The following are actual encounters related by travel agents (and
you wonder why U.S. citizens generally score less than the rest of the
world on geography exams)…

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going
over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to
California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started
to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when
she interrupted me with "I’m not trying to make you look stupid,
but Capetown is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look
like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Cape *Cod* is in
Massachusetts; Capetown is in Africa." Her response: click.

A secretary called in looking for hotel in Los Angeles. She gave me
various names off a list, none of which I could find. I finally had her
fax me the list. To my surprise, it was a list of hotels in New Orleans,
Louisiana. She thought the LA stood for Los Angeles, and that New
Orleans was a suburb of L.A. Worst of all, when I called her back, she
was not even embarrassed.

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what
was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an
ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando
is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don’t lie to me. I
looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see
England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said, "But
they look so close on the map."

Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When
I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay-over in
Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I
heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the
gates to save time."

A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible
that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at
8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois,
but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told
her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical
description on your bag so they know who’s luggage belongs to who?"
I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I
checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT,
and I’m overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on
hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually
laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and
that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know
which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he
replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these
dang planes have numbers on them."

A businessman called and had a question about the documents he
needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about
passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don’t, I’ve
been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I
double checked, and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told
him this he said, "Look, I’ve been to China four times and every
time they have accepted my American Express card."