I got frustrated with terrible knives in a variety of Airbnbs but instead of bringing my own, I bought a portable sharpener. It generally makes even a pretty bad knife into something not so terrible to use for a couple days. And airport security doesn't care, even in carry-on.

Growing up, all my family used were small, cheap paring knives. As an adult I treated myself to a high quality set, and I try to keep them in good shape. It's taken a few years to fix my visiting in-laws' bad habits like running them through the dishwasher or cutting stuff on ceramic plates. At first they thought I was odd for calling them out on such things, but they're starting to come around and realize the quality of life improvement of being able to actually slice things. I'll bring my sharpening stone and oil when visiting them, and put an edge back on whatever random kitchen knives they have. I sharpened my sister-in-law's set and she almost chopped her fingers off cutting through a tomato because she was used to putting muscle into it. A month later she bought a whole new set of knives that have sharpeners built into the block. My mother-in-law now even brings her knives when she visits us just so I can sharpen them sooner!

Right on! I'm at an extended stay hotel right now for skiing/work, and good knives are one of the things I brought to stock the kitchen.

Rando, but question of genuine interest:

What keeps you from having a couple sets of A grade knives? Is it cost, or some other thing?

I'm asking because I have a few tools I LOVE. One is a set of dial calipers and I've had them since the 80's. I can get new ones, and have, but that tool I know well. My measurements are most repetable with it.

I bought my A-grade knives from a knifesmith in Kyoto. They're expensive and very difficult to replace. Nobody gets to touch those except me.

My B-grade knives are Shuns, which are still much better than 90% of the knives in a typical American kitchen but a bit more tolerant of abuse and available everywhere.

Oh, got it. Very special knives!

Thanks, that makes great sense.