First day of travel

The overbooked hover by the gate, waiting for the airline crew to start the check in. I am one of them. It's tense.

I am on my way to Texas. My friend Sonny has family and friend from there and last week I decided to join them on their trip. It kicks off a year when I will be traveling around the world.

That year of excitement started with a possible challenge from the very beginning. I arrived at the airport to find I was “overbooked”, that lovely phrase which means you may not have a seat. Luckily, I felt calm and quickly decided that no matter what happened, I would accept it and enjoy it. If it meant I had to wait, then wait I would.

Nevertheless, I also add to the tension, keeping a keen eye on the desk of gate E9 to spy out the first signs of movement and any possible signal to jockey for position among the other overbooked.

I am reminded of a conversation I had recently about how my working life has made me soft when it comes to traveling.

Canon life has taken me to 41 countries. All of it has been done in a luxury that I could not have dreamed of when I was young. No buses or backpacking, just nice restaurants, hotels and taxis on call. Over the years, I have made around 200-250 business trips and taken as many as 500 flights. There have probably been around 400 nights in hotels and close to 1000 taxi trips.

That luxury has certainly made me soft when it comes to traveling. And one of the purposes of the coming year is to get used to a more simple travel life. So I have a number of plans which will shake me up.

The plans include a backpack Interail trip from Corfu through the Balkans and up through Europe during July. That will be a test run for the big journey – backpacking across Central America for some months from November, and ending up in Australia, where I intend to stay in as basic a situation as possible, work in a bar and see a totally different angle of life.

Finally, I get to the desk and... do I get a seat? Do I ever! A seat in Business Class, no less. How did that happen.? It feels a bit like cheating, but of course I don't say “could I sit in Economy?” I'll wait a bit longer to toughen up.