You don’t really know someone until you go on holiday with them, according to conventional wisdom. We need to attach an addendum to this though: and see how they treat their hotel room. Partner, friend, or family member, you have no idea who a person really is until you witness that behaviour up close. It can tell you everything about them.
This isn’t a subjective matter: there are clear rights and wrongs, which etiquette experts have detailed to Travel and Leisure magazine. The biggest shock? They discuss how messy it is acceptable to leave your hotel room, when I have lived by the instinct that this isn’t even a question. It can’t just be me who tidies up thoroughly before departing, can it? My dream is that the housekeeping staff assume the booking was cancelled at the last minute, because the room is as pristine, if not more so, than when they left it.
Well, bombshell: protocol specialist Myka Meier says you shouldn’t even make the bed before leaving, because it’s just going to be stripped and changed as soon as you go. As somebody who prides themselves on their hospital corners, this is, frankly, devastating.
While I accept my standards may be overly high, I do think leaving a room looking like there has been a burglary says a lot about who you are and your state of mind – and none of it is good.
