Downside #9

You get addicted to hotel toiletries

Someone once said you know that you've made it when you no longer feel the urge to steal hotel toiletries. Well, then you clearly haven't made it. In fact, as a travel writer those little soaps and shower gel sachets rapidly become an obsession, as they can entirely remove the need for you to buy your own. As soon as you pick up the first set, that's it - you're already calculating how long they'll last (screw top or tear-open? fingerful or double shot?), if they'll do as shampoo as well, whether the fragrance smells manly enough, if you can smuggle that block of Bulgari soap past reception in your underpants, and possible reasons why you should take the sewing kit and shower cap (note: you will never, ever use these). Use any long-serving writer's bathroom and you'll find a whole bowl of hotel soaps accumulated from around the world; if they're really serious, the room's probably papered with the labels as well.

Of course, this is a gift for housekeeping staff, who know that all they have to do to throw you into a complete panic is hide the soaps. I mean, you can't very well go and ask for them, can you? That would be pathetic...