travel tag

Over the holidays, we took a family trip to New Zealand. I began planning this trip 10 months ago which included gathering itineraries from friends previous trips as well as using a travel agent who specializes in New Zealand. The 10 day trip went mostly as planned but it still was not as good as I hoped. I can’t remember why I thought we needed to see “Hobbiton” because none of us are true “Lord of the Rings” fans. We didn’t need to fly half way around the globe to see a rebuilt set of a mythical place in a series of books and movies I never read or watched.  It is the latest in a string of trips – domestic and international – over the last ten years that just did not go as well as hoped. During the trip, my husband volunteered to “take over travel” and I accepted eagerly and with great relief. 

So far, he has taken the job very seriously. He booked a round trip flight for me in January and was not entirely grumpy about changing one of the legs. As I was departing for the outbound flight, my uber canceled and the next ride did not pick me up for another 15 minutes. This delay made my airport timing very tight and my husband took notice. As soon as I got in the car, he texted, “It’s going to be tight to check your bag.” Then two minutes later he wrote, “It pains me to see people so reckless about the airport. Our daughter and I build in ‘Uber failure’ time buffer when determining departure time.” 

Most days, I have a hard time getting him to respond to texts but on the way to the airport, he was entirely focused on whether I would make the flight. When I told him that we were not on route recommended by Waze, he said, “You are LETTING him take the wrong route! I wash my hands of this! He better take the carpool lane!” He gave me some strategies about where to check my bag, a contingency plan of taking the bag through security and then gate checking and gave me a bit of confidence that I would make the flight but concluded his texts with “This is why I run travel. These problems would never happen under my watch. You would have left 45 minutes earlier and not relied on uber.” 

I texted him back that I was concerned that when I arrived at the airport I would not have time to get food ahead of the flight or even go to the bathroom. He hammered home his feelings of travel and logistics superiority, “I mean ‘rush hour’ is just the fundamentals! The FUNDAMENTALS.” And, then suggested that given my poor judgment, I was lucky to have the option of a United Air in flight snack box – something he knows I find ridiculously expensive and unsatisfying.

Against the odds, I was able to check my bag, get through security, use the bathroom and buy a chicken caesar salad in time to get on the plane with my assigned boarding group. I was very relieved to be on schedule but I truly wished I had decided to leave extra early for the airport rather than endure a very stressful hour en route to the gate. I did express this remorse to my husband on text and his final message before take off was, “Despite the fact that you got away with this, you should take this as a lesson…”

On the flight home, I was with a group of five people and we left the house for the airport about 2 hours ahead of time. There were unexpected delays at security and once again I was texting my husband concerned about making the flight as well as having time to buy food and go to the bathroom. It was a repeat of the departing flight and he was eager to let me know he was disappointed. “OK. You learned nothing obviously. Do I have to handle the airport for everyone now?” I did make the flight with a bag of pretzels in hand but I was sweating and flustered.

After this, the next trip to the airport was together and I let him take full control – something he has wanted for the last 25 years. I was beyond excited to be handing over the reins of travel planning to my husband who very much seems to be embracing this role and enjoying his real or perceived “wins” in this category. With my husband reigning over travels, I am sleeping sounder at night because I now know that we are very unlikely to end up in the Amazon jungle for two nights without air conditioning or Tel Aviv when everything was closed for four consecutive days because of Shabbat and Passover (two of my top 5 travel blunders.)