Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Comfort Option

So, here’s what I’ve learned traveling with my parents: 
When you travel in your 20s, you ask yourself, “How cheaply can I do this?”  With more time than money, you want to cram in as many adventures as possible and have to cut corners somewhere.  To pinch a few pennies, you put up with things you normally wouldn’t.  You eat unidentified street meat and you ignore the clump of someone else’s hair stuck to the wall in the communal shower at the $5 hostel and you willingly take the most uncomfortable bus available.  You learn creative budgeting, such as eating only bread and bananas for three days because you really want those surfing lessons.  Everything is great because let’s face it, you can’t really afford to be picky.
Well things change when you travel in your 50s.  The question becomes, “How comfortably can I do this?”  My parents don’t worry as much about a budget as they do about how soft the beds are and whether or not the complimentary soap is too heavily scented.  Every time we get to a new place Mom needs some time “to adjust,” and they both might comment that the whole town is too noisy.  Mom doesn’t make a move without first consulting Lonely Planet, and pre-books us into “the best hotel in town,” and then comforts herself by endlessly repeating the fact to me and my dad.  However, down here even the best hotel in town can make a misstep that will have Mom saying things like, “Danny, they don’t even have a bathmat here!”  (But seriously, it is nice staying at places with pools and wi-fi and free breakfast.)
Anytime we have a choice, my parents will always choose the “comfort option.”  As you can imagine, this usually has me rolling my eyes - I mean, why backpack around South America if you’re planning on being comfortable?  Isn’t being uncomfortable part of the experience?  Shouldn’t we take the overnight bus just to see what happens?  Who cares what water the vegetables were washed in!  Yes let’s hitchhike, it’s cheap!  Those are the kinds of adventures you can have when you’re backpacking in your 20s, with your friends.  Well, despite an increase in budget, it’s definitely not as fun or easy traveling with your parents as it is with your 20-something friends, especially when one is menopausal and the other one’s going deaf.  
Dad usually falls asleep around 9pm and likes to set the alarm 40 minutes earlier than the agreed-upon time so we’re all up at 7am for our bus at noon.  Plus he can’t always hear what anyone’s saying so Mom and I have to do that yelling-at-old-people thing, which you don’t usually have to do when you’re with your friends.  Mom is, you know, just a bit high maintenance and has lots of demands and questions and expectations which I have to voice for her because she can’t communicate in Spanish, not counting that diarrhea overshare I mentioned last time.  Just some of the joys of traveling as an adult with your even more adult parents.  But I’m not complaining, they’re my biggest fans and they think I’m completely fluent in Spanish!


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