We as humans expect our travel journeys to be completely smooth with minimum hassle & almost no annoyances. Sure why not? It is good to expect these things after all we want to have the best time of our lives. As someone rightly said, travel surely is the scariest, most liberating, life-changing experience of your life and that one must have such an experience for at least once in their lives. That is definitely true! However no matter how much one tries to overlook, there are certain small annoying things that gets noticed as they happen around us throughout the entire journey that causes irritation and sometimes makes the entire journey a bitter sweet experience. Understand that these small annoying things, called as travel pet peeves, are essential to make your travel journeys memorable enough to recall & have a good laugh at the end of the experience. Here are some of those annoying experiences everyone did come across at least once in their lives:
1) Loud Snorers
How annoying is it when it’s late in the night and you are fast asleep on your bunk bed, probably dreaming to explore the beach town of Gokarna in Karnataka and suddenly one of the travellers in your room starts with his ear-splitting & unbearable snores or when one of the co-passengers on a shared public transport to the royal city of Udaipur starts blaring with the annoying snores. We often face such unavoidable situations especially when we are in a shared space and all we want is to cover our ears up & scream ‘Shut up’ at the top of our voice. Although, snoring is quite natural (and hell annoying!), yet it can be controlled with several anti-snoring products and medications that are available in local stores near you. Hello snorer buy one please!
2) Loud music without headphones
What makes people listen to loud music without headphones is a bit of a mystery sometimes. It is great that metal or rock music has a calming effect on you but it becomes nuisance for others especially when you are on a public transport. In order to feel relaxed, people prefer to undertake different activities but these annoying loud music enthusiasts put on the loud volume and annoy everyone around them. If you are travelling in another country where the local language is out of your understanding it becomes all the more difficult to handle such situation as neither do you speak the language nor do you understand the words of the music. Annoying isn’t it?
3) Crying children on air planes
Nothing can be more annoying than a crying child on an air plane. A economy class passengers already struggles with the annoyance of limited space on the plane and a crying child in such a situation acts like a fuel to the fire. This uncontrollable travel pet peeve can cause serious headache among the passengers and the parents of the child normally has face the brunt. Trust me the parents hate it too when their babies cry that too on an air plane. Hence, the only way to deal with this situation is to talk to the child or play games with them. This will calm the baby down along with the angry co-passengers.
4) Grabbing the seat in front of them
Please find the handles right beside your seat for you to get up and sit down for support. Some people have a habit to hold the front seat to stand or sit and it jostles the persons sitting ahead thus creating irritation and annoyance. This normally happens in air planes thus causing disturbance especially when the person sitting ahead is half asleep. It is extremely important to be careful and to ensure that this travel pet peeve doesn’t affect the other co-passengers and for the same it will be convenient to hold on something else or ask someone to help you get up or sit.
5) Overcrowded destinations
Finally your flight has landed at one of the exotic locations and you are ready to relax and rejuvenate by the beach side and for that you have travelled from one corner of the world to another only to find that the city is overcrowded with people from different parts of the world. Yikes! This effect of mass-tourism has left no place for you lay you towel and read a book in peace. How annoying is that! You need nothing more to ruin your own vacation. Not only is this travel pet peeve a concern for the visitors but it also causes damage to the beautiful beach location and more to the locals living in the area. Although you are here for few days and this beach city is beautiful for a reason, it is important to respect the location and cause least damage to it.
6) Transport delays
Flights, trains, buses get delayed frequently thereby adding more time for the journey. This causes inconvenience to visitors especially when they are on a tight schedule and have activities lined up right after reaching the destination. A 15-20 minute delay might be acceptable however sometimes the delays can last for 12-24 hours and it becomes a major turn – off for the tourists and travellers alike.
7) Lost luggage/delay in receiving luggage
This is a common occurrence on several modes of transport when the luggage fails to arrive at the correct destination with the passenger. This travel pet peeve may cause extreme stress as the luggage consists of all personal belongings of the person. Normally every endeavour to search the luggage is taken by the concerned transport department. However the passengers has to face several hardship till the luggage is located and brought to the right passenger.
8) Disrespect to the local culture
Every country is different and so is their culture. People travel to learn more about the culture of another country and this helps them to enhance their knowledge and gain insight into the stories surrounding the country. It is completely normal to disagree or dislike the local customs but what is abnormal is to show disrespect to the local culture. It becomes a pet peeve when people completely disregard the local culture only because it does not conform to their own beliefs. Such people not only hurt the feelings of the locals with their disrespectful actions but also tarnish the image of their own country by projecting themselves in low-light. Some countries prosecute such visitors with imprisonment & fine.
9) Camera Malfunction
‘Click click click’ camera is one of the most important gadgets on a vacation. It captures all your moments & memories in the form of videos and photos for you to preserve them and cherish them forever. Nevertheless it is a gadget and at times it does malfunction or simply stops working. This may exasperate some individuals especially bloggers, photographers whose work involves capturing photos & videos on a regular basis. Further, it becomes an added disadvantage if you are in a remote village devoid of facilities or in a foreign land where communication could be a problem. Although, this pet peeve is a rare occurrence, it displeases the person during the journey.
10) Limited sockets to charge
Why do hotels & hostels provide limited sockets to their customers to charge their gadgets is something which is out of my understanding. To stay connected & to capture memories, people generally carry their phone, cameras & laptop on their travels. During the day visitors generally explore the city and have access to these sockets during the night. At times the socket is inconveniently placed far away from the bed. Imaging having to wake up in the middle of the night just to check whether the earlier device is fully charged & to plug in the other device. How irritating! It is outright impossible especially when you are tired. Result? Your sleep is hampered and you end up more tired on a vacation.
Out of all the travel pet peeves, these are most some of the most annoying ones. You too think these are irritating right? Comment below & let me know how many of them have you faced.
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