they like to travel! (Is that convoluted enough?)

That's the quality that makes me feel I have something in common with many of the folks I encounter here (literally "fellow travelers"). It's the trait of finding pleasure in going over and examining and remembering the minutiae of our trips, and sharing them with each other.

I like to think that we all will have happy travels...

I buy hand lotion in Paris and when my friends use it and say "what nice lotion" I say "it's from France."

I love to have my passport stamped and use it at home for check cashing ID.

I have a French answering machine message, although I have only 20 year old high school French and no one that I know understands even that much.

I start my trip here, 6 months before I leave.

I spend more time mooching around even the ordinariest street markets and cheapo shops than I do in all the really swanky places that destinations (especially Paris) are famous for.

(LindaL, exactly how do you abuse your luggage? I've been known to curse at mine, but I don't often extend to physical violence..!)

Patrick:

My Travelpro has been over every cobblestone in Europe. Sometimes twice. It has been shoved in overhead bins on planes, squeezed into cramped cuchettas on trains, dumped onto conveyor belts and survived countless thoughtless people throwing it all over the place. I've used it as a footrest while waiting for planes. The zippers broke off (by airline baggage handlers, I presume) so now I use a safety pin to open and close it. I've left the 22" rollerboard alone in unfamiliar bus stations while I cavort footloose and fancy free in the local towns. I have shoved clothing, cosmetics, toiletries, souvenirs and paperwork into it's innards with never a thought to lumbar support. In my guilt, I did buy it a companion. A couple of years ago I bought the Travelpro tote to take the burden of the toiletries and cosmetics (need more as I get older!!) and reading material that I use more frequently. But, ah, my Travelpro! It remains a loyal companion - never whining, never over-imbibing, never dresses flashy, always on time. I shouldn't abuse it so much.

Ah, but that's what luggage is for. Takes the pressure off the travel companions..

I bought a car with standard transmission this year so that I can be proficient in driving standard on my trips to Europe.

I am learning how to respond to relatives who loudly wonder how can I afford all these trips and anyway what do I have to show for it.

1. I cruise Parisian pharmacies looking for unusual items that are indigenous to the country.
2. I adore being addressed as "Madame."
3. I ask waiters to teach me the proper vernacular for items I wish to order, and then use it everywhere, i.e., Je voudrais un deca avec du lait a cote. (Should be accents on the last two words).
4. A shower with a view is a bonus like at the Mas des Carassins.

This is such a delightful thread! I simply must post though I am currently in Europe on my first time out of the country. :) My husband and I just relocated for a temporary work assignment and are trying to see/enjoy as much as possible before we leave. There is something about being mistaken for a local! I just love having people ask me for directions or assistance in the language here (Czech) because it means that I don't look American (though I, too, love my home country)!!

Other small pleasures:

not caring too much about what to put into our apartment here (unless we can take it home later), so that we don't cut into our travel budget

experiencing the Christmas markets firsthand while writing my Christmas postcards home to friends and family

talking to the people here about where they travel so as not to miss a single thing

realizing that the travel guides are not nearly as helpful to me (though some swear by them) because mine only seem to scratch the surface--great, though, because they leave a whole place for us to discover for ourselves!

after years of wishing i could be here, here i am....It is good to learn from all of you that it is possible to visit again and again from that side of the Atlantic. People seem to think it's impossible!!

My favorite memories from my 4 trips abroad are the little daily life encounters with everyday folk; finding little magical shops and tiny restaurants that want you to try something that is special to them.
But these are also my favorite types of encounters at home!

I am currently visiting a therapist regularly to deal with any "issues" steming from my divorce but guess what -

After my session last week I had a fantasy conversation with my ex and his parents about my upcoming trip to Paris (I know this will happen in reality soon) When they got snide about how I was paying for the trip

I told them I was a big girl and could make my own decision about how to spend MY money - and for a minute I believed it down deep in my travel soul! If I ever get where I believe it all the time - watch out friendly skies because there will be a new FREQUENT traveler in town!