Most experiences are what you make of them. Travel is no exception. You go to places that everybody has seen and to places that nobody has heard of. You go from spending a weekend at a resort to a fortnight in the same city. You travel alone, with friends, and sometimes even with a giant group of strangers.
Because it's now spring break, here's a list of the people who you will most likely encounter if you pick that last option.
1. The Poser
You're constantly listening to their story about how they were crowned Prom Queen and all of their struggles to get there. You can count on them being the one person who is getting a photo taken, no matter where you are. Although you're outwardly annoyed by them, you have to admit that they've got style.
2. The Foodie
A big part of experiencing a new place is trying out the local food. For the foodie, however, "There is no sincerer love than the love of food." If they're not demolishing a local delicacy, then they're tapping into their trusty travel pantry.
3. Sleeping Beauty
Road trips seem to hold almost too much enchantment for them. They fall into a deep sleep as if they were cursed by Maleficent from the second when they settle into a motor vehicle. Strangely enough, even though they're almost always asleep, they become an integral part of the trip anyway.
4. The Travel Photographer
Typically carrying a top-of-the-range camera around the neck, the travel photographer is potentially one of the most interesting people who you will encounter on the trip. They not only have amazing documentation of their past trips, but looking at the world through their lens gives it a whole new quality that you hadn't perceived before.
5. The Wannabe Photographer
This is the member of the group who is always pulling out their phone-that's-as-good-as-a-camera to take pictures at inopportune times. Funnily enough, they tend to miss out on the real picture-worthy moments because, naturally, their battery is dead from all of those selfies.
6. The Rebel
This is the person who will sneak food out of the breakfast buffet or into a museum "just because." If nothing else, you can always count on the flash going off when they're taking a picture of a Monet.
7. The DJ
Ideally, they know what they're doing when they fiddle with the radio on the tour bus and, typically, they have a stellar playlist to share with the rest of the group. Even if that's not the case, the music is their territory and anything that blasts through the speakers of the tour bus goes through them first.
8. The Doctor
From the day when their existence becomes common knowledge, they have to deal with the entire tour group incrementally approaching them for all kinds of consultations, ranging from a twitching eyelid to a chronically sore knee. Luckily, they're nice enough to quickly check you up and occasionally offer you some medicine out of their own stash.
9. The Designated Bellboy
They live to regret their early display of superhuman strength that resulted in them becoming responsible for much more luggage than they could have anticipated. However, they're usually nice about it and end up guarding against the otherwise inevitable holiday weight gain.
10. The One Who's Always Late
Fashionably late or not, they're that member of the group who just cannot seem to make it to anything on time. How forgiving you are about this depends on the quality of their excuse whenever they do show up.
11. The One Who Overpacked
They can be identified as the usually fragile person who is claiming the ownership of a formidable and heavy-looking set of matching suitcases. While they unfailingly hold you up at every conveyer belt, they make up for it with their ability to lend you virtually anything that you could need on a vacation.
12. The Definitely-Not-A-Morning-Person
The last to go bed and the last to wake up, they react to sunlight in a manner that's not very different from a vampire's. While they seem to miss out on conventional morning activities like breakfast, they're the life and soul of the tour's nighttime adventures.
13. The Shopaholic
They're most at home when haggling with a local shopkeeper to give them the "best price" on their ridiculously long order of souvenirs because their boss's neighbor is suddenly an old chum. Who knows, if you manage to get on their super-exclusive friend list before the end of the trip, maybe even you will get a little present.
14. The Harassed Parent
These are the people who need a vacation from their vacation. You wonder why anyone would bring a 3-year-old backpacking across Europe in the first place. Your feelings towards them fluctuate between animosity and heartfelt sympathy, but you mostly envy how cute their album is going to turn out.
15. The Annoying Kid
This is the aforementioned 3-year-old who's backpacking across Europe for some unfathomable reason. You first encounter them on the airplane as you count down the minutes until you land so that you can finally tune out of the loud bawling that made your plane ride miserable. Then, you find out, to your absolute indignation, that you're spending more time together than you expected.
16. The One Who's Always Getting Lost
This person is also known as "Nemo." As the nickname suggest, you spend more of your acquaintance with this person looking for them than actually interacting with them. They seem to have the worst sense of direction and a memory to rival Dory's, but, in the end, the Marvin in you unfailingly manages to find them and safely bring them back to where they belong.
17. The Know-It-All
With a knowledge to rival that of all of the tour guides across the span of your trip, the know-it-all has done their research well in advance and they are completely prepared to finally see all that they've read about in flesh and blood. Although their daily dose of "fun facts" and "did-you-knows" can get irksome at times, they usually know what the best things to see and do are, wherever you are, and their presence makes your trip more fruitful than your individual planning could have.
18. The Workaholic
They're either always getting calls from "the office," always talking about it, or both. You feel very strongly about the need for this person to take a real vacation and are often tempted to toss their phone and laptop out of the window.
19. The Honeymooners
Like Eric and Ariel, they typically come with a great love story about how they met and got married. They're the favorites to win the cutest album contest and they are possibly the happiest people on the tour.
20. The Troubled Teenager
For the majority of the trip, you're rather wary of this "young adult" as the smallest things seem to set them off. You really don't want to preach to them, but, sometimes, you can't help throwing in a few well-chosen words of wisdom. After all, they remind you of yourself more than you'd like to admit.
