20 Signs You Are Addicted to Travel ...

One of the key signs you are addicted to travel is that you never stop thinking about your trips, experiences and adventures, and you spend more time planning the next one than working or studying or doing the housework or … well, just about anything else.

If, while your friends are cramming their 5th pair of shoes into a huge suitcase, you have mastered the art of packing everything you need for 3 weeks in a modest-sized backpack, you truly have the travel bug.

One of the key symptoms of travel addiction is the fact you never put the backpack in the basement or attic, or woe betide it should ever be relegated to a dark closet. A true traveler’s backpack is never fully unpacked.

While your girlfriends are checking out the fashion and celeb pages on AWS, you head straight for the travel page. While they are reading Hello and Cosmo and watching SATC, you prefer National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

Another of the classic signs you are addicted to travel is that when you shop, you automatically convert prices into different currencies. If you know the current dollar/euro exchange rate, travel is in your blood.

You wake up sweating, your palms are itchy and you’re totally restless. The problem? You haven’t yet decided on your next travel adventure. You have travel angst, my dear.

What’s that?

You know you have an addiction to travel when you can recite the world’s best and worst airports and you look up this year’s hottest destinations while your friends are checking out this season’s colors and fashions.

You really know you have an addiction to travel when you can pack for a two-week trip in five minutes.

If you spend more time away from home and more time in different countries than your own, the travel bug has well and truly bitten you.

As a general traveler you may not be multi-lingual and you may be able to order a beer in 10 different languages, but being able to swear and cuss in several languages is one of the sure signs of a travel addiction.

Does the majority of your paycheck go towards funding your next trip? Or maybe, you can’t afford the next trip so you’re avidly finding ways to work your way there?

Another of the signs of a travel addiction is that you can sleep just about anywhere. Getting some shut-eye on a plane, train, bus etc., is no problem to you at all.

You have made a bucket list and it is absolutely crammed full of places to go and very little else.

If you add up all the money you have spent on traveling and it equates to a small mortgage, you know travel is in your blood and the likelihood of you ever having a mortgage seems a long way off reality. But, that doesn’t matter, if you are a travel addict you don’t see why anyone needs to own a house anyway! As long as you’ve got somewhere to store the rucksack and lay your head when you’re not on one of your trips, that’s all that matters.

It’s a sure sign you are addicted to travel when you know the name of the check in desk staff and the customs officers at the airport, the ticket office staff at the train station or the Greyhound bus drivers.

Here’s a few things to check. Do you only buy travel size toiletries? Do you have a pile of unused shoe shine kits and sewing kits they give away in hotels? Have you got more hotel headed stationery than you have underwear?

Another clue as to whether you have been seriously bitten by the travel bug is that on one of your infrequent trips home, a neighbor brings round a welcome to the neighborhood gift.

You can pick up your backpack or suitcase and know within a few ounces whether you have met the airline weight limit or not, and more so, you can recite all the airlines’ weight limits and carry on measurements by heart.

If the list of places you want to visit is shorter than the places you’ve been – you are a definite travel addict!

Do you recognize these signs you are addicted to travel? How many symptoms do you have? Maybe you wish you had them?