End Of The Line For This Guilt Trip

The conclusion of travel confessions.

The About.com Budget Travel Guide Mark Kahler stunned me when he said, “Some people are surprised that I will stay on occasion in a luxury hotel or review a five-star property. People with more money still want value!”

It is not what Chief researcher at National Geographic Traveler Magazine Marilyn Terrell does on her ventures that shocked me, it’s what she doesn’t do. Terrell confessed, “I have five kids, I don’t wear a watch and I refuse to get a cellphone.” Talk about extreme traveling!

Other travelers that revealed some stunning secrets include:

Travelocity’s Senior Editor Genevieve Brown came prepared with a list of things she needed to get off her chest. They included, “Despite all the traveling I do, I’m not an elite member of any airline’s frequent flyer program. I’ve never paid a checked-bag or any other extra fee to an airline. I have a Christmas ornament from every destination I’ve ever visited. Finally, if a hotel’s front desk clerk says my room number out loud, I insist they change my room.” Wow a lot of guilt from that window seat.

Another traveler that needed to come clean was Christine Gilbert of almostfearless.com. She told me that, “I spent August driving across the US and Canada, but most of it was spent puking from morning sickness. That even while I was posting pics of buffalo and vistas in the Yukon and writing articles and twittering, there was a 90% chance that I had just puked, was about to puke or wish I could puke so I would feel better. Ah traveling during the first trimester.”

One thing that many of us techno-geeky travelers have found to be extremely useful while being on the road is the access to our email via smart phones. Oh those addictive little items have caused many of us to become even more obsessed with checking our inbox and chatting it up on social media pages while in transit.

Chris Gray Faust, Travel Editor at USA Today, is also a victim of taking a trip with technology.
She told me, “I’m addicted to checking email, Twitter and Facebook on my iPhone and have so far found it impossible to turn it off when traveling overseas. Which means that even with the AT&T international data plan, I have racked up hundreds of dollars on my phone bill while on the road. My husband @DonFaustPhoto successfully got them reduced twice, but now he’s threatening to take away when my phone when I go! I’ve told him that I will be good when I go to the SATW conference in Guadalajara next week. I hope I can stay strong…”

One travel expert came to me not only to confess…but to “out-confess” an earlier sinner. Laura Bly, who writes for USA Today, expressed to me, “I can beat Stephanie Yoder’s Amsterdam tale. Years ago, I made the foolish decision to drive into Florence. Intimidated by the crush of tourists and dearth of parking spots, I turned tail and pushed on to Lucca instead (where I promptly ditched the car and rented a bike for a tool around the city walls). And no, I still haven’t been back.”

The confessional is now closed. But before I throw some gasoline on it and light a match to it, there is just one more confession I need to get off my chest. Although I am in fact called the Brooklyn Nomad, yours truly was actually born a few miles away in…sigh…Queens, New York (insert collective gasp).

But moving to Kings County was just the thing this jaded “Noo Yawka” needed to revive my love of New York. While I may have a serious travel addiction, one that my wife said needs to be checked out by a doctor, packing up and moving to Brooklyn made me realize just how much I adore traveling right in my backyard. Sometimes as seekers of the next big adventure, we often times forget how great our own neighborhoods really are.

…and “The Queens Nomad” just sounded weird.