Remember when travel was fun?

I spent two hours today trying to find an inexpensive but quality hotel for Sunday night so I could take my daughter on her preview weekend and theater audition for one of her college choices.  It was exhausting.  The college is in a bit of a rural area and it was difficult to find a local hotel.  Then the ones I found had sketchy reviews, and that made me nervous.  I finally found one recommended by the college and payed a little more than I wanted in hopes that I could avoid spiders and bedbugs.

Do you remember when travel was secure?  You'd call a travel agent, or go through the phonebook and call a few hotels for quotes, then  you would book your trip on nothing more than a verbal handshake. I don't remember every having a bad experience, I think it was because the travel agent knew you were coming back to visit them if anything bad happened on your trip.

Do you remember when travel was affordable? Even 15 years ago, in the early days of internet travel websites, I could book flights to Las Vegas or LA for a decent price, and still have money left over for your rental car and hotel.  Now, I can barely afford the gas to drive two hours and have one overnight
stay... and I am better off financially now than I was then.

Do you remember when travel was carefree?  Actually, it's kind of hard to remember.  Even before 9-11, I remember my then 3 year old son being frisked and having his shoes removed.  I asked why (you could at least ask in those days), and we were told his name was picked randomly because it was unusual.  I asked if they considered his age, and they just shrugged their shoulders at me.  Meanwhile, he was trying to figure out why all these people we touching him.  To this day, he still hates for strangers to touch him.

Remember when travel was exciting? Reading the hotel reviews really filled me with dread.  One review stated that they asked to be moved 3 times, and each time found spiders in the bed.  Now this was the hotel's only really bad review, and it is really hard to believe that there were spiders in 3 beds in one hotel, but who can read that and then book a room.  True or not... that's just freaky and filled me with serious dread.  Not excited about my hotel stay at all.

As this will be the first of several college trips for us, I really need to count my change and do my homework. When we're done picking a college, we'd really like to take a Spring Break trip together.  Our plan is to go to NY and take in some Broadway shows.   I hope I can survive the planning process.