So many reasons to stay at home…

Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, John Flinn assembles a laundry list of reasons why you might think about canceling your travel plans. In this tongue-in-cheek article, “Always a good reason not to travel” Flinn exposes the rationalizations for staying home that almost all travelers make at one time or another. For example:

You could go camping in Yosemite Valley, but do you think there’s any hope of getting a campsite if you didn’t make a reservation six months ago?

You could take a cruise, but aren’t you sick of how they keep raising the price by slipping in extra fees – fuel surcharges, port fees, mandatory gratuities – on top of the advertised fare?

You could head south to Baja, but have you heard about the sharks? And the drug cartels?

You could go to Mount Rushmore, but did you know that it’s one of the five noisiest national parks in the United States?

As Flinn aptly points out, there’s always a reason to stay at home. Some of them, like rising gas prices and more expensive plane tickets, aren’t bad reasons. Money is finite and sometimes tough choices have to be made. But if we’re honest with ourselves, there’s almost always a way around our financial concerns. Sure, gas is more expensive. That just means we’ll have to cut back in other areas if we want to take our dream road trip.

Besides, aren’t there even better reasons not to stay at home? Says Flinn, “Your only option, then, will be to plop yourself down in your La-Z-Boy and let Rick Steves and Anthony Bourdain do your traveling for you. But if you take a break from viewing and make yourself a BLT, are you willing to risk getting salmonella from the tomatoes?”