"Travel Requirements "
As we neared the end of our stay in Rio, Todd remarked that nothing really difficult had happened on this trip. Sure we had a good time, saw a new country, danced in a parade, flew off a cliff, spent lots of dough, but other than the one missing bottle of champagne, a deathtrap for a shower stall and a few chaotic cab rides, everything went according to plan.
This is really outside the norm compared to most of our vacations.
We kept expecting something to happen. Missed flight, trouble with customs, a good mugging. Rio is currently in the midst a deadly dengue fever epidemic. We never even saw a mosquito. We were remarkably blessed by the gods of travel fortune.
This, keep in mind, is not a complaint. Since we only had six days to spend in Rio, an uneventful trip was definitely a welcome change. However, the best stories, the most memorable experiences, and greatest adventures came from less than ideal travel moments.
Todd and I started talking about some of our past travels, the adventures and misadventures, and just what kinds of activities constitute a REAL vacation. We both agreed that the best vacations and the best adventures are the ones that require a little work. The sunsets and sand you have to earn – not just enjoy.
As it turns out, Todd actually put together a list after a month long sojourn to Morocco a few years back. I thought this was a hell of an idea, and asked him if I could expand on it. He agreed, and the following list was born. I actually like to think of this as more of a living document, since future travel experiences should add to it’s content, suggestions, and overall relevance.
Any vacation worth the price of the plane ticket should be to a country populated by people who do not speak your language. Learning how to order a meal, rent a room, find a town, make your airline connection, flirt with a girl, talk down her angry father, usually the local magistrate and, subsequently, get out of jail is infinitely more interesting if you are forced to use pictures, charades, interpreters, or poorly written phrase books.
Even better to visit a country that doesn’t use the Cyrillic alphabet. Now street signs, government forms, and warning labels look about as comprehensible to the average Joe as a dissertation in ab initio molecular orbital theory.
This of course doesn’t apply to Todd who has a Masters Degree in Computational Chemistry. Geek.
All good travelers should spend an afternoon talking to children in a language they don’t understand.
The best destinations are usually to places where the average citizen’s annual income is less than the retail value of my hiking boots.
Coca-Cola claims that their ultimate goal is make their beverage so ubiquitous that no human being should live more than 50 yards from a Coke. The best places to visit are the places those carbonated bastards in Atlanta haven’t found yet.
No real traveler’s final destination includes any of the following words: Land, Club, Theme, or Line. Or World – unless of course the word “world” is prefaced by “second” or “third”.
No destination worth visiting should be incorporated.
No real traveler visits any place named after a dead cartoonist.
A good vacation should involve virtually no itinerary and at least one month away from home. Even better if you have to quit your job in order to get there. I will however accept that shorter trips, if made suddenly and with no planning, can qualify - but only under extreme circumstances. Tour guides are acceptable, but you have to find them overseas, preferably accidentally. Generally these should be people you meet along the way. Any tour that involves a bus filled with other Americans and fixed itineraries is unacceptable.
Goals are acceptable. Climbing Kilimanjaro, diving the Great Barrier Reef, having sex in the Sun Room of Machu Picchu (I know someone who did this) are all good goals. Just make sure you don’t know how you will accomplish this before you leave.
It's very cool if "Lonely Planet Guide" doesn't know about it yet.
Real vacations don’t involve brochures.
A good location often includes children selling “Chiclets".
Destinations should be reached by accident or whimsy. Did someone tell you about a mosque you need to see three towns to the east, or did you hear about a beach frequented by dolphins in the morning? Or did you suddenly have the urge to see the pyramids – while you were in Madagascar. These callings should be heeded immediately.
Trade your watch.
Regardless, at some point during a good vacation, you should wake up and have no idea where you are. Even better is if you have no idea how you got there. It’s not good, however, if you can’t remember who you are. To quote Todd, “A good traveler does not know where he is going. A great traveler does not know where he is from.”
Similarly, most of the time you should have no idea what day it is. On a really good trip you won’t know what month it is. You are my hero is you aren’t sure of the year.
Your parents should be worried.
You should be worried.
A good vacation should involve the reasonable risk of infection by rare and debilitating diseases. If you did not have to get stuck like a pincushion at some community health center before boarding the plane, you should re-think your final destination. I can safely say that after a visit to East Africa, I have been inoculated against every possible infection for which there is a known vaccine.
During at least one trip in your life you should find yourself racked with fever, diarrhea, and/or vomiting. You should be popping Cipro like Flintstone vitamins and praying to God, Allah, Buddha, and a local medicine man that you pass out or just die right there. I have suffered through two bouts of water borne nasties on two different continents, and I can tell you I am a better man for having lived through it.
At least once you should go a minimum of four days without bathing.
Hot water should be the ultimate luxury.
Any worthwhile travel destination should put you at constant risk of being involved with a civil uprising, military coup, rebel insurrection, hostage crisis, or tribal war. Is the country on the CDC warning list? Good! Did the state department issue a warning? Better! Has the US Government offered to evacuate you via military gunship? You da man!
Dining with dictators, rebel leaders, religious clerics, foreign missionaries, or French Legionnaires adds significantly to any travel experience.
Policemen should be armed with automatic rifles. These men should not create any sense of security whatsoever – in fact, they should create just the opposite. They should glare at you like childhood bullies, should often be about that age, and should aggressively remind you in Spanish to stand during the Peruvian National Anthem during the Easter Day Parade.
Kudos if you find a policeman’s gun pointed at you. While on your knees. At a security checkpoint. At midnight.
However, armed guards to protect you from stampeding wildebeest or marauding bull elephants are always welcome.
A good pair of shoes should be your most valuable possession.
You should run out of money.
A good trip should involve at least one bribe, multiple lines and, potentially, a strip search. Your papers should not be in order – or at least should be suspect.
No one can call themselves a traveler unless they have spent at least one day on a crowded, smelly bus, totally convinced that they were about to die. Can you see the rear of the bus actually hanging over the side of the cliff? Has the bus driver made an attempt at the land speed record? Has the driver swerved to avoid oncoming cattle? Does the driver not care to swerve to avoid on coming cattle? Will the bus break down at least ten miles from the nearest source of civilization? If not, you are probably on the wrong bus.
Kudos if a large herbivore not native to North America was used as a primary means of transportation during at least one point on your trip.
All serious travelers have slept in an airport.
The best vacations involve traveling by at least four different forms of transportation, preferably (of course) to destinations totally unknown. The more methods of transportation you can add in a single day, the better. Dalla Dallas in Tanzania, river rafts in the Congo, dhows in Mombassa, rickshaws in East Asia, mopeds in Greece, camels in Tunisia, seaplanes in the Aleutians, trains in Siberia, dogsleds in Greenland, elephants in India, motorcycles in Tibet, or your own feet up some remote mountain trail. Regardless, during some ride, somewhere, you should think to yourself, Good Lord, I can’t believe I am doing this.
At some point on any good trip, you will have to squat.
Perhaps even in public.
Better still if the last of your toilet paper was reduced to mush during a monsoon.
All good vacations should involve food with a significant degree of risk. At one point, all good travelers should eat something totally foreign. Better yet if it’s unidentifiable and you don’t know the English translation. Better still if whatever it was has been slaughtered just for your visit. Best if you had to do the slaughtering.
A large portion of a good vacation should be spent searching for, paying for, or purifying water. You will hate this process by the end of your trip.
Good vacations almost always involve an unhealthy supply of alcohol – it’s the elixir that connects us all, regardless of where we hail from. A good buzz is the great social equalizer.
All good trips usually involve one hangover.
You should know how to order the local drink in the native tongue within four hours of arrival.
Stealing a truck, golf cart, rickshaw, donkey, or souvenir paper mache pig while intoxicated is not recommended – but usually makes for a great story later. Driving the truck, golf cart, rickshaw, donkey, or throwing the paper mache pig into a large body of water while intoxicated is also not recommended - but usually makes for an even better story later.
You should have at least one meal in a stranger’s home.
You should buy at least one meal for a stranger.
You should go at least one day without a meal.
All good vacations involve doing something totally new – ideally something you never imagined yourself doing. I have at times found myself wearing a feathered headdress and a skirt in a televised national parade in front of 50,000 singing onlookers, running from a charging elephant, hang gliding over the Atlantic Ocean, suspended on a rope 2000 feet above the ground, sailing in the rain off the coast of Zanzibar, witnessing an ancient Inca ritual, and dancing intoxicated in a tree. All of these experiences are life changing.
At some point on every vacation, you should be scared.
Every single day of your vacation you should experience wonder.
You should have sex. If you are not traveling with a lover, the person you are having sex with will ideally not speak English as a first language.
All serious travlers have a favorite hat that has been to at least three different continents.
Returning home should feel equally welcome and foreign. The taste of fresh vegetables should almost make you cry. Toilets and washing machines should be viewed with awe. Billboards, Wall Mart, and freeway rush hours should disgust you. You should need at least 48 hours to recover.
Always return with more friends than you left with.
Your friends shouldn’t recognize you when you return.
On a real vacation, you should find yourself somewhere unbelievable. You should witness something miraculous. You should at least once be speechless with awe. And for at least one second, when the realization of your cosmic insignificance washes over you, and you understand just how short, and how important life really is, you should find yourself, if only for that one second, in touch with your very soul.
You should probably be there right now.
