This is a different kind of guide. It isn’t designed to help you save money, make more money, be healthier, lose weight or get a better job. Rather this is a guide to help you improve the lives of others around you and create a positive effect in society by taking other people’s feelings, attitudes and physical comfort into account while you are traveling. By practicing any of these manners, it is unavoidable for improving your own state of mind by being considerate of others.
Travel has changed dramatically over the last several decades and people who were not likely to ever step foot in an airport even 10 or 20 years ago are now becoming regular travelers. Travel has increasingly become a necessity for business, is increasingly a part of family life for those with young kids and even a regular affair for those with physical limitations. And with many folks consolidating all of their spending onto credit cards to accumulate loyalty points with airlines and hotels, people who in actuality cannot afford to travel or filling the airports and tourist destinations more than ever.
With some small attention to how you handle yourself in public outside of your own house, job or town, you can be part of a widespread effort to improve society with simple courtesies. With a little bit of attention to details that rarely even cost a dime, you can prevent a small corner of human misery for a person for a brief period of their life which will create a trickle effect of happiness among people that you will never know or be thanked for.
Surveys shows that people from every continent all believe these common courtesies like holding a door open for someone who is approaching right behind you, or waving to someone to acknowledge being let into traffic or letting folks get off of the train or bus before entering are part of their culture. Yet those who are newer to travel may be unaware of them. Those who are seasoned travelers may feel annoyance at those who are not aware of them. But there isn’t one person who can’t find a nugget to improve their concourse with their fellow man in this guide.
There is always the 80/20 rule that seems to be a universal ratio – 20% of the people are making life rough for the rest of the 80% of us—at work, at home, our customers, clients, patients, co-workers, parishioners, etc. The best-laid travel plans can rapidly decay due to inclement weather or accidents. But by keeping your cool and avoiding being one of the 20%, we can help each other to get along better– get to our work meeting, our vacation destination or back to our loved ones without quite so much negativity and thus start our business, have fun or reunite with friends and family more quickly without being disgruntled.
It is natural for some travelers to recount to their fellows at their destination about all of the difficulties they just experienced – the delayed or cancelled flight, the baby who cried the whole time, the rental car agency which was sold out of the car you wanted. But by following this guide, they can could uplift themselves and avoid feeling as negative about their own experience if they are the one stand-out positive thing that really smoothed out the rough patches for someone who otherwise was having a bad day. And just maybe that is the thing someone else will remember and recount to their fellows. You can hug yourself at knowing you created a positive effect, whether the other person was aware of it or not, thus making your own life and travel experience just a little bit smoother and creating a bit of happiness in the process.
Make Others Feel Important
You may have a very important job title at work, maybe you are retired or maybe you are a janitor. Regardless of your station in life, you wish to be noticed by others and to feel like you matter. The way to help yourself feel noticed and important is by making others feel important first.
If you are taking any mode of transportation other than just driving yourself to your destination, there are many people involved in helping you arrive safely and granting importance to those helping you on your travels can greatly improve not only your own travel experience, but will improve the whole scene for everyone involved.
There may be bus drivers getting you from the airport parking lot to the airport doorway, porters who help you with your luggage, ticketing agents or sky caps who print your boarding pass, security personnel who must clear you before you can enter, cashiers who take your food order, janitors who keep the bathrooms tidy, flight attendants who keep you safe on-board and numerous other people you will never meet who get you, your luggage and your fellow travelers to your destination safely while caring for your comfort in many ways.
Giving people a smile, making eye contact, saying thank you, using their name, giving them a tip even if it’s not expected or a genuine compliment may unarm them from the repetition of their job and frankly from the thanklessness they routinely receive. Not only is it kind, but it may uplift them for a moment and they may end up giving you that extra bit of help you need. Making an effort to show friendliness to each person you encounter will spread to others and keep you feeling more positive.
Showing transportation folks some patience and ensuring them you are appreciative of their help may undo a day’s worth of weary. Make the people who are helping you feel important–use good manners to make others feel important and be AMAZED at how much smoother your own experience will be. You will likely find yourself smiling knowing the next person in line will have an easier time because you left that service provider in slightly better condition than you found them. Soon you will feel like a pretty important person who is creating calm for everyone.
Elevators
Just like there is a common courtesy at four-way stop signs, there is a common courtesy for approaching elevators. The commonly-held courtesy is to let people get off of the elevator first before you try to get on.
When approaching an elevator, keep a bit of distance away from the door as it opens. As the doorbell dings, do not attempt to rush right in. Wait to see if anyone is on the elevator. If there is, pause for a moment to see if anyone is coming off. Allow them to comfortably exit the elevator. The sensors in most elevators will not close too fast for you to make your entrance. This also gives people on full elevators a chance to re-position to make room for you. Rushing right in before noting if there is anyone aboard who needs to come off is considered rude and bad manners. Help contribute to common courtesy to wait for others to get off before entering, thereby avoiding ruffling those trying to get off.
RESTAURANTS
Restaurant work is not easy work. Each customer has many preferences on many things and can be quite demanding. Multiply that by every customer each waiter serves and you may be able to fathom what it takes to tolerate the public as a server. Frankly, it is a testament to grittiness in business to keep restaurants staffed enough for the demand of life’s increasing convenience-oriented lifestyle.
Tips
While you are entitled to get your food the way you ordered it, if there is a slight deviation, don’t take it out on the waiter. Most waitstaff are completely willing to make you happy. Even if the food wasn’t perfect though, make sure to tip your waiter. Tipping is part of the expense of travel for business and pleasure. Don’t try to justify saving your business or household a little bit of money by not leaving a tip or even worse, leaving an insulting tip.
Tipping 15% is the cost of eating out. However, 20% shows the service was acceptable and so was the food. Make sure you plan on this cost for your travels. If the food was terrible, get the manager to comp some of the items, but make sure to still tip the waiter on what the check SHOULD have cost.
Cleaning Up
And while you are at it, why not tidy up your table before you leave? Increasingly, casual dining restaurants offer a place to bus your own plates. Make sure to do this. This ensures when the next round of customers want to sit down that tables are ready for them. While it seems the staff should take care of it, there are busy times that may prevent it. Pave the way for your fellow traveler by clearing a spot for them by merely handling your own trash.
And for tables that are bussed for you, go ahead and condense your trash — put all of the paper remains from straws, napkins and sugar packets onto a plate; if it’s a big booth, make it easier for the waiter to reach the plates once you leave by moving them closer; wipe off the booth if you left large crumbs or spills. If you take children out to eat, take a bit of responsibility to help leave the place in reasonably good shape – pick up hunks of food from the floor that your child dropped and consider taking the high chair back to the storage area. Waitstaff do not get paid enough to clean up any mess your group can possibly make. Use your manners in restaurants and consider how you would like cleaning up behind yourself if you were the waiter. They will notice the effort you made and will appreciate it and it might make the rest of their day just a bit easier that you helped them.
AIRPLANES
Lots can be said about traveling on airplanes! More will likely get added as time goes on! But face it, everyone is in a small space for an extended time and it’s easy to try the patience of even a saint. A few advices can help all be a bit happier about the situation, especially for those of us who are never going to upgrade to first class or get our own airplane.
If you are fortunate enough to avoid the middle seat, then consider leaving one arm rest for your trapped middle seat companion. Frequently they get elbowed and do not even get an armrest of their own. Make note if they need a bit of space to have one place to put their arm due to the window seat person occupying the other one. Having a bit of compassion trumps the attitude of “it serves your right” for “buying a cheap seat” and makes you a better person.
There is that inevitable point where a middle or window seat companion will need to disrupt the aisle seat person in order to go to the bathroom. If the aisle seat person makes an exit for the bathroom, consider going at the same time. You will need to go to the back of the plane if the front restroom is occupied to avoid forming lines at the front of the plane. But piggy-backing on bathroom breaks can go a long way to not pushing the other aisle seat traveler’s buttons.
The overhead compartments are for the big bags. If you didn’t bring a roller bag, great! But don’t use the overhead compartment for your purse, coat or backpack. The space under the seat in front of you is the designated storage compartment for those items. While you may feel you are entitled to overhead storage space because you didn’t bring a roller bag, you really aren’t. There are not enough overhead spaces for every traveler to have a roller bag. When you fail to utilize the space under the seat in front of you, you may likely cause another traveler to lose out on keeping their carry-on on-board. Using the space under the seat in front of you shows using good manners for other travelers in different circumstances than your own. Your consideration makes the onboarding process smoother for everyone.
- While it is not really possible to hear music or movies clear enough to follow along, you can still hear the noise if you don’t use headphones. It’s a nuisance that most people will not point out but will politely sit in annoyance over. Make sure you or your child has a set of headphones.
Bright Screens
- If the cabin lights are dimmed, it is appreciated if you dim your laptop, tablet or phone, especially if trying to sleep. You have the added benefit that your neighbor cannot watch or read your materials over your shoulder.
Keep your feet to yourself
- Don’t shove your feet so far forward in front of you that they are touching the person in front of you. We all feel a bit crowded but this is going to annoy others for sure.
- Avoid moving or kicking another’s seat
- Sometimes its necessary to brace yourself if you are exiting the aisle. But be aware it jostles the person sitting in the chair when you do. More avoidable is not tapping your foot against the seat back and definitely keeping children from kicking. Three to four hours of a toddler kicking you is maddening, yet few travelers will say anything to the parents. Yet watch out for the ones who will — they won’t likely be nice about it! Being aware of the kicking and at least making a real effort to get your child’s feet off of the seat back will go along way to diffusing the build up of resentment or possible display of anger from the person in front of you.
Loud Conversations
- Usually the engines on the plane are so loud you don’t hear too much of other people’s conversations. But be mindful that if you are a loud talker that you may be disturbing and possibly embarrassing others around you! Use discretion and keep your voice low so others do not feel embarrassed at your conversation or have to awkwardly explain to their kids to ignore what you are talking about.
When it’s time to get off of the plane, help your fellow traveler who was sitting next to you. Offer for them get out in front of you. They may decline for one reason or another. But once the back of the plane starts past their row, it is harder for them to get out so it shows good manners to let them out.
Sometimes it is obvious that another traveler has carry-on luggage that is outside of their physical ability to handle. While you could sit in resentment and think about it was stupid for them to pack a bag that was too heavy for them to lift by themselves, you could switch your viewpoint and think about what you would do if that were your mother or your grandmother trying to manage an overhead suitcase. They probably ARE someone’s mother or grandmother! They are probably embarrassed at their inability to reach it, manage it or lift it and may be too proud to ask for help but wouldn’t refuse it if you offered. Their relief and gratitude may not be expressed, but know that their child or grandchild would be anxious to thank you if they knew you helped their parent to have a slightly easier time on their travels. And you may have just prevented some minor physical injury that would have left them with some pain at the end of their trip.
The job of the flight attendant is to keep the passengers safe while traveling. They are not a waitress or a maid but they do help with these functions during the flight. They will give you many chances to give them your trash before your de-plane. Make sure you do your best to find all of your trash before you leave. Straighten up the magazines if they are lying about. Pick up trash on the floor near your seat. And certainly don’t leave dirty diapers! You will feel more clear-headed if you keep your space clean throughout the trip and so will your companions. But help out the service personnel of the airline by cleaning out your trash before you leave. You may well just save yourself the hassle of leaving a personal item like a tablet, book or glasses in so doing. But you will certainly make the shift easier for someone who doesn’t have to clean up behind you.
There are many more sections that could be written about hotels, tourist attractions, buses and trains. But hopefully you are seeing the pattern and can apply the manners already mentioned in other types of circumstances. A by-product of this is setting a good example that others in your group and family will notice and will adapt to, especially children. Defaulting to negative behavior because other people did it perpetuates more negative behavior, especially with children. Make yourself an example and others will follow you. Get them to join you in improving their own behavior and take satisfaction in taking responsibility for your fellow travelers and service providers.
This post was based on The Way to Happiness — The first moral code based wholly on common sense, originally published in 1981, its purpose is to help arrest the current moral decline in society and restore integrity and trust to Man. The Way to Happiness further holds a Guinness Record as the single most translated non-religious book in the world.
Written by L. Ron Hubbard, it fills the moral vacuum in an increasingly materialistic society, containing twenty-one basic principles that guide one to a better quality of life.
Lives Matter 
Leave a comment