It's looking like we will be staying put next Christmas. Travelling during the holiday season is wearing. Is this only the 2nd week we've been back?
I've written before about how I didn't really enjoying the transit part of summer European travel (though being in Amalfi and Cinque Terre made up for it). Christmas time is right up there as well.
Too much chaos (there are boarding protocols...), too many people who are not accustomed to travelling (please let the people in the rows ahead of you exit first...), too much time spent waiting for people to empty their pockets of all their metal etc. Don't get me started on how priority boarding kinda goes out the window then gate agents are overwhelmed. I'm sounding like George Clooney in "Up In The Air".
When families travel say once or twice a year at the busiest times and pack everything they own into their suitcases, you are basically putting your faith into a system that is bursting at its seams. We saw many panicked people trying to figure out what to do when their luggage (all those Christmas presents!) or sports equipment did not emerge. A lot of life is a "numbers game" and it is occasionally our turn.
Most of the time I do my best not to check in anything I cannot afford or wish to lose. As we only check in luggage when going west to ski (last time, we are finally organized out there!), it was necessary to remind ourselves of this. Especially having seen commercials for a show about airlines auctioning off lost luggage and what big money it can be.
I brought home enough clothes to fit into a carry on. May not sound like much volume but total retail cost of a ski jacket, ski pants, base layers, 3 new pairs of pants, 1 top and a pair of ski goggles are a couple thousand. None of which I'd care to replace anytime soon.
So we'll travel before and after Christmas. Flights are usually cheaper. Volume is dramatically lower. When you are in it for the long haul, adjusting yearly things a few weeks either way is worth it.
However I reserve the right to suck it up when a really really cool opportunity arises.
Agreed. Traveled during the first two weeks of December and loved the lack of craziness. The year before that we traveled the second week of September -- also very quiet.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to travel in Sept but work is too busy for me then. It would have to be a pretty neat opportunity for me to override that.
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