When Traveling Becomes Stressful

People used to find traveling something to brag about such that they choose to share posts not just of images of themselves traveling, or at the airport, or on the way to the airport, but as early as the point when they purchase the tickets and make reservations for their accommodation at destination cities.

Gradually, I see fewer and fewer of such posts, but the ones on traveling doesn’t seem to decrease, which means that people are still traveling as often. One reason, I suspect, is because of certain types of friends.

Some people, before going traveling, would ask their closest friends and family if there’s anything they want from the destination cities. And then there are the ones who ask anyone and everyone that question, either because that’s the first time they are traveling, or they want the whole world to know where they are going. But knowing the dangers of asking such questions, there are also people who never ask (mostly me), and that’s when the stress-inflicting friends come in.

1) There’s-something-I-want-and-it’s-easy-to-find-so-can-you-buy-for-me friend

It’s ok if those things can be found easily, but the problem comes when everyone thinks “my stuff are easy to find” and they don’t realise the travelers end up taking orders for 500 people.

My purpose in traveling is to relax and have fun. Not to procure goods.

2) There’s-something-I-want-and-it’s-not-easy-to-find-but-can-you-buy-for-me-anyway friend

Then there are also those who ask the travelers to buy things that are very difficult to find. But I notice that these are the people who go “but you don’t have to search for it specially. Just buy for me if you happen to see it.” That means I usually end up not buying it since it’s supposed to be difficult to find. These people tend to inflict less stress since we don’t even have to look out for it.

The best part is, I have the option of totally forgetting about it and go

3) There’s-something-I-found-online-and-they-only-deliver-to-that-country-so-can-you-buy-for-me friend

Travelers probably get less of such requests but since I live here, I’ve been asked to do this a number of times. The largest request I received was to buy car parts including a car bumper, door frames, and side mirror accessories. Ordering isn’t such a big problem but I had to help bid for them and carry them back by hand.

This is just me wanting to complain about this request since I am writing about this topic anyway.

4) There’s-nothing-I-want-but-since-you-are-going-let-me-find-if-there’s-something-you-can-buy-for-me friend

If there’s nothing you want, why would you go out of your way to destroy my holiday??