I, along with a lot of wise men believe that the journey is more important than the destination. Especially if it’s a family trip or a trip with friends. Any trip that’s filled with known people is definitely going to be more interesting than the destination. You plan a trip, get the logistics done, invite everyone you’re going to take along, confirm their presence, gather them at an extraction point and then you are Up, Up & Away…
It is actually necessary I think for a family or for a group of friends to take a trip sometime or another, it tends to build relations, understand each other better and also reveal facets of people’s personalities that one may not have seen before. I recently went on a family trip that included a bus-full of relatives from here and there and almost everywhere and I realized that I could categorize the passengers according to their travel moods; so here they are:
The Joker: The one guy whom everyone loves and nobody minds been made fun of by him. There’s always one joker in a family or friends group. He’s the one who kick starts the fun.
The Missing One:There’s always a person who has not been able to join and is feeling pretty miserable about it so they keep calling people to get regular updates and keep suffering constant heart-burn.
The Sulking One:The person who’s ego has been hurt because nobody, absolutely nobody asked for their advice while planning the trip. That person will keep finding faults with everything and sacrifice all the fun for a little sulk.
The Recluse: The one who is frighteningly quiet during the whole trip and keeps looking out of the window like some scene out of the Final Destination movies is going to play out. It creeps out the rest of the group and they tend to keep away from this person.
The Kid: There is always going to be a kid on a family trip; no way is your family going to stop reproducing for the sake of a trip so there you have it, the small person who is cute, takes advantage of it, keeps crying and makes life living hell for everyone within a radius of 20 metres.
The Fancy One:Then there’s the cool one with the shades and designer clothing who tries to act in complete control and behaves in the most sophisticated way even with the family who don’t give a shit for that nonsense anymore.
The One with the Short-Term Memory: The forgetful one or in other words, “The Ghajini” of the family who will keep losing things and not find them even say if they are in front of them or maybe under their seat.
The Disciplinarian:The teacher of the family who takes absolutely ‘Zero’ amount of nonsense from anyone and if they don’t like something, you’re not going to do it because you’re not half as scared of the grim reaper as you are of that person.
The Feeder: The well-loved mother of the family who will always carry enough food so as to feed the entire contingent for two years in case of nuclear fallout or a zombie apocalypse or a flash famine.
The One who Multi-Tasks:The responsible one and the person for all needs and purposes. That person can handle situations, work on the computer, stop the baby crying, talk on the mobile and help an old lady cross the street; all this while also shooting a couple zombies in the above mentioned apocalypse.
The Organizer:The one who’s really in control but also the most worried person on the trip who is constantly wondering who or what they left behind that they needed to carry along. This person will constantly be on the lookout for trouble and will be there to see that everything goes smoothly.
The Gossipers:The group that cannot stop chattering go on and on about people who are not there on the trip or sometimes people who are, but they just realize that late. They keep analyzing things about people’s clothes, attitude, manners, behavior patterns, financial status and whatnot that should have probably got them into the cabinet of any government a long time back.
The Fussy One:The delicate and fussy one of the group who is always a bit irritated and shy and scared of everyone else on the trip. This person will require special attention, special food, special water, special everything… sometimes even perhaps another vehicle because people in this vehicle have had enough of that nonsense.
The Hated One:The driver is undoubtedly the most hated person on the trip because no matter what the conditions are and no matter how good the driver is and no matter how hard the driver is trying to give everyone a comfortable journey, the driver will always be cursed for being too slow, too fast, too clumsy, too bad, too rash or too something-or-the-other. Why? Because people just love to do that.
Well, these are only the types that I could identify in a glance. If you've noticed more types or have anything to add in these, please go right ahead and tell me, I'd love to expand my classification.