My best and worse travel companions are my children. I just took my 16 year old skiing today, and I thought I would go insane with her constant complaining. Then, on the way home, she says, "Thanks mom, I had fun today."

Lizzie: I don't get this. You went on a trip with six "close friends" one of whom was an "awful woman whom nobody really liked"? I thought the bare minimum criterion for a "friend" is that you actually like the person, and a "close" friend is one you really like a lot, or have liked long enough to know very well. This thread is depressing behind the humor, because too many people seem to not like their friends.

This is really a sad thread when you stop to think that these things are being said about friends (or exfriends) not enemies or strangers..

To xxx who once again can not seem to read. I did not say that we were 4 people to a room. I said we were traveling as a group of 4. We had a common bathroom which she locked from both sides and used exclusively as if we did not exist.(Actually 3 separate bedrooms in a suite formation.) We were on the tour bus together in Naples at a later time, and not only did we 3 vote to leave but the other 20 or so people and bus driver finalized the vote for us. In fact, this person left us first without telling a soul she was going to walk into town- before the Naples excursion happened and we had been concerned enough about her to let the hotel and town authorities know when she did not return. She looked upon a civil question as a personal affront to her independence and yet wanted all the perks of the group. You also want to dis and add the negative without reading the exact words or meanings that are implied because you have already pre-judged. Hope you are a certified member of the PAC, because you sure belong.

And if any of you think that you know your good "friends" until you've been with them both traveling and in an emergency or national/man-made disaster, you are pretty young and naive. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Wow... I guess I am pretty lucky, my spouse is the best traveller in the whole world! Maybe it's just that we two are in agreement 99% of the time. This past October I arranged for my In-laws to meet up with us in Greece.. they had never been overseas before... (anyone remember my neurotic "Europe with First Timers" post?) <BR>Now my father in law can get a bit... ummm how to say this politely.. "dominating" in a conversation especially when he's had a glass of wine or two... I fretted constantly about taking the two of them overseas. Amazingly it worked like a dream.. they were like 2 teenagers, no complaints, sense of adventure, willingness to try anything.. my husband and I were amazed. You just never know, but after reading the above posts I doubt I'll be travelling with any other people anytime soon.

Jeannette, <BR>Wouldn't the "friend" you refer to be called Emmanuelle ? I had the same kind of experience with one, and until then I thought she was a close friend too ... <BR> <BR>She came late to the airport (we were going to Japan), saying it was my fault since I booked an early flight, spent 1 hour having a shower in Tokyo Airport while our Japanese friends were waiting for us, left on her own for 3 days without telling anyone although she could barely speak English, let alone Japanese, came back with the flu which she generously shared with everyone, was always late, had us wasting a whole day in Osaka while she was hunting for the ultimate ski jacket (!), complained about everything and everybody. We ended up throwing her into a fountain (very shallow - she didn't drown) at a mountain temple ... <BR> <BR>She moved to NY some years ago, and we fervently hope she likes it there and won't come back.

Dear Florence: No- that was not her name, but it hurts me to hear that there is another one as bad as she was out there. This person actually had a darling little tour guide in Naples crying over having to leave her, as the tour guide thought she would be robbed where she was going. I told her that the chances were small and that the thieves had better watch out with this one. She beat us back to the original rooms with about 6 boxes of boots. AND she kept about 18 people from seeing the Palace Gardens as that was supposed to happen in the "searching" time frame. This was years ago, and I can still remember that she also expected her roommate to put all the shoes and boots she bought on this leather excursion in both their suitcases- and had an extra carry-on that she assumed her friend would carry. The roommate refused. This one also never traveled with that group again. There is a travel group that does private semi-tours, sort of like untours- in Chicago's SW suburbs. They changed a basic rule in their signed agreement, primarily because of this and one other incident. The agreement you sign reads: Chartered busses, trains, ferries or boats leave on time as long as they are not proceeding to a new lodging. <BR> <BR>I actually never WAS her friend, but a friend of her roommate. I wouldn't have developed a friendship with her, because all she ever talked about was how her stocks were doing. UGH! Damp beds are not pleasant upon coming home at midnight, even after some superlative Amalfi Coast area wine. <BR>

It sounds to me like neither Jeanette nor this horrible trip mate was any great prize as a friend or travel companion. But I wonder why in 40 years of traveling I have never had such horrible travel companions. Is it luck or perceptions?

Voting to leave someone on a tour sounds like mob action to me. Let us know where you're going and on what tour and we'll keep away from you.

It sounds like Bob Brown and Thyra would be nice people to run into on a trip. Some (not all) of the rest of you and your friends sound like travel companions from hell. What is a PAC member?

<BR>I'm sticking this in here because it is a refreshing contrast to the kvetching from other posters who hate their "friends" when they travel with them. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>Author: jo ann ([email protected]) <BR>Date: 3/07/2001, 7:10 pm ET <BR> <BR>Message: I would agree with the poster who suggested that you try to find others who might want to travel. Altho I was a French major in college, I married early to someone who hated/refused to travel, so at 31 had still not made it to Paris (altho I was in the middle of divorcing....but I digress) <BR>I got a phone call one day at work from a woman I had met at a busines luncheon about 6 months prior. She was evidently calling every person she knew and saying: I want to go to Paris, do you? <BR>Well, I did, and about 3 mos later we met up at the airport (lots of conversation but no further face to face meetings), spent 2 weeks traveling France together and it was *splendid*. We both wanted to see everything, knew we couldn't, compromised beautifully, had lots in common (including needing to travel on the cheap) - it worked wonderfully! <BR>I realize I was probably really lucky, but this just shows that it doesn't have to be a long-time friend to be a good travel companion. <BR>Good luck! <BR> <BR>

I swear it's chemistry; we travelled successfully with a woman twice, then her mother joined us, and they both became (or emerged) passive-aggressives. A real nightmare, and it taught me how people can get caught in an abusive relationship. I kept thinking "I must be doing something wrong; no one would be this awful without my doing something to set them off". My mistake was trying to be conciliatory; with only a few days left, I finally blew up and was completely horrible - and then they were nice. eeeeyuuuu been there, done that, never again. I didn't like that elvira very much, but it was self-preservation. If I'd only spoken out sooner, there would have been no pent-up anger. <BR> <BR>Then there's the friend of a friend, now spoken of as RrreBECCa. Joined us on long weekend in San Francisco, brought 1/2 dozen bags and then wanted help carrying them. Being nice people, we did. We were staying with a friend (who'd gone out and bought futons for us to sleep on) and the R word proceeded to bitch about the sleeping arrangements; she got sloppy drunk during the tour of Napa Valley, invited some guy she met thru emails to join us, harassed our friend while he was driving back, in the dark, along the winding roads of Napa Valley - she was in the passenger seat and I had my hands out, reaching for her neck, when I was forcibly restrained by the other two women in the backseat "no, elvira, you don't want a homicide rap; you know how bad you look in those prison uniforms". <BR> <BR>Those are the only two horrid experiences with travelling companions; I'm fortunate that the Loons are all great travellers and we all get along well, even under dire circumstances like train strikes and clogged toilets.

Yes, travelling sometimes reveals the bottom of our souls: <BR> <BR>I suppose Heaven wanted to offer compensation from Emmanuelle, since on my next trip to Japan, I had planned to meet a couple of sport buddies in Tokyo. Those two were bikers (well, Swiss bikers, that means well scrubbed, but with an horrible taste in music, leather clothes, and "rock-n-roll" attitude), and since I was staying with middle-aged Japanese, I'd decided to spend only a couple of days with them, just to show them how to cope. <BR>We ended up spending 3 weeks together: they turned to be the most well-behaved, nicest, interested people I had the pleasure to guide around Tokyo, and we're still fast friends more than 10 years after.

I imagine that many people would consider my husband and me difficult travel companions, for the very reasons that others might find us ideal. <BR> <BR>We're very practical, and travel light; we'd never expect help with carrying baggage. However, I can bet that our limited wardrobes would grate on those for whom looking smartly dressed is important. And we would not be much fun for those who enjoy shopping, because we spend almost none of our time on this activity. <BR> <BR>Now that we're older, we seem to need more creature comforts than we used to. Yet, we know of some who still consider us cheap, and others who question our extravagance. <BR> <BR>I guess it boils down to whether one can accept that there is more than one 'right' way to travel....and even then, I suspect we all do better when we travel with people whose style is similar to our own.

You're right, Mini.

When I was 14 I went on a two-week trip to England, with a week in London. I was with my mother, a family friend and her daughter. The daughter had recently become a born-again Baptist fundamentalist since they moved to the South. She convinced me to help her pass out her pamphlets in Picadilly Circus. I can't believe she convinced me to do that. Actually, it was kinda' fun...

What a funny, interesting thread--I don't understand why people feel the need to post insulting comments. You have to have experienced similar aggravations to understand the frustrations. For years we took students to Europe, and the occasional adult. I remember two distinct surprises. One was a 32-year-old art teacher friend: we thought, great! XX will love all this. Well, I guess he did, but he kept us all waiting everywhere with his need to hit the toilettes--just as we'd be heading out the door "Wait a minute, I have to use the facilities." A bladder problem I can understand, but at the very moment we were to leave, every single time--it became a trip joke. Then there was the archetypal self-absorbed control-freak who was an absolute joy to travel with, sought out new experiences, included the kids, etc. You never know. <BR> <BR>The worst, however, was the advisor of a group thrown in with ours on a tour: she constantly interrupted/corrected the tour guide (a mature professional guide), left a novice fellow advisor to deal with two foreign students who needed visas for France and had to get them in London, and was a general overbearing, supercilious, know-it-all pain in the ***. Her students constantly came to us for help, and when she decided to stiff the guide, despite having collected beforehand in the States (he was a very good guide, and we had some poor ones on those student trips), they took up a collection and came by our room the night before we all left to give it to us to pass on to him. You all just think you know PAs.

Sue's comments and many others are interesting, many are very funny, some show a bit of insight but some others are just plain mean and a little frightening. I can't account for why anyone else wrote anything critical only myself and I agree with the poster who said he would not want to be on a trip with some of the people who posted their stories here.

I WENT TO ENG. FOR A WK WITH A RELATIVE WHO: <BR> <BR>1) ANNOUNCED SHE WOULDN'T EAT ANY FOOD SHE COULDN'T PRONOUNCE; HER FAVORITE PLACE IN LONDON WAS THE LOCAL BURGER KING; <BR> <BR>2) HAD TO SLEEP WITH THE TV RUNNING; <BR> <BR>3) COMPLAINED ABOUT EVERYTHING (TOURS TOO SHORT, TOO LONG, SNOBBY TOUR GUIDES, ETC.) <BR> <BR>4) SCOLDED ME FOR TALKING TO PEOPLE I DIDN'T KNOW (ISN'T IDEA OF TRAVELING GETTING TO KNOW OTHER PEOPLE & CULTURES?) <BR> <BR>5) DECIDED SHE'D EAT VEGETARIAN DUE TO MAD COW SCARE, ALTHOUGH MOST PLACES SERVED LAMB INSTEAD OF BEEF, THEN MADE A SCENE WHEN THE MAJORITY CHOICES, I.E., MEAT DISHES, GOT SERVED 1ST. <BR> <BR>6) KEPT HER TRAY DOWN ALL THE WAY FROM LONDON TO BOSTON SO PASSENGER IN FRONT COULDN'T RECLINE HIS SEAT; <BR> <BR>7) GOT ANGRY AT OUR FELLOW TOUR MEMBERS WHO GOT STUCK AT THE LOUVRE CHECK-IN LINE DUE TO SEVERE OVER-CROWDING <BR> <BR>I COULD GO ON AND ON BUT YOU GET THE IDEA. I THINK SHE THOUGHT LONDON WAS LIKE DISNEYLAND, WHERE YOU FINISHED THE "RIDES" AND WENT BACK TO AMERICA AT NIGHT! <BR> <BR>I DECIDED AFTER THAT I'D RATHER TRAVEL ALONE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!