I Hate Travel

Well, ladies and gents, assuming you’ve clicked on my clickbait title, welcome back to The Escape Hatch! As of this writing, it’s over two years since I’ve contributed to my own travel blog, and that article was a year overdue. Lea painted a pretty clear picture of our trip to Aruba in 2022, then described the beauty of her 2023 trip to Namibia in exquisite detail—a trip that I sat out.

How come?

There are reasons, of course. One was that going to Namibia was going to mean traveling rough—camping in the wild and sleeping on the ground, of which I am no longer a fan. Another was that after visiting Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Zanzibar, I felt I’d had my fill of Africa. (Spoiler Alert: Africa wasn’t done with me yet, but more on that later.) But still, another reason I’m leery of any trip overseas is what I’m here to talk about today. In not so many words:

I hate travel.

Specifically, I hate air travel.

Even more specifically: I don’t mind flying, but I fucking hate airports.

I hate the lines. I hate the process. I hate the way airlines board you onto planes with no logic or thought to where people are seated. I hate that everyone tries to cram all their luggage into overhead compartments because the airlines nickel and dime us on things like checked baggage.

I hate the overblown security theater we’ve all had to endure since 9/11. (Seriously, the vast majority of the public is no longer wearing masks, even though Covid hasn’t gone away, and yet—we still have to take off our shoes because one dumbass two decades ago thought he could blow up his sneakers?)

Sure, you can pay for TSA Pre-Check, and that’s great if you’re flying a domestic airline that puts that information on your ticket. However, even that’s not the blessing it used to be, since everyone in the US has it now, making the TSA lines just as long as any other. And God forbid you have an early morning flight and the TSA lines aren’t open yet.

But all that’s generic whining. Let’s get nitty-gritty. Just so I don’t ramble on forever, I’ll restrict my diatribe to post-2020 air travel.

Cancun

Getting to Mexico was a breeze (I assume, because I don’t remember). Getting home was panic-inducing. Our all-inclusive resort package included a shuttle to return us to the airport two hours before departure.

It should have been three.

On a busy travel day, the Cancun airport is somewhere between a giant punk-rock mosh pit and an all-out riot. The crowding is unbelievable, it’s hard to tell where the lines are supposed to be, and while they’re herding you through all of that, there’s an exit form you’re supposed to fill out—one that, once completed, no one will ask for. Wayfinding is an absolute mess, and it took us so long to navigate the maze, get checked into our flight, and drop off our bags, that our airplane started boarding while we were still going through security. Forget sitting down or grabbing a snack—we had to run to catch our plane, and just as I was about to board, I got “randomly” pulled aside for an extra-special security check and rummage through my carry-on (and jacket, and shoes, and belt, et cetera). The rest of our party boarded unscathed, but I was nearly the last person on the plane, and I didn’t even have time to tie my shoes.

And now, a commercial:

Though I previously bemoaned the declining value of TSA Pre-Check, I’m now going to tout the value of Global Entry. GET IT. Lea and I had already signed up, so when we landed in Atlanta, all we had to do was show our face to a kiosk, let our AI overlords identify us, and stroll past immigration to pick up our luggage. Melissa, who was traveling with us, had to wait in the interminable “welcome back, show us your papers” line. She applied for Global Entry then and there. If you’re a US citizen traveling abroad, it saves you a lot of headache coming back, and it doesn’t matter one single bit if the airline has your entry number or not.

Global Entry saved us on our next flight home, which had plenty of other headaches to spare.

Aruba

As with Cancun, flying to Aruba was easy—a simple, direct four-hour flight from Atlanta. Coming back, that four-hour flight blossomed into a 10-hour odyssey. Here’s how:

Step 1: The Aruba airport assigns you a time to arrive at the airport based on your departure.

Our flight back was at 3:00, so our allotted time to arrive was between 11:00 and 12:00. Aruba’s airport isn’t large by any means, so I thought the extra time might be due to the large number of flights to accommodate, and possibly Covid safety precautions (this was 2022, after all). I was partly right, but I didn’t anticipate the scale of the ridiculousness before us.

Step 2: Arrive at the airport and get in line outside.

This isn’t the line to check in for your flight. No, this is the line to wait to get in line to check into your flight and drop off your luggage. As I said before, the airport isn’t large and the departures terminal isn’t designed for a giant scrum of exiting travelers, so we stood there to wait… and wait and wait and wait… for our chance to go inside and get in line again.

Step 3: Check in and drop off luggage.

OK, simple, right? We thought so. It was only 100°F outside, so the air-conditioned queue indoors was vastly preferable, no matter that it was still as slow as any other airport line. Maybe an hour after our arrival at the airport, we got our boarding passes, turned in our bags, and headed off for some leisurely duty-free shopping with the time we had left. Right? Wrong.

Step 4: Get in line for security

This was no surprise, except that the line from luggage drop-off to the security checkpoint was outdoors. The actual airport terminal in Aruba is a separate building from where you check in, and the security line was just as backed up as at any other airport in the world. At least they had the grace to put a cover over the walkway for some shade.

Step 5: Get in line again for US Customs and Immigration.

Say what? You heard me right. Aruba (like Toronto) is one of those airports where you go through US immigration before getting on the plane as opposed to doing so when you land in the States. The full scale of the clusterbomb this creates became clear after we went from the check-in counter to a short walk outside to the departures area. Once we were back indoors, there was another interminable, unmoving line winding between all the shops and restaurants—US-bound travelers who weren’t duty free shopping because no one could afford to lose their place in the queue.

Luckily, Lea and I have Global Entry (see above). We didn’t know this was a benefit here until after standing in line for 10-20 minutes, when an airport staff member came walking down the line shouting for Global Entry people to follow her and skip ahead. This we did, and merrily followed our guide to… (duhn duhn duhn) …a baggage claim room where we had to find and collect the bags we’d already checked for the flight. We scanned our faces at the Global Entry kiosk, then got in line again for US customs. Global Entry saved us from the previous line, but not this one, and it was slow.

(Side note: We’ve always been slightly fuzzy about what you actually have to declare when coming back into the country. If all you bought were gifts and a little booze, all of which was less than $100 in value, do you have to bother declaring it at all? The answer is yes, as the angry, bitter US customs agent informed us when he chewed us out. Dude, you live and work in Aruba. Chill and have a daquiri.)

Step 6: Drop off your luggage again and go through security again.

Full security theater rules still apply. After the State Department deigned to let us leave Aruba, we got back in line to essentially repeat Steps 2 and 3 in a different part of the airport. We’d been in line for so long already that the clock was ticking on making our flight—even though we’d arrived 4 hours before departure. If we hadn’t had Global Entry, we’re not sure we would have made it at all.

To recap: At the Aruba airport, you get in line to get in line to get in line to get in line to get in line to get in line. As it was, we had just enough time to grab airport hot dogs and snacks before our flight and an easy haul back to Atlanta—and home.

BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE!

We finally landed in Atlanta, and since we’d already done the immigration song and dance, our flight landed at the T-Gates, which (for those not familiar with Atlanta’s airport) are the ones that let out directly into the domestic baggage claim area. Great!

But hold on… We waited and waited for our luggage to appear, and lo and behold, it never did. When we checked with the baggage claim people, we learned that even though our plane had landed at the domestic terminal and our luggage had already been cleared through customs, we’d arrived on an international flight, so our bags had been sent to the international terminal.

For reference: Atlanta’s airport (affectionately known as the Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and Nail Emporium) is huge. So huge, in fact, that bussing from the domestic to the international terminal, finding our bags, and bussing back was easily an hour’s round trip. Tack on a 40-minute train ride home, and coming back from the Caribbean took over twice as long as the actual flight.

Traveler’s Note: The madness in Aruba’s airport is mirrored in Toronto, home of my least favorite airport in the world, but I’ll save my rant about that pile of broken hockey pucks when and if I ever get around to writing about our trip to Vienna. However, now’s the time to regale you with the prolonged panic attack that was our recent transit to Madagascar.

Atlanta to Antananarivo

Madagascar isn’t a place where you’d want to rent a car and drive yourself around (more on that in articles to come), so we booked a two-week tour with our regular travel buddies KT and Melissa. We signed up for the tour itself months in advance, but we didn’t book our flight right away. Lea watched the air fare fluctuate for months, and once the price was low-ish, we booked tickets for the four of us through Ethiopian Air.

Our route across the planet had two layovers, one at Dulles in DC and one in Addis Ababa. Our stop in Dulles was scheduled for three hours, so we weren’t too worried about that one but we’d only have 90 minutes in Addis Ababa, which is plenty of time for the travel gods to smite you. Therefore, we booked a flight that would arrive in Madagascar a day early so that if we missed a connection, we could catch up on the following day.

(Fun tidbit: After we bought our tickets, Ethiopian tried to change our return flight so that we’d stay in Madagascar for an extra day. We said “no thanks” and chose a same-day flight that was six hours longer than what we originally booked.)

To sum up: we booked a tour, booked our flights, and reserved a hotel room for our first night in Antananarivo (Madagascar’s capital, which I’ll henceforth refer to as “Tana” because even the locals don’t like saying all of that). Everything was arranged, so there was nothing to worry about except getting to the airport on time. Right?

Of course not, hence this write-up.

September 25, 2024: The posse comes together.

Our plan was for all four of us to get to the airport at 2:40am on the 26^th for our 5:40 flight to Dulles. Melissa drove from Nashville in a rental that we could drop off at the airport, obviating the need to find an Uber in the wee morning hours when Atlanta’s trains don’t run. KT was scheduled to fly in from Tampa, BUT Hurricane Helene was making a beeline for her house. She considered switching to an earlier flight in case the Tampa airport shut down, but wound up keeping her original schedule to land in Atlanta at 5:00. However, her flight had a two-hour tarmac delay, bringing her to Atlanta much later than expected. It wasn’t until around 9:00pm that she finally got to our house.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian Air wouldn’t let us check into our flight online. Our first leg (ATL to IAD) was on United, but we couldn’t check in with them either since our tickets were booked through Ethiopian. Out of paranoia (and remembering the Aruba homecoming fiasco), I called United to ask if we were supposed to fly out of Atlanta’s international or domestic terminal. United’s customer service said that since we’d booked an international flight, we should check in with Ethiopian on the international side.

This was wrong.

10:30 p.m.: United tells us that our flight has been delayed.

Hurricane Helene and an unrelated front passing through the eastern US had messed up everybody’s flight schedule, and the crew for our plane hadn’t had enough rest as mandated by the FAA. I don’t mind flying with a non-groggy crew, but our first leg had now been pushed back by three hours, cutting our layover in Dulles to 30 minutes. Thanks to the delay, we now didn’t have to be at the airport until 6:00am. The others took this as a sign to get some sleep, but I chose to stay up all night, knowing I was already too stressed for shut-eye.

6:00 a.m.: Melissa and I drop KT and Lea at the International with all our luggage.

We take the car back to the rental return, then hitch a ride on the tram to Domestic to catch the bus back to International. However, right as we’re hopping on the bus, Lea calls and tells us that the bastards at United were a bunch of no-good liars. (My words, not hers.) There was no check-in desk for Ethiopian, so we had to ask at the domestic United counter to see if that was where we should be. We did, and learned that yes, we had to check in at Domestic for our international flight. However, United wouldn’t print the boarding passes for our following legs on Ethiopian Air so we’d have to get those in DC.

Since our United tickets were purchased through Ethiopian, they didn’t show our TSA numbers, so we had to slog through the utter madhouse of Atlanta’s regular security line. (Fun fact: ATL is by far the world’s busiest airport, and at 7:00 a.m. in the morning, it shows.) To make things even worse, every single time I’ve gone through security in Atlanta over the past several years, I swear they’ve changed the rules about what articles of clothing to take on or off and/or what to take out of your bags. This time, some guy was yelling “laptops only,” but I didn’t get that memo until after I’d removed my shoes and belt.

9:00 a.m.: Frazzled, we get on the plane.

Guess what’s for breakfast! A twenty-minute tarmac delay!

(No more time stamps from here, because from this point on, I was in a sleep-deprived fog with no concept of time and space except for the knowledge that I didn’t have enough of either.)

Because of all our compounded delays, our layover time in Dulles had shrunk to 10 minutes. In fact, our next flight started boarding before we even pulled up to the gate. What makes Dulles extra fun is that you have to go by bus from one set of gates to another. BUT, there’s no direct bus between concourses, so you have to go all the way back to the hub and find another way to your destination. Somewhere in here, Lea and I got split up from KT and Melissa—they wisely stopped to ask directions, whereas Lea and I kept following the signs. They ended up with a much shorter route, while we ended up on a train.

Once we arrived at the correct terminal, Lea and I ran to our departure gate, where Ethiopian’s staff were holding the plane for us. (There were several other people connecting through from Atlanta; otherwise they’d probably have left.) We still had to stop at the desk to print our boarding passes for the rest of the trip but somehow we managed to get ourselves on board.

(A note about flying Ethiopian: they pretend to let you pick seats online, but in practice, they ignore your selections.)

At least our flight to Addis was on time, but Addis itself is a madhouse. After you deplane, they herd you through a security scrum even if you’re just connecting to another flight. Once through the scrum, we walked briskly to our gate, where our next flight was already boarding. From there, it was a mere four hours to Tana, which I spent sitting nowhere near the rest of our group, but annoyingly close to a smelly airplane toilet.

To sum up: Delays, delays, delays that reduced our first layover to 0 minutes, and a scrum in Addis Ababa that left no wiggle room for things like buying snacks, getting water, or even using the bathroom. Still, we made it to Tana on time, stepped out of the airport into the warm African sun, and sat down on a bench next to our bags, waiting for the adventure to begin.

Next time: Dancing lemurs! Traffic jams! Chameleons! Karaoke! Frogs! Food poisoning!