elvira

Oy - I thought I was the only one who obsessed. My anal-retentive mind is now at ease. And the ticket thing, Shanna, is right on target - the darn thing is nearly worn thin by the time I present it at the check-in counter. <BR> <BR>I'm so obsessive that I have check-lists on file (summer/Europe; winter/Europe; summer/U.S.; etc.) that I use every trip planning. <BR> <BR>I don't have a moneybelt, but like Arthur, I constantly check my purse for my 'travel wallet' that has the money, passport, tickets, etc. Just because I've never lost it once doesn't mean I can ease up on my vigilance. Bad karma follows one everywhere.

Lori

Isn't it wild - everyone on this Forum experiences some of the same pre-trip obsessions!!! Elvira & Shanna I didn't want to admit I check my purse about a zillion times prior to getting to the a/p to be sure I have the tickets, passport, $$, whatever. My husband always says "how many times are you going to look, they haven't gone anyplace since you looked last". Maybe it is because no matter how many times you go to Europe you always find it just a little like "Oh Wow, I'm actually going to Paris, Rome, Venice, where ever and it's like I gotta keep checking to make sure I'm not dreaming this. <BR> <BR>

Thyra

Well besides EVERYTHING..(a delightful obsession anyway) I am constantly worried about a place to exercise! I like to be near a park for walking/jogging or at a hotel with a fitness room (few and far between in Europe) or a public gym or how I can get to one... stupid huh? You'd think with all that walking about for hours on end, I could relax.. I guess I am pretty addicted, even when I backpacked at 20 I would hop around a public restroom for half an hour to get a cardio vascular workout (Thankfully I am over THAT one!).

Austin

<BR>Good post Karen! <BR> <BR>Since our first trip to Europe in l959 I have been obsessed with two obsessions (oh well) <BR> <BR>1-En route and returning--the passports. On our very first trip I found myself always patting the pocket holding my wife's and my passports. To this day I always wear a shirt with a breast pocket that has a button (yeah and a button hole too) and I keep on patting and touching until we're in the hotel room. I also make xerox copies of the passports but those I dont pat. <BR> <BR>2-the size of the hotel room. We really like a spacious hotel room or put the other way---we feel cluttered and irritable in a tight room. Nowadays thanks to the internet I always email for the room size in sqaure meters. <BR> <BR>In case you are interested a good size is 25 sq meters or more--25 square meters is about 255 square ft. <BR> <BR>Obsessively yours and glad to know I'm not the only nut on this site, <BR> <BR>Austin <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>

stacey

I finally finished laughing. So glad I'm not the only one with the ticket thing. Ticket, passport, wallet. Ticket, passport, wallet. I will walk through airports with my hand inside my carry-on, just to make sure they're still there. I guess I figure that as long as I have those three things, everything else is negotiable. Then I pull out the boarding pass every 3.5 minutes to check the gate number - like it might have changed in those minutes.

Sheila

Well, I'm kind of the other way. I don't worry enough about anything. And I end up having to deal with the consequences. <BR> <BR>Like the time I was on a flight going to Cyprus landing at 3 in the afternoon. I had £9 in my wallet; I read the guidebooks on the plane, discovered the banks close at 1 and I needed £25 deposit for the car hire. <BR> <BR>Or turning up in Barcelona at 11pm with no driving licence and 2 hours' drive from my hotel.Or just catching the ed eye to London one morning; getting into the car 5 minutes before checkin time (we live 10 minutes' from the airport and discovering I'd left my wallet (with all my plastic) in the office the night before. <BR> <BR>Getting home from work 5 minutes before check in (did I mention.....) the night we left for our main holiday-I still don't know how the marriage survived that one. <BR> <BR>Or leaving my Pills behind...on my honeymoon. <BR> <BR>I definitely am NOT obsessive

Cindy

Boy! I wish someone with a psych degree would read this and tell me what it all means. It seems that many people fear "forgetting" something, although no one has mentioned forgetting important things like eyeglasses, luggage, or medicine. Maybe all of these obsessions have to do with worry about a loss of control, but then again, no one has mentioned anything to do with the actual flight, which is where we really have no control. <BR> <BR>So has everyone who commented actually experienced the consequences of forgetting whatever-it-is, or have we just read too many war stories on this board?

karen m

I obsess over the amount of anti anxiety medicine I will need. A little for the plane and those curvy narrow shear drop roads in Italy are the worst. I'm sedated so I am not much help driving. <BR>KAren M

Michelle

I was so obsessed with getting to the duty-free shop that I left my purse at the x-ray scanner and then I dropped my passport on the floor waiting in line to pay. Luckily, a man saw it and ran after me. The things you do to get a Chanel lipstick! <BR> <BR>I'm just like Shanna, obsessing about EVERYTHING. But I've decided that it's my hobby, anticipating the trip and planning for it. I'm a little let down that, because I'm going to London this spring, I don't have to learn another language. It seems too easy, somehow. <BR> <BR>I don't believe in the Rick Steves "pack one pair of underwear and an old shirt" theory. Hell, why do you think the luggage has wheels on it? What's more, I used all the little doodads I brought: the minicompass, the bubble wrap, the power bars...well, maybe I could have done without the hand sanitizer. But it was just a tiny bottle.

Al

What a great question! Confession time: I am a map-and-guidebook freak. I simply must know the lay of the land, the location of this and that, the hours things open and close. Hence, I am known on a first-name basis by the friendly folks at Barnes & Noble. As I enter, they point me in the direction of the map and guidebook rack. Dr. Freud: what does this say about me? Am I insecure?

will

I'm like most of you guys & I obsess about everything. I check for the tickets, money & passports a thousand times (& that's just waiting in the check-in line at the airport). I make packing lists & review them & review them checking to be sure that everything is in the suit case. Unfortunately, for all my obsessing I still manage to leave things behind. I once had to buy underwear in Costa Rica (I left mine at home). And last year in Italy I left my eye glasses in one hotel room & my car keys (the car was in the U.S. @ the airport) in another hotel room. Perhaps I should be a little more obsessive, or maybe just carry through with my obessions a little better!

Susie

What a relief to learn I'm not the only crazy obsessive! <BR> 1 of my biggest worries is how to avoid taking taxis - I have no reason for such paranoia but we have greatly inconvenienced ourselves to avoid them, which means lugging suitcases many blocks, etc. <BR> Being able to find a W.C. is another. <BR> Then there's finding the right kind of food (a challenge in Portugal as I hate fish), non smoking restaurants, how to avoid jet lag & insomnia once I get there, and having enough of the right kind of money with us (we get a lot of foreign currency before we leave the U.S., which costs us more), and finding a quiet room (always requesting "upstairs away from noise"). <BR> My husband obsesses about getting his film inspected by hand at the airports. (He uses very fast film - 3200 - which definitely can be ruined if it goes through X-rays.) <BR> Fortunately, once we get to our destination, things generally work out pretty well - so why aren't we reassured enough to avoid going through all the obsessiveness prior to our next trip?

Alice

Well, I am a "careful" planner, as so many of you are, and spend hours/days/weeks on trip details. I LOVE www.mappy.com, where I can find out EXACTLY where places are. After our first Europe vacation, I came home and had my hair cut SHORT and now I never worry about curling irons or blow dryers any more!

Susan

Well, I agree with checking the tickets often and making sure (often) that I have the passports & money...but Stacey, I also have to check the boarding gate often. Keep in mind that that sometimes isn't enough! On a recent return flight from Mexico, the departing gate for our flight was changed 4 times after we arrived at the Chicago airport for our connecting flight. And they didn't always announce it on the speaker! I found out once by going to the desk to recheck our depature time! Oh well, overall our flights were good that trip. <BR>

topper

I fear catching something that my wife finds out about.

Ellen

TOILET PAPER. When you are used to Charmin, how on earth do you tolerate that sand paper on the planes & trains and in the hotels. My husband groans everytime he sees me smushing a 4 pak of TP into the suitcase, but boy is he grateful when he needs it. I also walk around with a roll in my knapsack.

s

Karen & All, <BR> <BR>Great stories. Like Shanna & Elvira, I'm a LIST person: everything gets thunk through then put on a list then checked and checked and checked, and that's half the fun. There's something *tangible* about the trip when you're caressing . . . the ticket, the passport, the train pass, the hotel's fax, etc. <BR> <BR>Anyway, as far as "unimportant details" that I've obsessed over . . . locating the grocery stores in the airports. This is especially critical when arriving in, say, Zurich, and I'm facing a long train ride. I MUST know EXACTLY where the Migros is so I can wheel in, buy the necessaries (chocolate, cheese, bread, yogurt), and scoot out to the train platform without backtracking or wandering around lost. I must admit I've spent hour and hours on line surfing and searching for the kind of detailed map of airports that locates specific stores. I love it. And, naturally, I always end up lost and wandering anyway! <BR> <BR>s

Carol

When planning a trip, I obsess about making sure I see absolutely everything there is to see--which definitely leads to overkill on guidebooks. I also obsessively collect list upon list of great restaurants which, I am ashamed to say, I hardly ever use because, since the monument/museum/view is the priority and not the restaurant, when I get hungry, I just eat at the closest place with an "interesting" menu in the area. Finally, I too confess to obsessively making sure I have my ticket until I actually get on the plane.

Jeanette

I always do the "check the passport", "check the tickets" thing too. I also leave too much time for the trip to the airport and am always way too early. BUT since I have gotten the psych. degrees I no longer overplan or get myself in a tizzy over my packing etc. It certainly is about control. Travel experiences almost always up the anxiety levels big time- and the control through excessive planning may self-minimize it. May make fellow travelers MORE anxious though. What gets to me is people like my youngest son who can leave on a 1000 mile trip at 6pm and start to pack and decide where they will go first at a little before 5pm. AND he sees a whole different set of things than I do. I end up seeing the tourist sights and all the "must-dos." He sees all the undersides and sometimes I think he gets a better feel for the place than I do. Last year I forced myself to leave without any hotel reservations (Michigan) and found that the vacation was totally different because of that one change. Because of the "looseness" I found places (good and bad)that I would never stopped to see otherwise.

SharonM

How could I EVER have forgotten to mention my making huge emergency lists for the vet/friend, depending on where I have to leave my kitty on trips! (Whereas, my Parents and friends wouldn't have a clue where to reach me, unless it was pet-related!) <BR> <BR>As much as I worry about that baby, I cannot imagine ever having children!!!