Travel Writers, They're Just Like Us!

Those of you who don't read gossip rags might not get the title reference (was that a confession? okay, maybe...), but today's story is ripped from the pages of the latest issue of Budget Travel.

If you've been with the Traveling Spoon for a while, you know that I love my online Lonely Planet articles and my Budget Travel magazines. I grieved a little when my subscription ended this past fall, but thankfully my sister, Rebecca, stepped in and ordered me up another year as a Christmas gift (it's thanks to her that I got my first subscription!).

I'm a frugal girl, and the only thing I love more than a great travel tip is a great money-saving one. For that reason, the magazine is a goldmine (even though their idea of cheap sometimes differs from mine) and I never fail to find a useful tidbit to share or an article of interest to savor. This issue had me looking no further than the masthead!

Each month, the magazine does mini-interviews with some of its staff members and tags the answers to the names on the masthead. Usually, it's a brief answer to a question like 'What's your favorite foreign phrase?' or 'the strangest food you've ever eaten?'. This month's is, somewhat predictably, about travel resolutions for the new year. Some of them are ambitious and some are entertaining, but what struck me most was just how many of them were ordinary.

I guess I've always just assumed that travel writers live in a magical land where every day is a vacation day, where phrase books actually do help you learn to speak like a local, and where you always get the top score on those where-I've-been Facebook quizzes. But judging from their resolutions, the staff at Budget Travel are just like the rest of us: filled with big dreams about where 2012 will take them - and just as bad about not taking their vacation days! Here are a few tidbits to make you feel a bit better if 2011 didn't quite deliver on the jet-setting adventures you'd hoped for:


What's your travel-related resolution for the new year?
"I'm going to squeeze in as much travel as I can - even if it's in last-minute, three-day installments."
"I'm going to make it up to Canada. I was born in Seattle, but I've never been - and I wore out all my excuses in 2011."
"Mark my words: I will finally take all of my vacation days."
"To take a solo culinary trip to Italy and eat myself silly. No pasta noodle will be safe. Hide the garlic." (sounds like a woman after my own heart!)