I missed a plane and spent $345.60 but I hope you never do

Read all about my missed flight saga and travel tips I learned from it at Open Salon. Aka, I come out as someone who only now is learning all sorts of tech and travel and iPhone things and I am now a devotee of TripIt. Also, in other news, I'm on Instagram ("rachelkramerbussel"). Expect lots and lots of food porn.

Last month, I was supposed to land in Minneapolis at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon; instead, I spent five and a half hours waiting for a flight at LaGuardia and eventually arrived at 10:40 p.m. Here's what happened. I checked my flight information a few days before the flight and remembered I had to be at JFK for a 1 p.m. flight. I didn't write down the details or check in online, which I normally do. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't, probably because I was in a hurry and assumed I didn't need to. Instead, I figured I'd check in when I got there. I took the L train to the J or Z (I don't recall which) to Sutphin Boulevard, then paid $5 for the AirTrain to take me to my gate, but before I boarded, I checked to see which gate Spirit Airlines was located at, and discovered that Spirit doesn't fly from JFK. In a panic, since it was 11:32 already, I figured I'd take a cab to LaGuardia. If I was at the wrong airport, at least I had time to fix the problem.

Read the whole essay

How Not to Travel, or Don't Be Stupid Like Me

Louise Bourgeous limited edition hankie

Well, if I thought I'd hit rock bottom yesterday, now I can laugh at my foolishness. I plan to try to pitch a "How Not to Travel" article, so won't detail here every single thing I've done wrong (arrived late to airport with broken suitcase, didn't bring camera battery, had wrong kind of adapter, etc.) to simply highlight today's major flaw - I did not realize my passport was expored. Hence, when I arrived at Stanstead, was told at first that I could board my flight, then that I couldn't and would have to go to the U.S. Embassy on Monday morning to get one and rebook my flight for 165. The money doesn't bother me that much and I will make good use of my extra day in London, but it doesn't bode well for the whole starting over theme. I'm trying to be calm and upbeat lest I just spend the next two days sobbing. I'm truly anxious to get home and deal with the messes I've made, both literal and metaphorical, but trying to argue with an airport security agent just wasn't going anywhere.

And the ruth is, like almost all my fuckups, it's fully, 100% my fault. I'm aware of that. Normal people would do something basic like check if their passport is expired. It just never occurred to me; I use it as my ID all the time (I no longer have a driver's license as I haven't driven a car in about 7 years and never plan to again), yet haven't had to use it to get out of the country since my trip to Turkey in 2005.

The one positive thing I can say about myself is that save for my ongoing problems with debt and messiness, I do learn from my mistakes. I fuck up a lot of things quite often, but I try to not make repeat mistakes. Sometimes I do, and those are clearly issues I need to work on, and I think this entire week's message/wakeup call means I truly need to evaluate how I live my life and why I do these stupid things I do, why I find comfort in the chaos and confusion. On my last trip to England, I also made a grave error, and had to purchase an entire new ticket to attend my friends' wedding when I lost the paper ticket I'd purchased. I spent many dollars traveling back and forth to JFK and promised myself I'd never buy a paper ticket again, and haven't.

So I'm back at the flat, with my taped up suitcase, on a surprisingly sunny day. I am going to make the most of my extra day and a half in London, and look forward to going home and purging. Not just my belongings, but my way of life, because clearly something is not working and hasn't been for a long time. I think that's probably been much clearer to everyone around me than it has been to me, and I overload my life with minutiae and busy work that distract me from the bigger picture, that make it so I'm frantic and buried in the details most of the time and don't take care of myself in very basic ways. I know it has to change and this only reinforces that.