I've become anal when planning travel. The years have taught me that before departure, I must cover my bum in all respects, and next insure it.
I need to preplan recovery strategies for my random travel idiocies - for the times I lock myself out of my room, drop my passport in the taxi, or book on Ryanair.
I am bad like this. I have stowed wet swimming togs in a hotel room safe, and forgotten the combination. (To be fair, I too find that one puzzling.)
This time I am in Hawaii, although idiocy almost thwarted me. It happened like this:My work once took me to the US frequently enough for my passport to have a visa stamp granting ''indefinite entry''.
But that was a while back - in fact, rather longer than I'd thought. As Air New Zealand checked the Duchess and I on to the flight to Honolulu, their rep asked: ''Have you got your visa?''''Yes, it's indefinite. The stamp's near the back of the passport.''
She looked at me dubiously.
''Whoops, that would be my old passport. Presumably I still present myself at their immigration gate. They'll be rude for the statutory minute, then flick us through unless we're carrying prayer mats.''
''So you didn't download your ESTA?'' she sighed.
''It's the electronic American visa you need for this flight. They changed the rules. Some time ago, actually.''
I'd forgotten the first rule of Modern Travel - never assume it remains the same. I felt like a hick in old gumboots; a front row forward discovered in his bra and panties.
But fortunately the anal traveller had checked in early. ''There's still time. We're used to this, so we can ESTA you on the spot,'' said the rep. And for fifty bucks she did, bless her.
''That was stupid of me,'' I told the Duchess.
''Remarkably stupid,'' she agreed.
''In fact so stupid, I promise not to tell anyone. Stupidity of this level should remain secret.''
Fat chance, I thought. But it was at least a fortnight before I was outed. When we went out with Kiwi friends on Maui, the conversation moved to idiot travel moments.
Amid derisive laughter, the cretin was unmasked. Anyway, I'm here where the sun shines, the water's warm, and the hotels call the extra levy on overseas visitors a ''transient's tax''. It makes us sound like vagrants come in off the street for shelter and food scraps.
There are scores of famed quotes about the benefits of travel for hayseed provincials. Mark Twain, good at telling people what to do, said: ''Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness.''
Robert Louis Stevenson sniffily remarked: ''I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.''
Of course Stevenson died long before airports made his statement risible. And in Hawaii, where hedonism reaches its purest form, travel is no longer connected with expanding one's viewpoints.
This is entirely satisfactory because if my mind was further broadened I may be disqualified from Christian burial.
It's conceivable a Hawaiian holiday actually assists one to narrow the mind. Reclining in a deckchair, a Kiwi is perfectly placed to snigger at the less fortunate races.
We smirk at Americans who live in a land which has more than 50,000 Elvis impersonators, most of them performing the fat years.
We look down our noses at crass Aussies, laugh at pallid Poms and decry the Germanic need for dawn blitzkriegs that claim all the sun recliners. (The lebensraum doctrine remains.)
And posers with selfie sticks? Disneyland recently banned these contraptions after a man and his stick had a nasty accident on a ride. But the ban is finger in the dyke stuff, doomed in the face of mass narcissism.
Nevertheless it offers a commercial opportunity to the nimble inventor - the selfie stick disguised as an umbrella.
If there are ignoramuses dumb enough to ignore their ESTAs, there's a market for the umbrella selfie stick. I stand chastened. Caught short once more.
John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
