Have you ever discovered, as the flight attendants are checking seatbelts one last time before departure, that you will be spending the next five hours sitting next to someone who is convinced you want to know how a barometer works? Don’t complain. Here are a few travel companions who have proven far more annoying.
Hannibal — Laid-back pets can ease a traveler’s anxieties. But an emotional support elephant?
Timothy Leary — Only wants to travel in the high season.
Christopher Columbus — Terrible sense of direction.
DB Cooper — Always trying to skip out on the tab.
Santa Claus — A Jolly companion, but insists on pushing through the night, even if it’s foggy out.
Ancient Mariner — Once, no horizon was too far, but now he is only interested in the distance to the next restroom.
Dorothy — Just because you are not in Kansas anymore is no reason to act like a college student on spring break.
Huckleberry Finn — For the length of the Mississippi, he talks about how next time he is doing it on a cruise ship.
Captain Kirk — If you insist on somebody beaming you up at the first sign of discomfort, you are not a traveler but a tourist.
Johnny Cash — Maybe you’ve been everywhere, man. But checking Reno, Chicago, Fargo, and Wichita off your bucket list is not how you get to know places.
Marco Polo — Travels all the way to China and learns nothing except for a game that kids play in the swimming pool.
Peter Minuet — It’s bad enough to brag about driving a hard bargain with starving souvenir sellers. But $24 for Manhattan is criminal.
Jack Kerouac — After days of riding across America with the author of On the Road, a young wanderer of the 1950’s might be forgiven for lamenting that it was not yet possible to call for an Uber.
Robinson Crusoe — He talks on and on about adventures with his companion, Friday. But in truth he is only a weekend traveler.
Sir Edmund Hillary — You’d think that at least once in a while he’d make base camp at a beach resort.
Freddy Kruger — If only he just wouldn’t compare everywhere in the world to Elm Street.
Travel humor writer Bob Payne travels only with imaginary friends.
