Festivus, the holiday first seen in everybody’s favorite show about nothing, Seinfeld, is here. So, I figured that to honor it (sans the feats of strength), I’ll air my grievances about things and people that I’ve got a lot of problems about.

• First of all, the people who take the fact that they’re able to travel as proof that they’re better than everybody else. I haven’t run into many of them, thankfully, but there are a few people out there who are smug about this.
• The people who act like traveling abroad gives them the right to be idiots are the bane of my existence. I mean, I remember the first time I drank abroad. Bonus goes to them if they choose to be loud and obnoxious outside your hostel room.
• If you’re in a hostel, you don’t need to take up all the space. It’s limited as it is, so those of you who aren’t cognizant of the fact that your massive baggage is in the way of the bunk, door, and/or bathroom are wankers. Generally a gentle reminder of “hey, could you please move your stuff” suffices, but some wankers ignore all decency. Don’t be those wankers.
• People who only go to the super touristy places and then have the gall to complain about being bored. Have you tried actually investigating more? You can’t boil down a city/country with it’s likely-tacky center, because you’re making an incredibly shallow judgement. Go further. Explore. Throw yourself into the local scene. Just don’t be that guy/gal who whines about not having something to do.
• Istanbul Airport. Full stop. Yes, it’s been over two years since I flew there, but I wanted to include it. To this day I try to avoid having to have layovers there, which makes booking flights trickier than usual. I bite my thumb at you, Istanbul Airport.
• For that matter, routes that include layovers that are longer than your actual flight. I know these types of tickets exist to lower costs and potentially enable you to explore the city of your layover, but still, 16+ hours is excessive considering the direct flight is 90 minutes.
• Airlines that don’t make any announcements about your delay(s). There’s a fine line between being busy versus being willfully incompetent. Case in point: my summer trip to Montenegro when I flew with the budget airline Red Wings. Yes, I know that a budget airline inherently comes with risks, but I genuinely swear there was going to be a riot if passengers’ hope of boarding continued to be squashed; having said that, it was nice that the airline at least handed out water.
• As much as I love traveling, airports here in Moscow could be better. Vnukovo is grey and frankly lethargic, Domodedovo is big but there’s quite a bit of distance to cover to get to your gate and/or the Aeroexpress to and from the city, and Sheremetyevo’s waiting lounges are too small with spotty wifi (which I need to kill the slow waits). Though, I’ll take the latter because it’s the best of all of them.
• Getting stuck on a long fight with not one, but two crying babies-and in the same row to boot. For ten hours. That was a fun trip home.
• Not international travel, yeah, but getting stuck behind slow people who exhibit an alarming lack of spatial awareness in the Moscow metro counts as a grievance. How can you all NOT notice that you’re in the way of many anxious people who are in a rush to get to their destinations? And don’t get me started on people who choose to hold up the lines on the left side of the escalators by choosing to lollygag, because it’s not as if people are trying to get by you.
• The lack of signage is irrationally annoying for me. (Hi, Kaliningrad.) I rely on seeing what street I’m on, so having to aimlessly wander is not fun at all. Especially when it costs me at least half an hour, which results in incredibly sore feet.