Or better yet, bring me back something lovely.  If it’s all the same with you, I’m going to stay home.  Don’t get me wrong, I find the very idea of travel to be romantic and intoxicating, but that is when it is just an idea.  I love the sense of newness, the unknown and limitless possibility that comes with travel.  I simply just don’t enjoy the travel.
There is nothing quite as dreamy as travel in movies though, is there?  Bette Davis’ breaking heart on the cruise ship.  Barbara Stanwyck’s belly baring dress on her cruise ship.  Even Barbra Streisand’s wilted yellow roses on Nicky’s cruise ship.  Dreamy.
And the accessories!  Do you remember that little Touch of Mink travel ensemble Miss Doris Day sported?  How about those dashing outfits The Women wore on the train to Reno?  L’amour, l’amour.
I linger over the “Holiday Packing” pages in my magazines; marveling at the adorable mini toiletries and dreamy luggage pieces.  I feel the pull of the reinvention through fashion that is suggested in all these layouts.
My bookcase groans under the weight of travel novels.   The Belly of Paris!  Paris To The Moon!  Iberia!  A Movable Feast!  You get the idea.
But yet, travel itself leaves me cold.  For all the very obvious reasons.  Air travel is now barbaric, anyway you slice it.  As I do not have a private jet at my disposal, if I want to arrive in any reasonable amount of time, I must deal with airports and airline personnel.  Oh, and pay for the privelege.  And then there are hotels.  Are they ever as comfortable and quiet as one’s own home?  Exactly how much do I have to pack to try and replicate my bedroom?  Outside of very very few hotels, hospitality is a lost art.  And I am paying for that experience.  Then there is the locale itself.  I find it exhausting to “figure out” a new place, particularly when I don’t speak the language (well.)
I know how seriously unpopular my attitude is.  I’ve received plenty of the raised eyebrow look.  I get that you might think me xenophobic or a hermit (you’d be not so far from the truth with the latter.)  The truth is I enjoy comfort.  There, I said it.  I will watch foreign movies, eat unfamiliar foods, read of far off lands, but do so from my own hometown.  But if you go, do bring me back a little something.