Wow... I guess it shouldn't be such a surprise that we are all so similar. We are all HERE after all :)

I plan my next trip even before I've taken my last one. This year it was planning a trip for 8 girlfriends to Ireland before I took my honeymoon to England :)

I write in my journal every day of the trip, and enjoy rereading it later.

I thought I was the only one that bought foreign soaps/toothpastes, etc.!!!

My grandfather said half the fun of a trip is in the planning. I wholeheartedly agree.

I will plan each trip minutely, knowing 1/3 of it will be changed. Strategy vs. tactics!

I secretly wish I could trade my husband in for one that enjoys flying in airplanes, and loves Europe as much as I do.

I feel at home, balanced, centered, etc. in England, Ireland and Scotland. Maybe the rest of Europe too, but I've not made it there yet! American makes me feel -- like I'm trying to balance on a point.

I live 1.5 hours from Disney as well, so EPCOT is my cheap way of getting a travel fix.

I have boxes of train tickets, parking receipts, and even a parking ticket from prior trips :)

I read these boards frequently, but I'm always planning a trip, so can't say 'even when I'm not planning a trip' :P

I won't confirm anything until the plane tickets are bought -- then all bets are off and the horses have left the gate!

I try to find hidden treasures, having missed many in the past. I look for the old ruin down the road that no one goes to, or the cafe up the high street, or the cobblestoned market around the corner.

I have love eating at outdoor tables and people watching. Much more than eating at a ritzy dinner place.

I like cataloguing how many different languages/accents I can hear around me in a crowded place, like when we were on a bench in front of York Minster one afternoon. 18 languages!

I love maps and must have been a cartographer in a prior life. In high school, I would do other student's map drawing homework just to draw more maps. I can study them for hours, especially old historical maps.

I don't drink coffee or tea at home (water mostly) but drink tea every day in the UK, and love it.

I love trying to learn other languages, even though I'm not very good at them.

Talking to the locals is my passion, but I'm not very brave, and have to force myself into the first contact. Once I've started, though, I'll talk for hours!

I am a photo nut. I have discovered digital. I am SO out of control! Our two week trip to England resulted in almost 3500 photos. Of those, perhaps 200 are good enough (to me) to print up and sell (I have a side business).

I am trying to justify more trips to Europe by financing them with sales from the photos on the last trip. So far I'm doing rather well. My first trip from Ireland has actually netted me over $500 in the sales of just one of those photos. I only had 2 or three keepers from that trip. This one will have many more!


My name is Green Dragon and I am a Travelholic.

Wow! I feel like I'm a twin, separated at birth....I love this thread.

I have two shelves of travel books. I especially enjoy reading books that take place in foreign locales. Last year in Madrid, we were returning from the Prado and we happened into an intersection which had been the site of a murder in a novel I'd just read which was set in the Spanish Civil War. One of the streets was Calle Amor de Dios (Love of God street.) I loved the irony of that name.

I too am one who is either planning the trip, traveling, or looking at pictures of mine or of my travel companion (my sister) and talking about the last trip.

I study languages. I'm going to work on polishing my German this summer, and I hope to go to the Yucatán within the next year or two so that I can improve my Spanish, after which I want to start on Italian. I love being able to speak German and Spanish, and I long for the day when I can actually understand a native speaker of Spanish.

I love having my passport stamped.

I drive a 12-year-old car, seldom eat out, don't drink or smoke, hate to shop, and rarely buy clothes, but I go to Europe every year.

Confession: I have no sense of direction.Although I love to travel and study maps, I am not able to put it into practice. If I am supposed to go right, I go left. It always takes me twice as long to get anywhere!
Confession:I do not like to stay in fancy hotels. I would rather spend time and money exploring.
Confession: On a trip to Europe to visit the sister-in-law and family, we packed our luggage with many gifts that were not available in Europe. I thought, surely after we give them their presents, we'll have enough room in the luggage for our souvenirs. Nope, we had to buy a huge suitcase for everything we bought over there.
Oh, and I too, am giddy when someone mistakes me for a local.
And I agree, laudromats are cultural institutions.

More confessions:

I have always kept some local currency, just for souvenirs. Maybe everyone does this?

I budget the trip obsessively, down to the penny, for big-ticket, sunk-cost items like airfare and lodging, then refuse to look at any prices while I am there. It's my way of letting myself just have fun.

I try to learn the language of any country I visit, starting with the grammar books as soon as I have booked the trip. Having studied French and Latin and some classical Greek in school helps a lot (Thanks, mom and dad!).

I secretly love it when Parisians speak with me in French and express surprise to learn that I am from the U.S. (I guess Americans are known for not speaking much but English).

I still have the pen with which I wrote in my travel journal during my first trip to Paris. It was actually bought in a stationery shop on the Left bank. I have not written with the pen since, and no one but me is allowed to touch it, on pain and penalty of death!

Also, I eat pastries for lunch whenever in Europe. I could live on pastries alone, at every meal, but traveling with others means I sometimes have to have proper meals.

Such fun!!!!

-I go into a funk if I don't have a trip to plan. I love spending hours on websites and reading books and investigating all kinds of fun things to do, places to stay, restaurants to try....

-I love that DH will sherpa an inordinate amount of foreign liquor home in backpack (I think 12 bottles of wine in a backpack is his personal best--- you should see the looks on the airport screener's faces!!!)

-I love foreign grocery stores. Could spend hours investigating foodstuffs.

-I love european breakfasts. We usually stay at places that include breakfast just because we have fun trying and comparing the different styles.

-I love when someone understands what I have said in a foreign language. Encourages me to learn more and try harder.

-Don't like my job, but love those FF miles!!!!

-Would be willing to beg an immigration agent for a passport stamp.

-Always feel better after looking at pictures of a past trip.

-The first section of the Sunday paper that I read is the travel section.

-When people wonder how we can afford to go to europe once a year, I long to secretly point out what they have spent on trips to Mexico or cruises or Disney probably well outweigh what I spend on a trip to europe.

-Laugh heartily when my nearly 80 year old grandmother asked (after announcing my pregnancy) "where was it made?" When told, it was in the US, replied "OH. I expected it to come out with a passport stamp on it's butt!"

Thanks, Fodors!

I laugh as I see bits of myself in all the posts.

I buy only "useful" souvenirs. As I use them in my daily life, I remember my trip. Excellent excuse to go back to get more "fill-in-the-blanks".

I am a language magpie and know "travel" French, German, Spanish and Italian. I will pick up a bit of the lingua franca of whatever country I am in. I am much more polite in other languages because I never bothered to learn to curse in anything but English.

I do not require gelato or pastries in my diet - rather, it is gallons of coffee, which I budget for! (Coffee intravenous lines don't travel well...)I will drink the coffee of whatever land I am in.

I do not try to dress to "fit in", just as myself. I'll never fit in anyway, since I'm taller than most.

I, too, would pay any amount for those shoes that are stylish AND comfortable, but haven't found them yet.

I got a library card so I could borrow old guide books to read and dream with. Only buy the new ones if I'm actually going there, and even then, I made my own guidebook from Fodor's threads.

Like Isabel, I cannot walk by a luggage store or a travel book section without browsing and dreaming.

I haven't made it to "carry on only" status, but I keep trying.

I read maps well and always know which way to exit the Metro, Bart, Subway, Tube or whatever, but sometimes I purposely wander to "get lost". Getting back becomes and adventure.

I seldom eat out while at home and love eating out in Europe. I will spend more time at a cafe table watching the world go by, than I would ever do at home.

I am a travelholic and am unrepentant.

Jonesie:

"OH. I expected it to come out with a passport stamp on it's butt!"

That was hysterical. Would have liked to meet your grandmother.

I leave ticket stubs (air/train/bus) and receipts and business cards from restaurants I've visited on my travels in the pockets of all my coats and every now and again, when I reach into them, I get to remember the wonderful experiences I've had. They're my "happy pockets".
((S))((*))

I like getting my passport stamped, even if I'm only going somewhere for a day trip.

I am scared I won't ever get to see everywhere I want to go, and I have a travel dream list, divided up into continents, and I look at it, editing it and adding to it, often.

While I won't get back to Europe until 2007, I spent an hour yesterday debating whether Spain or Greece or France (or some combination of those) should be our destination for that trip.

While I am not a solo traveler, one of my favourite moments in Europe was in Florence in 2004 when my husband (then-fiance) wanted to take a nap so I went to the laundromat, by myself, to do a load of laundry. There was no one else in there and I just sat and read a book and occasionally looked out the window and felt very peaceful.

I'm this weird combination of jealous and excited when other people get to take a trip.

I love booking hotels and figuring out how many nights in each city months in advance but rarely create activity itineraries. I'm only fanatical about lodging, apparently :)

I get cranky when other people treat my love of travel as a serious indulgence that should end at some point. Like I need to grow up and get my priorities in order. These are the same people who are baffled at my lack of need for a home theatre system or an expensive car.

Amanda

I thought of a few more confessions, for I have sinned:

When I ask a traveler who has returned from a trip to "tell me all about it," I really mean it. I want all the details. Usually I want even greater detail than the traveler remembers!

I'm always too excited to sleep on the red-eye trans-Atlantic flight. Even Ambien cannot help me. What I need is a tranquilizer-dart.

I am looking to buy quick-dry travelers' socks for my two young children, but they are so hard to find that I think I must be a travel-freak.

My family of four keeps just one car, but we travel to Europe at least every other year.

When my passport was about to expire, I feared that the passport office would keep the old passport when issuing a new one. I couldn't bear to lose my beloved passport with all the stamps inside, some of which I have had to beg for.

I care so much about how my passport picture looks, I have actually had my picture taken multiple times so I could the most flattering among several. This is very embarrassing to admit.

I'd better stop now. For now.

Oh, man. The passport photo.

My passport was recently stolen (I'm heartbroken - no "proof" of my globetrotting any more). I've had my new photos taken and they're OK. Just OK.

I've been contemplating having them secretly retaken.

You've just given me permission.

Worktowander, do it. Just do it.

As many times as you need to.

Christmas Time Confessions:

Just realized that every single thing I asked for for Christmas is in some way travel related.

Last night while baking Christmas cookies a friend called to ask me about using cell phones in Europe and I spent half an hour explaining it to her, then emailed her my comprehensive research (much of it from this site) - all of which took so long I burned the cookies.

While decorating the tree I put on the DVD "Love Actually" - presumably because it's Christmas related, but really because it takes place in London.

When I told my daughter that what I wanted from her as a gift was an IOU for something we'd buy in Paris/Barcelona this March she said "Mom, I haven't given you anthing but IOUs for trips for 5 years now."

I have twenty-five people coming to my house tonight for a party, the house is a mess, the food isn't cooked and yet I'm on this forum. Is there something wrong with me?

I am miserable unless I have plane tickets in my bureau drawer - I'm even happier if I have them several trips ahead.

I love comparing hotels on different websites and getting the best hotel for the value

I buy Italian, French and English soaps at TJ Maxx.

My kitchen in my now sold house had blue wallpaper with French script and a border or French shops, and a "cafe" in the corner. The rest of the house was also decorated with travel themes (a Thai guest room, Southwest bedroom)

I love my italian shoes and scarves, Scottish kilts, French berets.

I'll buy any item of clothing here if it has a scene from Europe on it. I went nuts when Kohls had beaded tops with themes of Paris, Venice...

I am totally obcessed with travel and am amazed that so many people here feel the same way.