Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a professional chef but I'm a good cook. I try to bring my own knives when I travel to visit friends just in case someone asks me to cook, because most home kitchens have shit knives that are only good for spreading butter. This is a dicey proposition when flying: Carry-on is not an option so I have to bring my B-grade knives that I won't miss if the airline loses them.
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!