How Snacks and Sarcasm Saved Our Last Trip

I’ve been on trips where the itinerary was a masterpiece of overplanning—every minute scheduled, every restaurant booked. And then there were the trips where nothing worked, from lost luggage to missed buses. Both teach you something, but the chaos trips? They teach you how to laugh when the GPS is broken and the snacks are gone.

I’m not a fan of shouting or stress, so my go-to is snacks and sarcasm. When tempers rise and patience thins, I pull out a bag of crisps and a joke that’s just silly enough to break the tension. Somehow, between crunchy chips and eye-roll punchlines, people remember we’re on vacation—not in a survival reality show.

Leadership on the road isn’t about control. It’s about being the steady presence who knows that sometimes the best plan is no plan at all—and a full snack bag. When you can laugh at the mess, you give everyone permission to relax. And that, more than any perfect schedule, keeps a group sane.

So yes, I pack emergency crackers like a pro—and yes, I deploy sarcasm with precision. It’s messy. It’s imperfect. But it works.