How You Know You Are Addicted to TA Forums...

Ok -- I have decided that I need to be honest about my addiction to the TA(NYC) forums, however sad it may be - because acceptance is the first step to recovery after all...so I have decided to start a list of ';How You Know You are Addicted to TA forums -- or Trip Advisor in General';, please add on your own ideas:

1. You read something in a magazine, or see something on TV and your first thought is -- ';Oh! Someone on the TA forum was asking about that.';

2. You go to a new restaurant, and can%26#39;t wait to reccommend it to someone on the TA forums.

3. You find yourself responding to TA posts in lieu of doing your job.

4. You find yourself dropping , ';well, I read on trip advisor that...'; into conversations

5. You have a TA tattoo.

6. You find yourself composing lists about your addiction to TA.

7. You change your travel plans based on a bad TA review.

8. You read about something or some place new and can%26#39;t wait to get TA forum feedback on it.

9. You wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and figure you are up - so you might as well check if someone replied to your post on the TA forums.

10. Your motivation for travelling, and trying new things is two fold - one it%26#39;s fun, and two, you will have more to share on the TA forums!

How You Know You Are Addicted to TA Forums...

I%26#39;m suffering from nine of those symptoms.

How You Know You Are Addicted to TA Forums...

you haven%26#39;t got that tattoo yet either Betty?

Bettina - I hope that you don%26#39;t have symptom #5. LOL. Actually you reminded me of another one --

You aspire to be a ';Local Expert';.

Yes, I admit it, I%26#39;m a member of this club...well, not the tattoo part but the rest.

11. You wonder how someone is doing on their trip and think ';right now, ABC should be enjoying their walk across the bridge. Hope they%26#39;re having fun';

I%26#39;m guilty of 1, 3, 7, and 8!

ROFLOL!!!

On my recent trip to New York with my best friend, I realized I was constantly saying....';Well, on TA, they said to do this'; , ';ON TA, someone said not to do that, ';On TA, someone did this';......I was beginning to sound obnoxious to myself. :o)

When your hubby keeps telling you ';enough with the Trip Advisor advice';.

And to my shame I did actually check ( en route to the bathroom_ the other night) to see if someone had answered my question. Well, I mean, come on, I%26#39;m in England, the time difference, you know, while I%26#39;m sleeping someone over there is Trip Advisoring lol.

But whatever the symptoms, keep it up everyone, it%26#39;s the best.

my hubby at one point (before he realised my ta addiction) thought a couple of forum members I talked about were actually people I worked with cause I talked about them so often and seemed to know a lot about them!

I have all but the tattoo! Looking at my recent posts it is clear that symptom No. 9 hit me last night. I was posting at 12:08 a.m, 12:45 a.m., 1:10 a.m. And here I am again living up to symptom No. 3! When the going gets tough, the tough hit the forum! Have a good weekend, but then again, I know I can%26#39;t last that long without my TA forum fix! Moms

I had an interesting conversation with my 13 year old daughter regarding Tripadvisor. When we visited the Turks and Caicos Islands last year we met several families I met through the TA forum. My daughter pointed out to me that I have instructed her NEVER to meet anyone with whom she corresponds on-line yet I willingly met with TA forum members. It is something those of us who are TA members must address if we have children and we meet other TA members.

I told her that I never provided anyone with personal information and met people in public places with family members around. I never made arrangements to meet anyone privately and I let all of my family members know what I was doing. She seemed satisfied but still a bit skeptical so I resorted to ';do as I say, not as I do';. Any thoughts from other forum junkies on how to explain meeting members? Moms