Jim Eagles: To coin a winning travel phrase

Graphic / Emmerson

Have you ever suffered from the globetrots: traveller's diarrhoea on a round-the-world trip? Or watched a filibluster: a pointless delay caused by creating a scene in the airport security line to prove some point about personal privacy rights that no one else in the queue cares about? And most of us have met a crankophone: someone who tries to make themselves understood in a foreign country simply by speaking even more loudly in their own tongue.

These are among 30 new words coined by Lonely Planet author Andy Murdock to cover those special travel experiences that the existing vocabulary doesn't quite cover.

Some others include:

Carbungle: embarrassment caused by trying and failing to start, find reverse, or otherwise operate an unfamiliar car in a foreign country and having to ask someone for help.

Comeuppants: when an obnoxious person loses their luggage and has no change of clothes.

Egotourism: an approach to travel that purports to serve the local culture or further personal growth but, in reality, only inflates a traveller's sense of self-importance.

Farflunk: intending to take long trips but completely failing to make them happen.

Fearenheit: panic felt by Americans when attempting to comprehend temperatures in other countries.

Frankophile: a traveller obsessed with accumulating passport stamps.

Frequent liar programme: travellers who will say anything to receive upgrades on flights or hotel rooms, free meals, etc.

Fungalavant: to travel the world spreading athlete's foot from one hostel shower to the next.

I think it's a brilliant concept and one that enthusiastic travellers are bound to spread around the globe.

In fact, to help that happen, Herald Travel and Lonely Planet are offering prizes of the guidebook of your choice for the five best new travel words sent in by readers.

Colleague Linda Herrick has already put in the first entry: hoggage: the act of filling the overhead lockers in a plane with excessive luggage.

I'm thinking about econoknee - knee joints locked up by lack of leg-room in economy class.

Or maybe backsplash - what happens when the guy in front jerks his seat back just as the drinks trolley arrives.

Email your new word to travel@nzherald.co.nz by noon on March 27 with your name and mailing address plus the name of the Lonely Planet guidebook you'd like to receive. Or leave your contribution in the comments section below. We'll name the winners in the April 3 issue of Travel.