What travel guides and blogs won’t tell you
Hello everybody, I hope you all are doing fine and no baby was born while I was absent.
As you all know or have figured by now I was enjoying a few weeks off in paradise, I went to Honduras, visited many places and specially enjoyed the pristine water of it beaches and the wonder of its rainforest and of course food.
It was a trip worth repeating and worth recommending, I’ll share pics and experiences on later posts. What I wanna and gonna talk about it now is what travel guides and travel books do not prepare you for.
I like to read travel blogs and often read travel guide like Lonely Planet (some editions suck), all the publications and articles you read tell you how to prepare for the trip, even tell you what to pack. They often have good recommendations as to where to eat, where to sleep, dos and don’ts, but they all hide precious information as to what do to once your trip is OVER.
Who will wash this? Lonely Planet? Didn’t think so!
Ohh my dearest friends, no travel guide will ever tell you how to cope with all the dirty laundry of those almost 4 weeks off.
You get home on a Sunday at 11pm and have to work the next day with a tanned/peeling skin and bags full of dirty clothes, no clean decent clothes to wear the next day, no groceries in your fridge and starving.
Who is gonna feed me? Lonely Planet? Didn’t think so!!
Travel blogs and guides fail to offer you any kind of light as to how to deal with the amount of work you have to catch up on Monday, so big that you are dreading to walk in the office based on the avalanche of emails you received when you opened your work email at home the night before, you walk actually drag yourself out of home knowing that you’ll get a CPS attack because you won’t stop typing all day and no drugs will help you with the jet lag.
Who is gonna answer my emails? Lonely Planet? didn’t think so!!
You refuse to upload pictures of the trip because the wounds are fresh and you don’t want to start crying at work when you remember having breakfast with a margarita by the beach while you drink crappy orange juice enjoying the beautiful view from your office (a graffiti that reads “Lore te amo”)
The only solution to all these problems is to take vacations again or a leave of absence due to depression.
Great post. When I came back from vacation last year, I was like you and had to work the very next day. I made a sign at work and wore it around my neck for 3 days that said “I may be here physically, but mentally I’m still in Sweden.” My co-wokers and even my boss knew not to give me the heavy stuff until I took that sign off my neck. Welcome back!
I walked in and asked not to be bothered, I’m working with the lights off. This is no life, this is pure torture.
My only comfort is that holy week is coming up and in Spain that’s a big thing which translates to days off.
The solution is permanent vacation. Just don’t work. Or eat. Simple! Hey, now that you’re back and have nothing going on, want to write a blog post for me? I’m tired. Also it is spring break and the university library is open so I still work because you just KNOW the library is the number one travel destination for college students!
Libraries are in the top 5 od spring break destinations, I maybe mistaken, but I think that Girls Gone Wild 4 was recorded at a Library in Yale.
Guest blog sounds exciting, you’ll pop my cherry, what subject? We’ll talk aboutit over email.
A leave of absence is highly recommended.
I’ll make a doctor’s appointment today.
Welcome back. We missed you and Doggy. There is a medical condition for what you are suffering (or I made it up) called Post Vacation Shock (PVS). I think you are right, go back on vacation and you will be cured.
My biggest problem after I get back is unpacking! I feel like unpacking would mean my trip is officially over, so my bag sits unpacked for weeks before I finally get around to it.
I feel the same, my bag pack is still there, I just took out the nécessaire, clothes are gonna be there till Lonely Planet comes and washes them.
Welcome back. Sorry it stinks.
It stinks more than my clothes….
Welcome back! It’s never easy coming back from vacation…
Thanks!
This time is being specially hard, I wanted to stay there.
Welcome back. You were missed! xoxoM
Thanks Margarita, it’s nice to be back
Oh Happy Day Doggy is Back! Forget the laundry; Buy new clothes!
Nice to be back with you guys!
Welcome back! Don’t worry, if you’ve left your dirty laundry around, Doggy will probably have a game with it. So it’ll be pointless washing it, you’ll have an excuse to replace it.
Funny you mention it, as soon as I opened my bag he was sniffing it and stealing my socks, those are like drugs for him, really gross lol
Yeah your back
Buy new clothes and hire a maid for 24 hours 
I wish I could!
I suppose you want us to feel sorry for your ass. Well I don’t! You had four more weeks of vacation than I’ve had so suck it up buttercup!!
hahahahahaha
I promise you I laughed really hard
I didn’t see this coming.
Good one Jodi!
xx
I knew you’d take it the way it was intended Leo. xoxo
I’m glad you are back and I can’t wait for the pictures ;o) I agree with you, all this dirty clothes (in worst case ransacked and jumbled by tollkeepers), the empty fridge and the accrued “Mount Work-it”….
I need help, medical help, or a maid, or both, or simply more vacations, like 11 months.
Well I’m trying very hard to feel sorry for you Leo but it’s a bit tough knowing you were in paradise while we got SNOW. You were missed – especially on Tuesdays when everybody cheats off your Tuesday Teaser answers….! I think throwing the dirty clothes AWAY and buying a new wardrobe is your best option. No food in the refrig?? Go out to eat. There’s ALWAYS an answer. Always.
Hugs, Pam
But I’m poor, I can’t burn all my clothes, if I do I’d be arrested for public exposure.
We have some magificant wood carvings that He said He got in Tegulcigalpa on His car trip from la Ciudad de Panama to San Antonio, Texas. I wish I were alive then so I could have gone.
I brought little souvenirs however, I smuggled with food, all fresh products your are not supposed to enter into a country I brought.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4Kf_T4siE?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Mollie and Alfie
Glad to be back, we have pending business. We need to talk Madam.
We do
Tomorrow xxxx
Although the feeling is clearly not going to be mutual – we are really glad you are back. I wasn’t able to get a single Sammy Teaser right without you to copy from. No hugs, no love – just terrible. I’d work a new wardrobe into your travel expenses. That way, you could just leave the dirty laundry behind for someone else to deal with. The emails, well, no help there unless you can afford a decent assistant (which would probably mean you’d never be able to afford a holiday again).
I’ll wear trash bags this week until I manage to move on and face reality.
I can’t afford Doggy’s food let alone an assistant.
Hey you’re back!
Every time I come back form vacation, all I want is another one.
I’m trying to get another month off, I’m seeing what I can get based on law other than vacations and that originated a post. I’m desperate, 20 minutes and I’ll go home and cry.
So glad you’re back!
A few years ago there was an ad campaign i think for macdonalds, where a man took all his clothes to a charity shop then the next day (after they had been washed) he bought them back for 50p! Maybe you could that??
That could work, you know if they use wild berries fabric softener? I’m picky.
Welcome back, or should that be, you might want to close your eyes and pretend you’re back in Honduras
If closing my eyes would take me there I’d do blindfolded for now on.
from*
Welcome back to us … Lonely Planet gives good advice – but as you say not really interested in the returning, but I have some homecoming tips*laughing. Like do washing during the holiday … a couple of days left – to the laundry with everything. Before I leave on holiday I freeze a little milk, juice & bread, so I can survive my first breakfast. Also put a meal in the freezer if … home early. Because shopping will not be on do list for my first day at home. Regarding the email … easy – use the delete button. Welcome back to reality.
I usually bring food from trips, actually is the only thing I bring, spices and snacks, so that’s getting me through, the downside is that Friday Ill have friends over, so I gotta do grocery shopping before then. As to doing laundry while traveling I usually do, but this time I forgot, was to busy having fun, now I regret.
Fun is more important than … laundry – good sign and I’m sure you will work your way through the laundry basket. So you’re a clever traveler .. after all.
Great to have you back.
Leo it is so nice to have you back!
It’s nice to be back!
To be fair, it’s not the travel guide’s fault you came home…
They could hire me to travel around and give my opinion about it.
Hahaha. Hooray for the return of Leo! Great post and so true! I pack like a 12-year-old, and don’t unpack for weeks afterward, so it’s a messy, messy life. Ha. Stupid Lonely Planet. And thanks for making me want breakfast on the beach with a margarita in my hand!
The margarita and coconut bread for breakfast will be hard to forget.
My clothes will be there forever, specially because it’s raining and in Spain you still gotta dry your clothes outside, so I’ll use that as an excuse.
Lonely Planet never comes home. Those guys get paid to travel. Always schedule your last stop in India. The dobis there will wash everything for dirt cheap–no pun intended. Welcome home, Leo. {{{Hugs}}} Kozo
India will be my next stop, I’m trying to convince a friend to come with me, I must go there before the year ends.
Your tags on today’s post are priceless. Welcome back to the grind!
Now I have to catch up with all the blogs, well catching up will be impossible, so I’ll start like today was the first day blogging for everybody lol.
Post vacation depression, is it worth it?
I am glad to have you back.
Too true, from where you speak. Makes a good case for returning to the paper dress/clothes.
Lonely Planet can shove it. You have to be old to know these things. And a mom. With lots of kids and even more laundry. Because then you KNOW. I plan for the laundry and food when we leave. It’s crazy. We even plan an extra day off work so we can sleep and catch up with laundry and email.
Glad you’re back.
Don’t try catching up on my blog. But if you want a smile today, there are fun Weimaraner videos up.
But… on the bright side…. we missed you and it’s good to have you back
I always feel that returning to an avalanche of work at The Grind is punishment for indulging in what makes life worth living. Glad you had a great getaway in Paradise.
I think maybe the trick is to go on a vacation so horrible that you feel very excited to be starving in dirty clothes at home?
This is really terrible but the worst thing is that Doggy left for the Vatican and wants to be the next Pope.
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God damn travel guides! I go away about 4-5 times a year and it takes me at least a week to get back to normal!
I know exactly how you feel, it’s been two years since our wonderful European trip and hardly a day goes by without wishing we were still there.