“Who’s the boss?” is a new series by travel couples.
Travelling as a couple means that there needs to be organisation. How does this work with you? Do you play to your skills or does one predominantly do all of the work.
This series of posts has come about as we were madly trying to get organised for our own travels, whilst buying and selling a house and moving 3 days before we left. So we decided to ask other travel couples ‘who’ does what in their travel arrangements. In other words, “Who’s the boss?”
It is interesting to see what each travel couple has to say and each week we will be presenting couples responses. We asked couples to fill in a form and to add whatever comments they wanted and we have just transcribed these into prose for you. Many thanks to those who participated in this series and we hope that you all enjoy them.
In fairness we will start with us and who does what and who is the boss in our travel organization. We will leave it up to you to say what you think. We will use the form that we asked our participants to use so that you can see the types of things that we were asking.
| Paula | Gordy | Comments | |
| Where? |  |
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We would go anywhere, lets face it – we are travel junkies. Gordon has unusual requests at times like eclipses, shipwreck diving and that’s all good. He just says, “make it so”. Not in the way that Jean-Luc Piccard says it. Gordy says, “make it happen” and I do. |
| When? |  |
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Gordon’s work determines time |
| Flights? | |
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| Airport lounges | |
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| Stopovers? | |
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Gordon is good at deciding whether we need a sleep stop over or a quick and fast exit. A night on the floor in Bangkok airport took care of this duty. |
| Getting to airport | |
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| Research | |
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This is what I do and I love it and now I have virtual friends it is so much easier |
| Accommodation options | |
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Gordon just agrees. Houseboat – why not. Cave house – sure. patrician manor up 100 stone steps in Florence – you bet. |
| Transport with and between countries, places | |
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Gordon and I tend to work this out together .. now … in fact Gordon is starting to take over. |
| Packing | |
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If you read my post ‘Should a wife be entitled to put some stuff in her husband’s suitcase when travelling?’ You will know that this is a sensitive issue (and he is wrong)But in fairness, I am only carrying 17kg at the moment and that is till too heavy for me to get on and off trains. I have to go much lighter. |
| Locks on cases etc | |
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| Passports and visas | |
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I actually tend to find out whether we need visas or our passports updated but Gordon carries them mostly. |
| Foreign currency | |
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Gordon is good at that type of stuff and I am not good at it at all. I recently tried to use yen in Switzerland. |
| Leave house neat and fridge emptied etc | |
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Notice the extra cross |
| Let bank, post office, parents etc know | |
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Gordon’s parent worry if he is missing in action and forgets to tell them, so I deal with that. |
| Pay bills or organize payments | |
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| Festivals and events | |
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Luckily we are both in for nearly everything, though I have had to do some convincing when he thinks I am being outrageous. |
| Technology requirements – phone access, dongles, etc | |
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Mostly Gordon but now I have so much, a bit of me too. He possibly deserves a small extra tick. |
| Activities | |
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We are pretty simpatico as we will try anything once. Well I might watch if it involves heights but that’s ok.Though in saying that I have been taking gondolas up to 3383 metres here in Zermatt |
| Emails and correspondence to places where we are going | |
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I am surprised that Gordon does as much as he does, as I thought that I did the majority. Interesting.
So, “Who is the boss?” at Contented Traveller. Well me of course, derrr.
Next week, find out “Who’s the boss?” at GypsyNesters.
Seems like a fair balance 😉 still don’t agree that us blokes should carry unnecessary woman stuff tho 😉
Look you do make a valid point. I am too little to lift a big bag which only weighs 14.5 kg – ergo I will now have to go to a smaller one. Not fair on Gordy lifting both into trains recently. So I give in 🙂
What a great little concept for a series of article posts 🙂
I travel so much that when my wife and I do travel together it is important that she gets all the ticks. I travel all the time so am not too bothered about ticking boxes when travelling together as long as she is happy.
As for an X on putting locks on cases, how could you put an X? As someone who’s been flying so much over the last 14 years I would insist of locks on cases. I’m sick of things been stolen or even just people rummaging through my suitcase when they shouldn’t. There are too many undesirable people working behind the scenes in airports around the world.
P.S. (please no need to publish this PS) but I’m reading this article on a netbook. Your right sidebar pop up panels are obscuring some of the text in your main article and makes it difficult for me to read it. I hope this helps.