The name of their podcast, and web site, too, are very aptly named. They travel independently. They try to experience different cultures for what they are, attempt to learn from them, and to better themselves because of their experiences. Rick Steves calls it being a back-door traveler. Arthur Frommer refers to it as living as a local. I say it's a wonderful way to travel.
I was listening to the Martin's podcast on Rome recently and was struck by a line from Craig. He was describing an experience of traveling around Italy. They carefully planned their route, even going as far as doing a test run of one particular day of traveling on an overnight train. But, when it came time to do the actual traveling, the subway station was shut down for renovations. Fortunately, they figured out an alternative route, on the fly. But the experience caused quite a panic. Here is how Craig described it:
"No matter how well you planned . . . it just doesn't come off. And you have to learn to relax, and go with the flow, and breath deeply, and just let it happen. I think it was a real turning point for my way of thinking as a traveler."
That's a great way of describing the surprises and mysteries of traveling.
It reminded me of an experience we had a couple of months ago in London, a turning point for our way of thinking, too. On a return trip from a stay in Budapest, we had a overnight layover in London. We were staying at a hotel, not too far from Heathrow (which, by the way, is the world's worst airport). I had the route mapped perfectly from our terminal to the front door of the hotel. The only problem was the route was not at all like it was supposed to be.
We had one problem after another. The bus wasn't where I was told it was going to be. The airport rep's gave us bad information. But we finally made it. I had a couple of alternative plans already figured out. We decided to take one of those alternatives, the Tube (subway), to the hotel. But once we got off the Tube, my route did not make sense with how the streets were actually laid out. And, to make matters worse, there was a huge storm system camped out over the city.
I could continue to bore you with the details of how we actually got to the hotel. But suffice it to say, we got there . . . soaking wet . . . miserable . . . and not at all happy. We, too, panicked; and, well, it didn't do us any good. No matter how well I planned, and I did plan well, it just didn't come off as planned.
Fortunately, after a cooling-off period, we did relax, went with the flow, breathed deeply, and just let it happen. We then went on to experience a nice night in London, seeing many of the sights the city centre has to offer.
We were trying to find a way out of our predicament. Had we just calmed down and tried to keep our wits about us, we would have realized that the Tube actually has some good signage, if you just stop and look for it:
As Americans, we were looking for things posted the way we are used to, with "Exit" signs or other types of directions in our vernacular. But, when you travel, things are not designed just to meet your needs. And you have to adapt . . . or get frustrated. The term "way out" did not make sense to us, initially. But once we stopped and thought about it, we understood what the sign meant and noticed that the way we wanted to go actually had great bits of help and information.
That's what travel can do. Travel can help us see a new way of looking at things. Travel can help us learn about new ideas, new words, new thought patterns. It's not that we necessarily need to accept everything we encounter and embrace it as our own, without any sort of evaluation. But if we are open to new ideas and new thoughts, we can learn from them, take them back to our normal surroundings, and be better people because of those experiences.
But we have to "learn to relax, and go with the flow, and breath deeply, and just let it happen."
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