get the travel bug

[Saki6]

Please take a look at this image. Bev got the travel bug. What does it mean? Does it mean that she got crazy about traveling?

 

[GoesStation]

Yes. A casual way to say that you caught an illness is "I caught a bug." In this idiom, the activity is presented as something that's hard to stop doing, as if it were a chronic condition.

 

[Saki6]

Is it wrong to say "get a travel bug"?

 

[GoesStation]

The idiom is to catch a bug.

 

[GoesStation]

The idiom is to catch a bug.

Sorry, I meant to write that that's the usual idiom. As your quotation shows, you can also get a bug.

 

[kilroy65]

Is it wrong to say "get the travel bug"?

It's OK with the definite article. You could also say that someone is "bitten by the travel bug".