Start of Christmas Holidays...

Okay so my laptop isn’t exactly coach plane sized. But it helps me deal with the turbulence.

In recent years, best quantified by the time I’ve been with Sean (coming up on 5 years!), I’ve done a lot of solo traveling. Going to see various people and most recently just because I’m on a different schedule than everyone else. I’m currently going to Florida to meet the rest of my family for Christmas. I always find the traveling experience different usually it’s just a long process.

The worst is traveling by Greyhound bus (LINK). I have nothing against Greyhound, the offer an excellent service for what it is but… the bus is usually crowded and smelly. My advice should you ever have to travel by bus, is to get an overnight ride. I’ve found that traveling at night makes it easier to sleep (obviously) and people tend to not talk to you as much. Also, Sit at the front of the Bus if possible… it’s really nice to be one of the first off the bus.

Domestic flights are interesting as well… particularly dependant on the time of year and even the time of day. Holiday travel + going to Florida = screaming children who are going to Disney for the first time… The best part about this flight tho… not many just couples so I get my own section of 3 seats. But… It’s an entirely different flight atmosphere than the usual Thursday morning business trip flight at any other time of the year. Ahhh the business trip flight… those are nice, everyone is quite and reading the paper, but there are a lot more couples/single flyers… you don’t normally get a section to yourself.

No matter where or how you are traveling, get an mp3 player. I would be absolutely lost without my mp3 player. It makes all the difference in the world. I tend to travel with my laptop, DS and latest Wired magazine but the only crucial entertainment device that I NEED is my mp3 player. I currently have a first generation IPod shuffle and it’s perfect. Some people would recommend the noise canceling headphones… but to me those are too big and obnoxious to actually use on a flight, not to mention I’m poor cause of school.

Traveling opens an interesting opportunity to view humans and try to consider their “story”. It seems that most people are pretty obvious, particularly on this flight (go Disney). But airport watching is an interesting game… There are roughly 180 people on this flight, the plane isn’t full but that’s still a lot of people heading to Orlando 6 Days before Christmas… From Detroit… that’s a lot of different stories. Behind me are two young children traveling with what appears to be their grandpa or step dad? In front of me are a mother and her screaming 4 year old son. The hardest stories to guess are the non-student age people who are traveling by themselves.