Stupid Travel Mistake Number One
Photo by Cosmosis
Before you hit the airways to visit Grandma this Christmas, or take a weekend shopping trip to Chicago, or head for the Caribbean to escape the entire over hyped holiday season, I have a present for you. No, not leftover cranberry sauce. I’m going to share with you a list of my stupidest travel mistakes.
Don’t think you need such a list? Believe me, these are not minor blunders. They are “How could anyone be that inept” mistakes. Learn from these nuggets of travel wisdom and save yourself a ton of grief. In fact, in the spirit of Og Mandino, each travel tip needs to be pondered and reflected upon for several days in order to comprehend its true import. So I will be sharing them one by one over the next week or so.
Travel Tip Number One: Know How to Get to the Airport
When I lived in Ohio and before Delta introduced SimpliFares at their Cincinnati hub in a final attempt to hold off bankruptcy, we would play all kinds of games to save hundreds of dollars on plane tickets. One tactic was to book a ticket that originated at an airport near Cincinnati where prices were lower, such as Dayton, Louisville or Lexington. Often these flights would connect through Cincinnati, so I would rent a car at the Cincy airport, drive to Dayton, fly twenty minutes back to Cincinnati and then on to my final destination.
Most airports are located near major highways and are well marked with signage. They are built where the land is flat, or at least where the hills are smaller so that the cost to flatten them isn’t prohibitive. Not Lexington, Kentucky. There, I’m convinced, city planners built the airport in the hilliest place they could find, far from major highways as if they didn’t think people would ever give up their horses and travel by plane. This is a hidden airport.
My destination was New Orleans for a client dinner. I booked a flight out of Lexington and saved $800 off a direct Cincy to New Orleans itinerary. This was my second time flying out of the “Horse Capital of the World.” On my first trip, I tried to stay on major thoroughfares and realized the airport signs had led me southeast then west then back north. For this second trip, I vowed to cut the backtracking and drive on a direct southwest course to the airport. Plus, I’d be able to enjoy the scenic bluegrass countryside. I quickly learned there is no direct route. Northwest Lexington is a land of hills and farms where settlers were content to roam aimlessly on horseback so they didn’t bother to plot streets using a grid pattern. The roads curve and wind like lazy rivers, except at least rivers go somewhere.
When I came upon the first unexpected change in direction, I should have returned to the interstate. Instead, I drove on. In circles. For an hour⎯without seeing the airport, an airplane or even a gas station to ask directions.
I checked the rental car map. It was useless. Apparently, the streets in this part of Lexington are so crooked the map company decided it would be too difficult to print them. I continued onward, trying to remain calm, but with my departure time nearing, I was quickly losing it. My positive affirmations that I could still make the flight and the airport would be around the next bend were now screams of self-loathing. How could I be this stupid? What would I tell my client? “Sorry I can’t make dinner tonight, I got lost on the way to the airport.” I drove more frantically, hands clutched to the steering wheel, tires squealing, going airborne on each hillcrest, cursing the bluegrass and the white fences⎯until I missed my flight. I was thirty minutes late. The next flight wasn’t for two hours.
I called my client and mumbled something about the plane being delayed.