Might a Traveler's Most Expensive Mistake Be One They Never Notice?
The largest costs are not always attached to receipts.
Sometimes. Opportunity costs often remain invisible because people never see the alternative outcome.
A traveler chooses the first available itinerary and never discovers a route that would have saved time, money, and stress.
The hidden mechanism is invisible comparison. People can measure what happened, but they rarely measure what could have happened.
A micro-scene highlights this challenge: a traveler feels satisfied because the trip worked, unaware that a better option existed nearby.
The hardest mistakes to evaluate are often the ones that leave no evidence behind.
