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Is Travel a Political Act?

3/23/2017

When I was a child, the Wizard of Oz played on TV every Easter, and I'd gather with my whole family to watch it. The opening scenes, set in Kansas, are filmed in black and white. Then a tornado sends Dorothy’s house flying, and after it lands there’s this spectacular moment when she opens the door and discovers herself in the brilliant Technicolor world of Oz.

That moment inspired my lifetime of wanderlust. Arriving in a strange land often gives me that same feeling of jaw-dropping surprise and heart-lifting joy. No matter how many times I’ve stepped off a train into an unknown city, I always feel as if I’m stepping onto that yellow brick road in giddy anticipation of astonishing adventures just ahead.

On a train in České Budějovice, Czech Republic

Lots of people prefer more predictable travel, like a week on a beach, and that's a great option when we need to rejuvenate. But sometimes we run the risk of outsourcing our entire travel experience. “I pay top price and expect the best,” an American once told me. “I want to be certain that someone has gone before me every step of the way to make absolutely sure that I’m seeing the best views, eating the best food, and staying at the best hotels.” To me, that sounds like a second-hand vacation. It was the guide who had all the fun of exploring the route, meeting locals, and discovering new ways to engage with the world.

Spending unscripted time with people from a different culture teaches us a lot — including how much we don’t know about each other, how much interesting stuff has been going on, and how completely oblivious we’ve been about it. “That’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned,” says travel author Bill Bryson. “I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.”

Iowa-born travel author Bill Bryson in London

As American travel writer and TV host Rick Steves puts it, “The great value of travel is the opportunity it offers you to pry open your hometown blinders and broaden your perspective. And when we implement that world view as citizens of our great nation, we make travel a political act.” In Ten Tips for Traveling as a Political Act he suggests, “Get out of your comfort zone . . . Travel with a goal of good stewardship and a responsibility to be an ambassador to, and for, the entire planet. Think of yourself as a modern-day equivalent of the medieval jester: sent out by the king to learn what's going on outside the walls, then coming home to speak truth to power (even if annoying).”

Guidebook author and travel TV host Rick Steves in Seville's bullring

As a travel writer, I take my role as a modern jester very seriously. I make every effort to entertain and inform, and above all to speak the truth about the many extraordinary countries (including my own) that I explore. Most of the time I have the pleasure of reporting on amusing things that happen in quirky and delightful settings. Occasionally I venture into darker places, such as Auschwitz or old Soviet prisons, and then I give my readers an honest report of what I am seeing, how I’m feeling, and why it matters, with enough context to help us all try to make sense of a world that includes such evil.

Former Soviet prison in Tallinn, Estonia

Humor can help illuminate the shadows of history. A man in Riga, Latvia, told me about the Corner House, the infamous basement (now a museum) in which the KGB conducted interrogations during the era of mass deportations. “People used to joke, ‘The Corner House has the best view in Riga; from there you can see Siberia.’”

We are all living in times of enormous societal and political upheaval now. And to me, ignoring that new reality when I’m writing about the world would be like describing the lovely carving on the Titanic’s main staircase without mentioning that it is now underwater and about to take a nosedive to the bottom of the sea.

The truth can be uncomfortable, and as Steves points out, some find it annoying. Last week, a reader wrote me:

“It would be best to leave three common topics that cause emotional distress for many readers out of your blog. That would be political opinions, religion and sex. Otherwise I really enjoy your blogs Karen. Happy travel writing!”

Really? She wants me to write about travel without mentioning politics, religion, or sex? What fun is that? I sat there for a moment trying to imagine how I would describe Rome without a single reference to the Catholic Church, Mussolini, or Sophia Loren. That would be like blogging about Oz and leaving out the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch of the West, or discussing the movie Poltergeist without referencing the afterlife.

“Make a broader perspective your favorite souvenir,” advises Rick Steves. “Back home, be evangelical about your newly expanded global viewpoint. Travel shapes who you are. Weave favorite strands of other cultures into the tapestry of your own life. Live your life as if it shapes the world and the future — because it does.” And if you’ll forgive me for mentioning religion again, I say amen to that.

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3 Shocking Truths About Air Travel

2/28/2014

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Civilized air travel has disappeared like the dodo.

“You know what I hate about flying?” my friend D. once told me. “Knowing that the stranger sitting next to me paid half as much as I did for my ticket. Or a fifth. Or a tenth.”

Pricing, and practically everything else about air travel, has become so convoluted and mystifying that it’s hard to tell fact from fiction any more. What ever happened to cheap stand-by fares? Are we any safer at the airports that make us remove our shoes than at those that don’t? Why do I have to take off my belt before passing through security? Do they think I’m going to hang myself if there’s a bottleneck and I miss my flight?

I can’t clear up all all the confusion, but I have stumbled across hidden truths about three common air travel myths. Perhaps you’ll dismiss them as the rantings of a conspiracy nut (cue X Files theme music) but I think I’m onto something here.

Myth #1. Fluctuations in airfares are driven by random market forces and the Byzantine algorithms of the airlines; they have nothing to do with you.

“When you’re shopping for tickets online,” my friend D. said recently, “have you noticed how those great prices you saw at the start of your search aren’t there when you go back to buy? That’s because when you’re browsing several sites, you’re leaving little cookies behind; that lets the airlines know you’re really interested, so they boost the prices. You think I’m being paranoid? Next time it happens, try emptying your cache of cookies.” (As you may know, cookies are the little trackers left on your computer after interactions with certain websites, letting them welcome you back by name, and, say, recommend books you may be interested in today.)

The very next time Rich was booking a domestic flight, he noticed that the original price quoted had, after he’d checked competitive rates, gone up by $10. He emptied the cache of cookies (here’s how to do this) and the price instantly went back down to the original amount. Coincidence? I think not…

Myth #2. You absolutely, positively have to have a photo ID to get on a flight.

Rich once went to present his ID at the San Francisco airport and discovered he’d left it at home. Obviously there was no way we’d get on our flight to LA, but in a Hail-Mary move, we appealed to security personnel. They bucked and snorted a bit, did an exhaustive examination of all the cards in Rich’s wallet and the contents of his suitcase, and subjected him to a body search that stopped just short of requiring that he strip naked on the spot. But they let him on. And it was obvious that they’d been through this rigmarole many times. It was routine.

Is seated flying on its way out?

Myth #3. Ryanair wants to make passengers ride standing rather than sitting, and will begin charging for use of toilets during flights.

Ryanair was a pioneer in the field of making airline travel more annoying and uncomfortable, with seats clearly not designed by or for humans, and enticingly lean airfares that are soon bloated by extra fees for such transgressions as failing to print your own boarding pass in advance. But the recurring rumors about pay toilets and stand-up flights are, as near as I can tell, nothing but publicity stunts designed to provoke outraged articles that go viral in minutes, earning the penny-pinching airline tons of free publicity. Yes, I know, and here I am adding to it!

When it comes to 21st century air travel, there are no guarantees. Did you ever think you’d have to pay for a glass of water on a plane? Watch fellow passengers travel in their pajamas? Have your legroom reduced – again? And there’s no telling how much worse it will get. Am I going to have to eat my words someday, when we all find ourselves flying standing up and paying to use the in-flight restrooms? If so, you’ll definitely be hearing more about that in future posts.

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Is Travel a Political Act?

3 Shocking Truths About Air Travel

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Is Travel a Political Act?

3 Shocking Truths About Air Travel

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WELCOME!