Travel Pet Peeves: Baggage Claim

I love to travel! Fortunately, I have a job that has provided me the opportunity to grow that love since I travel to travel industry and advisor events quite often. I’ve often enjoyed the opportunity to observe those around me—people watching to pass the time. I like to imagine a story behind what I see, the interactions of people with each other and even those that are traveling alone as I am. As I write this I am suddenly wondering if others are doing the same to me. If so, they are probably thinking, “what a nosey Nellie watching others so intently and getting into their business!” That’s something I had never considered until now…

I recently took a personal trip for Spring Break with my husband to Seattle to visit our daughter. I began this trip a bit tired to be transparent and my observations took a bit more of a negative turn. It made me realize there are a few things when traveling that I rarely have a positive outlook on and decided maybe I should share some here and there to get your opinions and insight as well.

When it comes to baggage, I like to pack a carry on as much as possible but there are of course times that it doesn’t make sense. We flew Southwest to Seattle which meant that we had two free bags which was perfect because we were taking some belongings to our daughter that we didn’t want to ship. Waiting for the bags to arrive is always tough for me because I want to get my bags and get going but that isn’t my pet peeve. Fighting the masses of people that line up right next to the carousel is my pet peeve. Am I the only one that believes that if we all stand back, when we see our luggage, we can step forward, grab it, and get out of the way? I’m actually asking that question because it doesn’t seem to be the general understanding of the greater population of travelers.

I did see that midway spaced out spots away from the carousel so that people could distance themselves during COVID. This concept would work, but of course no one was standing on the marked spots aside from the ones that blocked access to the carousel.

Does anyone else get frustrated by this? Do you have any ideas about how to make this better? What are your travel pet peeves?