Almost 20 years ago, we rented Las Trementinas, a three-bedroom villa near Chocolate Hole. The owner, Steve Clayton, lived in Seattle, where he owned a company which provided tropical fish and aquariums to businesses. He gave us one piece of advice when we decided to build our own house at Reef Bay: "One Roof! One Roof!"
You see, Steve's house had a main building, and then several little guest houses. The more roofs you have, the more expensive it is to build (because you have multiple structures) and maintenance costs are higher than with just one roof.
On Sunday, the Washington Post published a letter from Rick Garvin in Mclean, Virginia in which he applied this "one roof thinking" to travel. With United Airlines limiting people to one bag at no cost, isn't' it likely other airlines will begin charging for a second bag, too? Rick said he is "delighted" by the policy.
First, he thinks too many people bring too many bags and slow the check-in process. One free bag, he hopes, will result in fewer people packing for a safari when in fact they're just going to the beach.
Rick, personally, is determined to travel light between Dulles and St. Thomas. "My family, with two kids can easily travel with one checked bag for all of us," he wrote the Post's Travel editors. "It's a vacation, not a migration," he adds.
And, he points out, with one bag, he doesn't have to que up in those awful lines at he St. Thomas airport airline counters to check luggage. "We will print our boarding passes on St. John and go directly to immigration/customs when we arrive at the airport." Brilliant! If you have ever survived the wait to check a bag, and then been told go to Immigration/Customs, where the lines are long and anxiety levels off the chart, you can appreciate how valuable Rick's tip is.
Here's Rick's letter to the Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021501734_4.html?sid=ST2008021502318