Travel Personalities

There are different personality types when it comes to traveling. Sometimes your best friend, or your guy, can be the most wonderful person in the world, but you just shouldn’t travel together. I’m fortunate in that my best friend is the perfect companion for traveling, but I’m beginning to think that Mr. Amazingly Gorgeous and his group of friends are not really my cup of tea when it comes to travel.

There seems to be a couple of different personality types emerging:

The Control Freak - Loves to experience the most out of every travel experience, as long as he’s calling the shots. He will organize every detail, brook no argument or difference of opinion, and everyone will have a great time -- as long as they are doing exactly what he wants to do. Since I frequently just like to go off by myself and have some alone time, the Control Freak and I do not get along. Alone time is not on his schedule.

The Cruise Director - Every minute of every day is scheduled with an activity that everyone must participate in, or experience the pout of her hurt feelings. While it’s always nice to have someone in your group who will step up and organize some of the details, it’s also nice to allow people some flexibility to take advantage of options that come up on the fly. In my job I live on a schedule, and during my time off, I really enjoy just being able to go with the flow.

The Naysayer - No matter what suggestion is made, her response is always the same: “Do you really want to do that?” I’d be perfectly comfortable answering, “Yes, I really want to do that, and if you don’t I’m okay with that, we’ll catch up later.” But the Naysayer would just as soon be a martyr to her cause, making everyone miserable during the course of an outing. Different people can like doing different things; just go do it.

The Jellyfish - Has no spine, no opinion, and generally speaking, has no fun. Ask her what she’s like to do and she answers, “whatever you want to do.” Puhleeze! Don’t you have an opinion on something???

The Cheapskate - No matter what it costs, it’s too much for him. He never picks up a round of drinks, which would be okay except that he doesn’t pay for his own drinks either. When you are with a group of people who are all gainfully employed and making decent money, it’s hard to understand how people continue to make excuses for this type of behavior.

I’m going to go have an icy, cold beer (Corona) by the pool and spend some time thinking about what my travel personality is like. Hopefully no one will join me -- I’m in need of my alone time.