As I sit on this mattress on the floor - foam, flower patterned, discovered under a bed at my mum's house, slept on by more people than I care to recount - I am suffering from a painful addiction. I am no longer just a recreational user.
I feel dirty, riddled with guilt, a total failure.
I have been trying to hold out, trying to seek help, trying to stave off the nightmares and the itching and the panic attacks.
But I have anticipated the next fix for too long... I'm not strong enough yet.
That's right; I am a hopeless user.
A user of... TripAdvisor.com. I simply cannot help myself. The world is a big place, and I am trying to cover it all, from seedy hotel to stinking motel. To begin with, I was a "recreational user"; Using TripAdvisor as a resource for planning holidays, researching hotels, occasionally checking out the most expensive ones with a sigh and a longing for a massive amount of cash.
But then I turned to the dark side. After perusing user photos from a large amount of hotels, I discovered "those" photos. You know, the ones where people have taken pictures of THEMSELVES and posted them on the site thinly veiled as "hotel photos".
Asian couples smiling while getting massages! Tourists posing with staff! Overweight Western tourists generally looking fat and sunburnt and sipping sangrias out of novelty glasses! Filipinas posing in their bikinis in spas, pools, hammocks! Sweaty couples trying to look sexy and romantic! The list goes on. And on and on and on.
Highly recommended: Most SE Asian tourist destinations (Thailand, Malaysia are particularly notable), other Asian destinations - the Philippines is a good one. Also, the Spanish holiday islands where pommy chavs like to sun themselves until they peel, go clubbing, get shitfaced and sleep with everybody.
I have now found myself on this well-loved mattress night after night, staring intently at the screen while searching for the most touristy hotels, and the lowest star rated budget accommodations, to laugh at these unfortunate creatures. Because if you reach a point in your life when you feel it necessary to post photos of yourself on a travel forum in order to feel better about yourself, well... you are nothing but a dealer, ruining the lives of desperate junkies like myself by feeding our addictions. Thanks a lot.
