Keystone Travel Habits

The next non-fiction book on my list is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. From the blurbs I’ve read, the author discusses the importance of certain keystone habits (like making your bed each morning) that provide a foundation for success in business and life.

This lead me to consider whether or not I’ve developed keystone travel habits.

I was able to identify this positive one. No matter what, I never forget the magic phrases that every preschooler knows by heart and too many adults have forgotten: “Excuse me,” and “Thank you.” I also flash a withering smile that says, “Please. I am so friggin’ lost that if you don’t walk me to the train station I may perish here in the piazza.”

As for negative travel habits, I routinely get suckered into paying too much for a hotel “experience.” I only need one thing in a hotel room – it must be clean. That’s it. I don’t spa, or exercise and generally never eat in 5-star hotel restaurants. So why do I constantly find myself in a $250 room when an $85 one would be just fine? For example, last winter I paid $275 to stay at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis. I wanted a front row seat for the hotel’s famous duck walk. (See the video below – the ducks literally EXPLODE out of the elevator.) But I could have stayed at the downtown Econo Lodge or Hampton Inn and simply sat in the lobby because the duck walk’s a public attraction, a fact I somehow missed in my research.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T97pv97V7Kc&w=420&h=315]

After reading the book perhaps I’ll gain some insight into my travel behaviors and attempt to eliminate this negative habit.

What are your travel habits?