Guide

The Travel Karen

Airplanes, hotels and the etiquette of being inconvenienced · ~7 min read

If you wanted to design a machine for producing Karen behaviour, you would build an airport. Take people who are tired, have spent a lot of money, are surrounded by strangers, and have surrendered all control over their day to a schedule they cannot see, then delay them. Here is how to travel without becoming the story someone tells when they get home.

Why travel brings it out

Three ingredients. Sunk cost: you paid a lot, so every flaw feels like a theft. Lost control: gates, queues, boarding groups and check-in times are all decided by someone else. Forced proximity: you are sharing armrests with strangers for hours, with no exit. Our psychology guide lists the mechanisms behind Karen behaviour; travel switches all of them on at once.

On the plane

The reclining seat, settled

The seat reclines because the airline designed it to, which makes reclining a right that comes with the ticket. That is why the quiz scores asking someone not to recline as a two, and summoning the flight attendant as a three. The etiquette is simple: recline slowly, not during meals, and not all the way on a short daytime hop. If you need the space to work, ask — once, nicely — and accept the answer. If you are the one behind, put the laptop away or buy the seat with the legroom next time.

Armrests

The widely accepted convention: the middle seat gets both middle armrests, because the middle seat has nothing else. Window has the wall, aisle has the aisle. Disputes about this are the tiniest possible hill to die on.

Boarding groups and overhead bins

The group number is not a judgement of your worth. Board when called, put one bag up and one under, and do not stand in the aisle repacking. The bin above your seat is not “yours”; bin space is first come, first served, and the crew will find room.

Cabin crew are safety staff, not waiters

Their primary job is to get everyone down safely; drinks are a courtesy squeezed in around it. They did not cause the delay, cannot change the seat map, and have legal authority you do not want to test. “Summon the flight attendant” over a reclined seat is a three on the Meter because it drags a safety officer into an argument with no rule to enforce.

Delays

Nobody at the gate delayed your flight. Ask what they know, ask what your options are, ask politely for a rebooking or a voucher if you are entitled to one, and then sit down. The passenger who is calm at the desk is, for entirely human reasons, the one who gets the better seat on the next flight.

At the hotel

The room isn't ready

Check-in times exist because the previous guest also existed. Arriving at eleven and demanding the room is asking the housekeepers to have cleaned it in the time it took you to get from the airport. Ask if they can text you when it is ready, leave the bags, and go and find lunch.

The upgrade demand

Asking about an upgrade is fine. Expecting one because you “always get one”, because you are a loyalty member, or because it is your anniversary is where the Meter starts to climb. Loyalty status is an invitation to be considered, not a contract. The front desk knows exactly who has demanded and who has asked, and they hand out the upgrades accordingly.

Noise complaints

A party at 2 a.m. is a legitimate complaint; call the desk. Children in the corridor at 7 p.m. is a hotel. Knowing which one you are dealing with is most of the skill.

The review at the desk

“I'll be mentioning this in my review” said to a receptionist is the travel version of the manager summons, and it is scored the same way. Review later, fairly, or not at all.

Eating abroad

Service pace, tipping customs, whether water is free and whether the waiter checks on you every four minutes all vary by country, and none of them are wrong where you are. “This isn't how we do it at home” is true, and also not the restaurant's problem. Read up before you go, ask when unsure, and treat the differences as the point of travelling rather than a failure of the destination.

The traveller's checklist

• Build in slack: the person with a spare hour rarely shouts at anyone.
• Decide in advance what you will let go: the seat, the bin, the check-in time.
• Ask, once, nicely, for what you would like. Then accept the answer.
• Keep the audience out of it. A plane is the worst possible place for a scene.
• Remember who can actually fix the thing, and be kind to everyone who cannot.

Keep reading

• Every “Am I a Karen?” question, explained
• How to complain effectively without being a Karen
• Ten rules for not being a Karen