Mexico City Subway Map

When You've Got Those First-24-Hour Blues

A traveler arrives in London , jet-lagged, throws his bags down in the hotel in Islington and sets out to meet a friend at Kings College, which Google Maps says is a 30-minute walk away. A half-hour later he’s lost and caught in pouring rain. Forty-five minutes later he’s wandering Fleet Street with a cheap umbrella in hand. An hour and a Tube ride later, this soaked and stressed shadow of his former self gives his impatient friend a hug.

A few months later he arrives in Lebanon from Cyprus, and hops a bus to a bed-and-breakfast in Byblos. But he’s let off at the wrong exit and finds himself on the side of a broiling highway, still in his air-conditioning-ready plane clothes, rolling his suitcase over the potholed, littered shoulder and wondering how he is supposed to find the bed-and-breakfast spot he has reserved. (He finally figures out that his Cyprus SIM card has enough credit to send a message to his host, who picks him up.)

For any traveler, the first day in a strange place can be stressful. Just like everyone else, I suffer regularly from what I call 24-TDD: 24-hour Temporary Distress and Disorientation. In layman’s terms: the first day in almost every new place usually stinks. You arrive and think you’ve made a terrible mistake: it’s too touristy, it’s not touristy enough, it’s boring, it’s ugly, you didn’t do enough research, your research is terrible. You’re tired, lost, hungry, cold (or hot), feeling woozy.

This applies even to me, an alleged travel expert — and the victim in the sob stories above. It’s supposed to go like this: I arrive at my destination without a bead of sweat on my forehead, toss my bags down in my what-a-steal rustically charming hotel, and minutes later have found a secret charming corner of town where I can eat or drink or shop as I shoot the breeze with charming proprietors and the local old men sitting around full of bons mots to start my story.

Occasionally, something like this actually happens, though mostly in small, unintimidating places, and then only when my initial intelligence turns out to be, you know, intelligent. Like in Zacatecas, Mexico , last summer, when I arrived with a bead on a cheap, fantastic hotel , made friends instantly and was off to a locals-only concert within hours.

That’s rare. And I’ve come to realize it’s mostly not my fault when 24-TDD sets in. It’s a traveler’s phenomenon, exacerbated by a low budget and magnified by being alone. That overnight bus or multiconnection flight may save a few bucks but it leaves you cranky. Then add a foreign language, unfamiliar streets and a noncentral hotel, where the only place a concierge can be found is in the French dictionary a backpacker left behind. Misery loves company, but I’m long on the first and short on the second.

Downtown Mexico City Subway: Zocalo, Bellas Artes, etc | Mexico City

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