But I have often wondered as to the value of travel versus staying put in one spot.

Those who remain at home do seem to lead more comfortable and successful lives. On the other hand, travel raises your toleration of humankind in all its complexities and opens your mind to things you may never have considered previously.

Not all discoveries, however, are deep and meaningful.

For example, twice, both leaving and returning to Cairns by plane, I sat beside men, and twice beside women. The women were up and down like yo-yos to the loo but the men were like camels.

Who goes through a 14-hour flight sitting by a window without standing up even once? I could have trained to be an Olympic gymnast in the aisle and they still would have remained nailed to their seats.

I was wary of travelling with the current outbreak of swine flu so I can understand why the Japanese are reticent about leaving home to fly to Cairns on holiday.

Fear is a great paralyser and in its grip people don't always make decisions based on facts, such as the one that as yet there is no swine flu in mainland Australia.

It's a shame the Cairns tourism industry, which is already battling because of the economic crisis, has another bat with which it is being beaten.

There's not even much that can be done about it. Even if tourism entities advertised there was no swine flu here, raising the issue might have the opposite rather than the desired effect.

My own fears of travelling had less to do with contracting swine flu en route and more to do with airports screening people for high temperatures and sniffles of any sort and the subsequent likelihood of facing quarantine.

I usually get a respiratory infection on a long-haul flight so I had visions of being hauled off to a detention centre in the desert upon landing, and later being dumped in a mass grave or incinerated - as wicked an end as I could imagine to my existence.

I thought about wearing one of those surgical masks we keep seeing in photographs from around the world to protect me from fellow travellers.

But I discovered that despite being worn increasingly at airports, the masks do not necessarily protect against infection.

The World Health Organisation says using face masks incorrectly is worse than not using them at all - it can actually increase the risk of disease transmission rather than prevent it.

Just think of all the germs accumulating on their surface. Ooh! You'd need surgical gloves to remove one.

And on long-haul flights they are hardly practical. Imagine the hell of listening to unending cries of babies, sweating into your flight socks, with your legs crumpled like a banjo beneath the seat in front of you for hours on end, while breathing your own carbon dioxide.

Kevin Rudd obviously doesn't fear our air will tip over with carbon any time soon since he has knocked the emissions trading scheme back by a year.

I wasn't aware the planet had plenty of free time with which to play. Wasn't Australia supposed to become a world leader in green energy and wouldn't this have ultimately helped the country's financial position?

I did survive the return journey to Australia although there were a couple of hiccups that may well have seen me quarantined.

Like when I innocently watched the movie, Marley and Me, the one about the dog, because after emotional goodbyes, I thought it would be light and funny.

Suffice to say I looked so bad from crying afterwards that when I went to stretch my legs, the air stewardess, busy holding an oxygen mask over a passenger's mouth, stopped to ask me if I was OK.

The second danger came upon landing in Australia when we had to wait for Quarantine to board.

I thought my time had come. They did take a woman away who was sitting just a few rows ahead of me, so I won't breathe easy yet, but at least it's good to know that Australian Quarantine is protecting us well.

All that remains of my holiday is an upset circadian rhythm and yet I'm expected to look and feel refreshed.

Excuse me while I laugh as hard as Channel 9's Karl Stefanovic the morning after the night before at the Logies.