I always hated travelling and still do. Travelling plans would send me crawling under the bed with cramps and stimulate me to design genuine looking excuses for not travelling. That was childhood and I have not changed much since. Anyway scientists say that most of a man's development is in his first 10 years of life. I have a feeling I am their subject. And every aspect of my life has conformed to my belief that I haven't grown mentally since my childhood. My Masters mentor commented at my farewell "Your intellectual growth stopped long back and so do not waste time planning to take up any further studies". That did not hurt but made me happy. No more studies.
But life since childhood has been rough and demanding. Forcing me to do many things I dreaded about. Without letting imaginations fly, I take out studies from the list and travelling bags the topmost position. Travelling to boarding school every half yearly vacation, travelling during summer trainings, travelling for my sales job and travelling in all the free time i have (I have lot of it). It seems life and travelling have connived to push me to a point where I become immune to the pain of travels.
But I am still that 10 year old stubborn kid and relentlessly working either to avoid travelling or if I have to, how to ruin the fun of it. With all the experiments done over some 20 years of travelling (in all forms) I have finally managed to prepare a manual on "How to plan a bad trip?".
This blog is for all those who hate travel and also hate and avoid people who think 'travelling is fun' and ' a thing to be done'. Also inputs are welcomed from all the readers and will be updated in the manual after moderator's evaluation. Lets work together to make this world ' a travel free world'.
The term 'traveller' in this blog has been used in general for people travelling for the purpose of fun, sightseeing and outing only.
So here we go.
Start with spending as much time on trivial and irrelevant matters as you can.
A smart travelling plan involves deciding on trip details in advance. This helps to get the best of hotel and travel rates and also to gather information
With spending lot of time on irrelevant matters we can delay a decision or if luck is on your side cancel the trip totally.
Trivial matters can exist or can be the brain child of the victim. Few example of these are:
1. Creating confusion on deciding on mode of travel. If driving a car is becoming everyones' choice start giving numerous advantages of train or flight travel. Any way car travelling is not so environment friendly. Public transport should be the choice of every pollution conscious head on earth.
2. If location has almost been decided tell them how difficult it is to check email there.
3. If your views have been shot down do not feel bad. (You are a crusader)Talk of how an earlier group was cheated of their money and belongings in a similar trip. (one can let his/her imagination fly here). Half the battle is won if you manage to involve the group in active discussion and make them share their experiences.
Other than delaying a decision the idea of initiating such a discussion is also to dampen or kill the high spirit of those juvenile immature travel fans. (such a pleasure to use these words)
Well begun is half done!
Doesn't matter whether you have failed or succeeded in your initial pursuit. I am going to give you the formula that produces desired results irrespective of success or failure.The second strategy is not to prior research on the place to be visited and let anyone else do it too.
To get the best of a trip in available time and money it is compulsory to have a thorough knowledge of the options and attractions. Enough time should be spent before leaving in understanding where all to visit and what all to do. Idea of eateries and drinking places help save money and time in addition to getting you the best of your taste.
The second strategy has evolved from understanding the criticality of information gathering and tactics have been developed on how to thwart any action directed towards this.
This can be achieved through highlighting your nonchalant attitude towards the trip. Let not anyone dare to offend you by asking you to collect information. If smartly done you can make your negative energy infectious.
Creating technological impediment goes a long way in serving such purpose. Especially with all internet addicted geek travellers(thank god!) the task has simplified so much. Sadly (and worryingly) internet is full of literature and travelogues on any place on earth to visit. Damn those sadist travellers!! But the silver lining is, once the access to internet has been impaired, very few will actually take the pain of gathering information through conventional sources like talking to friends and using phoneline helps.
If the tactics fail, propose a game of pool or cards or a drink session whenever the group decides to sit for information gathering. Simple it may sound but believe me it works almost 3 out of 4 times. The other advantage of this trick is that you manage to stay in the group unsuspected. At times travellers mistake such members for "enthusiatic junta". Third strategy is to create confusion among all the available options.
With so many options available it is advisable to decide on a priority list and accordingly direct the resources.
This strategy will help confuse unsuspecting travellers with all the options and split the group in deciding on what they want to do.
Most of the tourist places these days offer a basket of recreation and entertainment activities. So a hill station may offer a combination of sight seeing, scenic drives, skiing, dining, night camps, mountaineering and many others. Similarly a beach can be drinking, water sports, yatching, sun bathing, sigth seeing and keep adding. Its very easy to get lost in all the excitements and end up not doing anything or worse doing everything badly. We will take advantage of this phenomenon and prevent the group from deciding on priorities. The tactics here is to stratify the group using differences in choice. If the group majority seems to be keen on doing water sports first and then a late night drink & dance session, immediately seed the idea of yatching and enumerate all the fun of it. Be assured you will have members seconding your idea. Successfully creating confusion is the key to success. Standing for members whose ideas either were shot down, not heard or debated logically to be scrapped helps a long way in creating dissatified group members. Remember from the second strategy, these are suitable victims to be infected with your negative energy. Fourth and the last strategy is to spend maximum time sleeping in the hotel rooms.
If one had to spent time sleeping why come all the way to this place!!!This tactics for this strategy is to focus on one or two members in the group famous for their slumber. Once identified try sharing room with them or putting them together in the same room. Their delay is everyone's time wasted. This helps brew irritation in the group and you are there to capitalize on it. Once those slumberous fellas put an effort to leave the bed give them incentives to go back. Take the charge of waking them up after 5 minutes and never do that. Later feel free to blame it on their sleep amnesia. Already on the receiving end rarely they can have the courage to debate that. Once delayed, all the timings are thrown out of gear and will surely take its toll on the success of the trip.
And how can I forget this " Do not ever let anyone keep time buffers". If the drive is of 2 hours and even if you do not know the way, leave just in time to make it in 2 hours. In a new place one can always count on lost ways, unkown traffic conditions and average speeds.
After all, life should be harsh not only to subjugated travellers but to others too.
