At home in hotels

Strangely, I seem to feel more at home in hotels than in my apartment. I noticed this the first time when I stayed at a hotel in Bunbury for 10 days for work, and again when I was in a hotel in Kalgoorlie for the past 2 weeks. I’m not sure why this is, but I think it has more to do with the activities I engage in while staying in hotels than the places themselves.

When I’m away for work, I constantly have things to do, with little down time. I work long days, and when I get back to the hotel, my evening is quickly taken up with showering, dinner, checking my e-mail, and then a short time spent reading, watching TV, or planning for the next day. Every few days I might get some time to walk around the town I’m in. If I’m traveling with someone, the experience is even better, because I enjoy spending time in their company–such as having long conversations with them over cups of tea before bed.

When I’m at home, I still work long hours but I generally have 2 days a week of down time, plus there are household tasks to do–cooking, cleaning, laundry–that I don’t do as much of when traveling. Being at home also means that when I do have down time, I spend it alone unless I’m able to plan meeting up with a friend, which is hard due to living a fair distance from my friends, and our clashing schedules. I end up feeling like I have a lot more down time to fill, and I end up filling it with less meaningful or less interesting things because I have more of it, so I put off doing things that need to be done or that I enjoy more because I think I have plenty of time to do them… whereas at hotels, I prioritize more effectively because I’ve brought with me only what I most want to do while I’m away (read, write, take photographs) so I don’t have the extra distractions of home.

Perhaps it’s just a case of noticing this, and now that I have, I’ll use my down time more to my advantage at home. But it was an odd feeling to get home and realise I missed being in the hotel.