10 Things We Hate about Traveling ...

Whether it’s on the way out when you just can’t wait for the journey to start, or on the way back, when you just can’t wait to get home, flight delays are definitely one of the things we hate about traveling. It gets even worse if you’re on a multi-stop journey and a delay results in a missed connection - especially if it reduces the valuable time you have in your destination. I love long haul flights where you can curl up with a blanket for a movie fest, but flight delays are no fun.

Sticking with the flight theme, losing vacation time due to the dreaded jet lag is another of the bug bears of travel. It can knock you out for the first couple of days, spoiling the enjoyment of the front end of your trip, and also at the back end, when you’re back home and struggling with the whole idea of getting back to work.

If you travel frequently and tend to not go on package tours, inevitably you find yourself sleeping in an airport, a railway station or a bus station. Knowing that this happens to passengers, why is it therefore that the people who design these places make no allowance for this whatsoever? Seating – where it exists – is usually completely unsuitable for anyone to lie down – either because of arms or gaps or separators. Sleeping in some bleak transport hub is definitely one of the things we don’t enjoy about traveling.

Let’s face it – these are just an inconvenience, and they add to the cost of our trips. Long processing times mean you can’t just spontaneously decide to visit some exotic far off places and sometimes, there might even be the hindrance of a lack of embassy or consulate for you to actually make the application at.

“Real” travelers can be a bit precious (well, more than a bit!) and they don’t see themselves as tourists. This is why one of the things we don’t like about travel is places being overcrowded by tourists. Did you know that more than 1 billion people traveled during 2012 – according to the WMTO. The good thing about this is that more people visit the places on the main tourist drag, leaving all the off the beaten track places for travelers.

The scourge of travelers (and tourists), touts hang around major attractions and resorts like a bad smell. They are pretty much a plague. Nice to start off with; big beaming smiles and promises of the best bargains in town and then they become insistent, literally trying to drag you into the shops they’re touting or forcing their goods into your hands.

Or more to the point – no public toilets. One of the worst things about traveling, especially for us girls, is the lack of toilets and the dreadful state of ones that do exist. This is a major problem when you’re in some exotic land where your body hasn’t quite adjusted to the food. It’s no help that the first thing many travelers pack is a toilet roll; if there’s no loo, the loo roll isn’t much comfort.

If you’re going backpacking, you know you are going to have to rough it and that the places you stay will probably not have the best of facilities, if any at all. You push all thoughts of lack of washing facilities aside while you’re caught up in the excitement of planning your trip, and generally you don’t mind when you’re there – after all, if you’re spending 3 months trekking the Andes or 4 weeks backpacking round North Thailand, you don’t mind having to wear the same pair of shorts 4 days running etc, but that doesn’t mean you have to like feeling a real grubby pup.

You stay in hostels not because they are fun but because they are cheap and they help your travel budget go further. This means you can’t pick your company and who you share your space with. The positive side is that you get to meet fellow travelers, swap stories, cook together and learn from each other. One of the downsides of travel, however, are dorm mates who snore so loudly you think there’s a thunderstorm, dorm mates whose boots smell like a cat has died in them, dorm mates who never shut up, and even worse, dorm mates who prey on female travelers.

To most of us, I would imagine this is top of the list of things we hate about traveling. It is comforting to reach the end of the journey when your rucksack or case crosses your front doorstep but if you’re anything like me, this is also the cue for the post holiday blues to kick in. Oh well, take comfort in that fact there’s always the next trip to plan for and look forward to.

Do you agree these are the main things we hate about traveling? Maybe something else bugs you?