Is there anyone else out there who cannot brag about going around the world for years taking only a day pack?
My husband is 6'6" and not a beanpole. His size-12½ hiking shoes (or even tennis shoes) take up half of a carry-on all by themselves. I’m not tiny, either, and neither are our clothes. We usually travel about four weeks at a time and have taken day packs and carry-ons plus one checked 50-pound bag each. This combination has taken us to seven continents, from subfreezing weather to the high 90s.
Vacation time is precious, meaning no cooking, cleaning, doing laundry or having to shop for travel clothing. Nor do we want to pay our hard-earned travel money for expensive laundry and cleaning services.
Most of all, I think it’s a matter of respect for the countries we visit to make an effort to appear appropriate. We were thankful on a 1997 trip to India, for instance, when dining in the beautiful Rambagh Palace hotel in Jaipur with elegantly attired employees, to not be the obvious tourists schlepping through the dining room in jeans, T-shirts, parkas and backpacks that looked like they’d been worn all day. (I’m not talking young people here, either.)
We also stayed at the Lake Palace hotel in Udaipur. Lest you think we are only palace-dwellers, the previous nights we resided in a mud-and-dung hut at a jungle camp near Kanha National Park.
Our travel is usually independent and as off the beaten path as possible, with no fancy cruises and not focused on big cities. Whether it’s on an airline, checking into a hotel or patronizing a nice dining establishment, one usually gets better service and sometimes an upgrade for making the effort.
Are we alone on this or merely old-fashioned?
KATHI SNOUFFER
Portland, OR
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