Travel Addict: What Your Browsing History Says About You
Forgive me WordPress, for I have sinned. It has been…gasp…18 days since my last blog post. And worse than that, it’s been…gulp…30 days since my last trip. And unless something magical changes, I have 58 more days until my next one (though my money is on ‘something magical will change’!)
Sadly, I’ve not been posting–or traveling–lately, but that’s because I’ve been busy working on my book, starting a new blog (link soon to come) researching upcoming trips and generally being overwhelmed with the holiday season. But now that said season is almost over, I have time to once again reflect on travel past, present and future. And so, dear reader, I bring to you the first of those posts–travel present.
Last year I did three different posts for the new year; one describing where I’d been, one describing where I was planning on going, and one very short one about my present situation. I didn’t love the ‘present’ post very much, because it’s hard to write about what is happening right now. But this year, I’m starting with the present. Because this year, I realize what I am right now–a travel addict.
There are many signs and symptoms of travel addiction, but there’s one sure way to diagnose it–a brief check of your web browsing history. A couple of weeks ago I said to my husband hey, if I type www.e, Expedia pops up. To which he replied Really? I’m surprised it doesn’t pop up when you type ‘w’.
Touche, dear.
It becomes very clear what’s important to me when you look at where I’ve been online. It’s actually extremely amusing, and so, dear reader, I will share it with you. Hope you get a chuckle out of my A-Z list of most frequently visited websites. This is my travel-present…
A. Amazon–where I go to buy guide books (and backpacks and neck wallets and hiking shoes…)
B. Boards.CruiseCritic–that would be a cruise travel forum that I frequent (and by ‘frequent’ I mean ‘stalk for solo cruise deals in the solo cruiser forums’)
C. Cruises.com
D. Disney Food Blog
E. Expedia (but you all knew that one already!)
F. Facebook (clearly not travel related, but come on–who out there can name a site that starts with ‘f’ that they visit more than Facebook?)
G. Google (same parenthetical statement as above)
H. Hootsuite–to post my travel blog links in a shortened format. Love you, Hootsuite!
I. Iceland Express. Seriously.
J. Oddly, no site pops up. But I do get a google search result for ‘Jewel of the Seas’, so I guess that still counts!
K. Kayak–my favorite airfare website. It got us to London from New York for $600 last summer. Bless you, Kayak.
L. Last Minute Travel .com
M. Google Mail
N. NCL, the website for Norwegian Cruise Line
O. Orbitz
P. Passporter–a great Disney planning website that everyone should use.
Q. Nothing. Not even a google search.
R. Royal Caribbean
S. The admin page of this blog.
T. TripAdvisor–check out my contributions here!
U. US Air
V. Vrbo–vacation rentals by owner, which is where I got our apartment in Paris and my condo in Orlando. Best travel site ever.
W. WordPress
X. Again, nothing.
Y. YouTube. Why? Because I watch cruise ship, hotel, and destination videos when I’m planning a trip. Oh, and Rick Steves episodes!
Z. Zappos. Damn, I hate to have to end with a non-travel related site. Ah well!
So–what do you think? Travel addict? Yes or no? Honestly, I could probably learn the same things about myself by looking at my credit card statement. But I really don’t want to do that!
What a great idea for a blog post, and I’m right there with you – Expedia pops up for me if I even think about typing “www.e”. I’ll have to check out vrbo.
VRBO is the best. But be warned–it’s a time sink. I’ve spent hours researching apartments in places I want to visit. It does help you learn about a new city or town, though–because you have to figure out how the neighborhoods work. Happy researching to you!
Very interesting!!
Love VRBO. Got our house in Hawaii last summer through them and it was AWESOME!!!
Isn’t it the best? I always search there first when looking at staying anywhere for a week or more. Actually, to be honest, I always consider staying EVERYWHERE for a week or more so that I can rent an apartment! Ha!