I recently completed a bucket list European campaign consisting of a 10-day cruise from Rome to Greece, Malta, Sicily, Naples, Florence, and back to Rome for three days of Vatican-based excursions. My wife and I then took the train across Italy to Rimini, Venice, and Milan. From there, we flew to Paris, to London, and back to Los Angeles. Along the way, I carried a lot of baggage — including the cumbersome, uncomfortable aspects of traveling with eczema.

Like most first-timers, we followed the detailed instructions on the Norwegian Cruise Line website and every YouTube video we could find to prepare for our adventure. This worked great for the cruise part. Once you unpack on board the ship, you don’t have to bother with it until you disembark at the end.

However, after you get back on land, navigating ancient cobblestone streets, you can’t help but notice that you’re carrying at least two, maybe three more suitcases than you need or want to deal with. This situation required sending home a large suitcase and one box filled with clothes and souvenirs we really had no need for. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to hauling five large suitcases and two backpacks all over the European continent at my age and current physical condition. So, the first thing we did upon checking into Catone District Hotel in Rome (lovely, BTW) was to find the nearest DHL office and pay hundreds of euros (even more in dollars) to ship back all the extra stuff.

This was a very expensive lesson but a necessary one. It’s easy to roll up to the airport, find a cart for your luggage, and check the large bags, leaving only your personal and carry-on bags to wrangle through security. But Italian train stations, as clean and as modern as they are, don’t always have carts or valets to help you. And if you don’t know where to find or operate the elevators (“lifts,” as the Europeans call them), you end up throwing your back out or slipping a disc to ruin your vacation. At the same time, you work up a mean, itchy eczema sweat trying to hoist your bags onto the train or, as in Venice, on board the crowded Vaporetto water-bus when it’s unseasonably warm at 8 p.m.

The combination of heat, humidity, and my poorly chosen winter coat made for the perfect storm of an itch session so intense that I was almost delirious. Fellow passengers backed away from me in fear while I scratched and clawed at my inner elbows and chest, looking for a sharp-edged wall to scrape my back bloody through the T-shirt I’d stripped down to as we made our way to our stop near Unahotels Ala Venezia. I sheepishly told nearby passengers that there was no need to worry: “It’s not fleas or contagious — it’s eczema.” As my wife bowed her head in shame, most folks smiled and nodded in compassion.

This later led to a discussion about why I said anything to anyone about my eczema, as my wife didn’t think anyone really cared or needed to know. Well, I cared, and I explained to her that attempting to make everyone else comfortable, especially since I definitely was not comfortable at that point in time, helped me deal with the situation. Yes, eczema hurts feelings as well.

This is yet another example of how people who do not have our affliction usually just don’t get it. It seemed to my wife that I was somehow bragging about it, but once I explained that if anything, I was owning it and taking responsibility for it, she understood it a bit better.

She even asked me if I would’ve said anything if it was cancer instead of eczema. I answered immediately: “Yes, if it was making others stare and feel uncomfortable.”

It’s certainly nothing to brag about in any situation, but being able to answer the unasked question helps one take charge of what it is and who knows about it when you feel their stares and uneasiness. You’re not bragging. You’re explaining, and that usually helps people understand — whether they want to or not.

“Baggage,” indeed.

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