The Importance of Place

Florida definitely has the best beaches in the USA (in my opinion, anyway). But, that does not mean that other beaches are not good, in their own right, or as special.

I have been to California twice. Awesome place. Can't wait to go again. On both of those trips, I was able to visit Laguna Beach, in between L.A. and San Diego:

Unfortunately, these pictures do not do the place justice. No picture fully captures one's experience in a place. But these pictures were taken on my cell phone, which lags far behind the camera abilities on other phones.

But nonetheless, this is Laguna Beach. It's no wonder that a television show was named after and set in the place. It's amazing. On my first trip through the place, I enjoyed a very tasty brunch with family at a restaurant overlooking the shoreline. That was really nice. On my second trip, I was with two friends on a quick trip through, on the way back up to an Angels/Braves baseball game. We did not have a whole lot of time to spend there. But what we did spend was very nice.

We spent an hour or so on the rocks of the beach doing nothing. And it was fabulous. We had been running around trying to see some sites in the area during our brief stay. We decided to pop down to Laguna Beach. Once we got there, we found it difficult to leave. Being on the beach that day was very peaceful, rather tranquil. I remember leaving the place feeling refreshed and renewed, feeling better about the stresses and challenges going on in my life.

That's the power of place. Often, the exact setting does not matter because simply allowing ourselves the freedom and the opportunity to sit, to rest, to unwind, perhaps meditate and to think deeply can be so enriching. Places like Laguna Beach allow us, or even call us, to do that. I can think of a number of places that have had that effect upon me. Then, when I return there, for whatever reason, I feel the same sense of peace and hope that I originally felt.

It is good, and necessary, for us to find and then continue coming back to those kinds of places, whether they are in the forest behind our house or halfway around the world. Once we find them, we cannot help but realize how important they are to us.

The Choice Is Up to Us

I love going to the beach.

I have been to the beach in Texas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi in South Carolina, in North Carolina, in Massachusetts, in New York, in Illinois (believe it or not, there is one), in California. But without a doubt, my favorite place to go to the beach is in Florida.

White sand, clear sky, clear water (unless you count the summer that we saw tar balls wash up on shore after the oil spill). It's beautiful, peaceful, and calming, until . . .

It's amazing how quickly a storm can come up on the coast. Thirty minutes and things look completely different. It's also amazing how bad things can look and how little damage it does. We thought the above storm was going to wash us away. In the end, it wasn't too bad.

But a storm can completely change your travel plans. What we had hoped was going to be a relaxing day at the beach turned into, well . . . not that at all. It turned into an afternoon inside.

And the most powerful thing about it is there is nothing you can do about it.

That's what happens when we travel. Whether it's a storm or traffic or airline delay or a beautiful sight you want to see suddenly being shut down, change happens. And often, there's nothing you can do about it. In those times, you can either choose to get over it and move on or to be bitter. The choice is always up to us.

Right Under Your Nose

Wonders are truly all around us . . .

This is Callaway Gardens, an absolutely beautiful oasis in west Georgia. For four years, we lived about an hour away from it and, regrettably, only visited it once. But I am glad that we went, when we did.

The Gardens has lots of different things that one might expect from a protected natural area: lodging, golf course, trails and trails and trails, and, well, gardens. We went during the summer, if I remember correctly. I remember it being hot (okay, that's pretty much year-round); and I remember beautiful flowers. But I also remember having just recently missed the breathtaking flowers that bloom in springtime in Georgia.

Beauty really is all around us, sometimes right under our nose. It's a matter of taking the time to get out, looking for it, and doing a little exploring.

When in NYC

New York City is an incredible place. So much to do, so much to see, so many places to go. Where does one begin? . . .

With food. Some of the most incredible experiences in places we go have to do with eating the food, or drinking the drink, of that place, of that region.

I saw some really incredible things in NYC: Empire State Building, 9/11 Memorial, Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the restaurant with a marquee in Seinfeld . . . the list can go on and on.

But the memories that probably cross my mind more than any other breathtaking sight or beautifully-designed building or famous site is the food I ate while I was there. The same goes for the other trips I have made, all around. Savoring and enjoying the food of the places we go can tell us more about a place than any building or sight, if we listen. Food gets us closer to knowing the people of a place. We interact with the waitstaff or vendor. We discuss where the food or drink came from, how it's made, how people of that area prepare it differently, why they do what they do. We talk with people sitting around us, how they like the food, where they come from, what they do for a living, how they are enjoying the same experience you are having.

Guess what the food is in the above picture? Nah, you're probably wrong. If you guessed ham, like I imagine I probably would, that's not it. It's bacon. Yep, that's a piece of bacon. The most unique piece of bacon I have ever had, at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn. Describing the meal itself could fill three or four blog posts. Suffice it to say, wow. Before we went, we were encouraged by friends to try a piece of bacon or two as an appetizer. We were not disappointed.

While there, we talked to the waiter about the bacon and why it, well, doesn't look like bacon. That discussion opened up all kinds of avenues: where we are all from, what we are doing, why we are in that particular location at that particular time.

A wonderful experience . . . centered around bacon (eat your heart out, Jim Gaffigan).

What We Can Control

Sometimes things do not go the way we want them to go.

That's simply part of travel . . . it's also part of life.

On a trip to Chicago last year, I had all sorts of good stuff planned out, including baseball. I had a ticket to a Cubs game at Wrigley (which, by the way, was incredible). Tickets to the only White Sox game going on during our stay were incredibly expensive on Stubhub, as it was the home opener. I did not want to pay the prices that were offered on Stubhub. So I thought that surely I could buy a ticket from someone outside the gates for much cheaper. I have done that at a number of sporting events. And I figured I would definitely be able to do it there.

Wrong.

The tickets being offered outside the gates were much more expensive than what I could have gotten a ticket for on Stubhub. If I really wanted to get inside the gates of U.S. Cellular Field, the home of the White Sox, I should have just paid the prices that were being offered on Stubhub. Instead, this is as close as I got to the action that day:

I was deflated, defeated, and just, overall, unhappy. My plan simply did not work out. And I was left out in the cold (literally, it was freezing).

At that point, I had two options: either get mad about it and let it ruin my day or move on and enjoy Chicago through another avenue. Admittedly, I did a little bit of both. I stewed around for a while, muttering to myself. Then I tried to move on and do the next thing on my list: Chinatown. However, it was kind of a stinker, too:

Chicago's Chinatown is nothing like NYC's or Boston's . . . it's just kind of there . . . full of tourists in awkward hats. After walking it a few blocks, I decided to hop back on the subway and see other parts of Chicago.

The experience was, actually, a good travel experience. With travel, our best laid plans sometimes do not unfold like we want them to or, many times, like they should have. These experiences, though, are often the best travel experiences we can have. Travel mirrors life in so many ways. Life is full of lots of ups. It's also full of plenty of downs. We cannot always control our experiences and how things turn out for us. What we can control is how we react to and deal with life . . . and travel.

The Beauty of Travel

One of my favorite TV shows is, An Idiot Abroad. The show takes a man named Karl Pilkington around the world. The genius of it is in the idiot, Karl. Karl is like so many of us. He has funny quirks, things annoy him, and everything is better where he is from. In other words, he is not a good traveler. Or, he is the world's best traveler.

The producers of the show, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, place Karl in some very exotic places around the world, doing very exotic things, seeing some of the world's great wonders. Along the way, viewers are treated to amazing sites, places, food, etc. The true beauty of the show is that one gets to watch Karl, an idiot, do travel. The irony is it shows how Karl is like each of us. We are all idiots, thinking that our own way and our culture's way of doing things is best. Sociologists call it: "ethnocentrism." Gervais and Merchant prefer to term it: "idiot."

Amazingly, there are some breakthroughs. Karl has some wonderful travel moments, in which he realizes that there is more to life than what he knows in his tiny circle, at home. On one such breakthrough, Karl is in Mexico, to see Chichen Itza. At the end of the show, Karl reflects that the people of Mexico really know what they are doing. He notes that they go through their lives, doing what they want to do, not concerned about what other people think. He believes that makes people in Mexico happier than people where he comes from. He was particularly intrigued by people in a small village who work in the field all day long, then come home and "do nothing," as he put it. They just mill around town all day, doing nothing in particular. But he noted they were the happiest people he had ever seen.

That's what travel can do . . . if we allow it to. Travel can expose us to things that do not make sense to us. But upon reflection, we realize there is more than one way to do something, more than one way to do life than what we see with our normal, everyday surroundings.

Travel can do this with things as simple as a pickle on a hot dog (I had never considered until I went to Chicago):

Or as interesting as pay-to-use public toilets in Budapest (something I still have not wrapped my head around but am intrigued by):

But that's the beauty of travel.

Little Excursions

Big-time trips are fun.

They can expand our horizons. They can show us new ways of looking at life. They can expose us to kinds of foods we never imagined existed.

Going to far-away places is a good, good thing.

But for many of us, those types of trips are the exception, not the rule.

Because of that, we need to take advantage of day trips, places and sites that are close by. Little excursions can do the same thing that our "big" trips can, just on a smaller scale, on a different level.

When I lived in Fort Worth, a friend and I had always talked about going to Archer City, a city literally in the middle of nowhere. Archer City is about 100 miles northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Traveling there makes one feel as if they are really stepping out onto the western frontier.

The reason we wanted to go to Archer City was to visit an enormous bookstore. At the time, this bookstore filled four or five buildings in downtown Archer City. The bookstore had just about anything you could imagine wanted to buy.

Why was such an incredible bookstore located in Archer City? That is where famous American author, Larry McMurtry (of Lonesome Dove fame, among other great works), lives and runs his store. Up until recently, his bookstore, there, filled an entire city block. I read that he recently auctioned off and sold many of the items, though a good many still remain there.

My friend and I had always wanted to go see it. So one day we did. And while there, we had the most incredible discovery:

McMurtry, himself, was there that day. I had read that he did not like to bombarded at his store, by visitors, but that he was okay with taking the occasional picture or two (he's the one on the left, by the way!).

The chance encounter with McMurtry was nothing spectacular, in and of itself. He wasn't particularly friendly, didn't invite us over for coffee or tea, or anything like that. But simply meeting him was such an incredible surprise and treat.

The great experience did not happen on a trip to a far-away land, though it surely could have. It happened about less than two hours from home.

Those are the types of things that can happen . . . when we're open to them . . . when we take the time to step away, outside of our normal day-to-day lives . . . and travel.

Way Out

Craig and Linda Martin have a wonderful podcast called Indie Travel Podcast. The Martins are full-time travelers, travelling all around the world. They record their travels, experiences, and advice on their podcast. They do a number of things to make ends meet, such as teaching English in countries they travel to and providing all types of wonderful services on their web site.

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."

When the Saints Go Marching In

I had the pleasure of being able to spend last weekend in New Orleans. What a city. This was my third trip there; and every time I go, I do not want to leave.

There are places we go in which one visit is enough. When we return there, we think to ourselves, "Same old place, nothing new here." To some degree, the same could be said of New Orleans. But even among the same old buildings and the same old streets, there is a life found there that is unmatched elsewhere.

I found that to be particularly true while marching through the streets of the French Quarter on Saturday. Yes, that's right, marching through the streets.

Well, if you know me, you know I don't do much marching (unless you count my days in high school marching band). And I do not do much dancing. So for me, it was more like walking. But still, it was pretty darn cool:

My wife and I attended a wedding of some friends. At the end of the reception, the party literally (and planned, I should say) spilled out onto the streets. Led by a small marching jazz band, we were escorted by police through some blocked-off streets of the French Quarter. In the picture above, we are heading down Royal Street toward Canal Street, up to the famous Hotel Monteleone. We took a right turn, then headed the other direction for many blocks up Bourbon Street, before ending at our hotel on Orleans Street, with a powerful rendition of When the Saints Go Marching In.

It was quite an experience. The wedding party danced (or walked, with heads bobbing, in my case) through the streets, cheered on by people lining the streets and balconies. They cheered and cheered and cheered. Simply put, they had no idea what they were cheering for. All they saw was an incredible band marching down the road, with a newlywed couple in front of them and a crowd behind them. But they felt energized by what they were witnessing and they welcomed us to pass by. For a moment, we were all there together, cheering, dancing (or head-bobbing), and enjoying life . . . well, just for the sake of life.

I rarely feel energy like that. New Orleans always gives it to me . . . though never quite like I experienced this past weekend.

That's what travel can do, if we are open to it. It can take us out of our normal surroundings, give us incredible, life-filling experiences, and then place us back into our normal, day-to-day lives changed, refreshed, renewed, perhaps even transformed.

To borrow a phrase from the Red Stripe commercials . . . "Hooray, Travel!"

A Little More Anthony Bourdain Than Samantha Brown

I like watching Samantha Brown's shows. She goes to some really cool places and stays in great hotels. If you are not familiar with her, she has a few different shows that air, fairly regularly, on the Travel Channel. One of her most popular shows is Great Hotels.

On the other hand, I have never made it through an entire episode of one of Anthony Bourdain's shows. Bourdain also has some shows that air on the Travel Channel. He also travels to some interesting places. But he, and his show, are a bit more edgier. With Bourdain, things do not all tie together in a nice, neat package at the end of the show. He goes to places most tourists would never even think about going to; and he meets the most interesting people, who truly capture what that place or city is all about.

It hit me while walking the backstreets of the Garden District on a recent trip to New Orleans why I have never made it through a Bourdain show: it hits really close to home. Watching Bourdain travel around the world is sort of like watching what I would imagine I would want to see and experience if I were in his shoes.

Sure, I'm not nearly as brash or as crash as he is. But I do share a number of characteristics with him and his personality. 

But more importantly, I like to get off the beaten path and experience a city or place for what it really is, behind the main tourist drags, underneath the glitz that a city tries to portray to its visitors. Sure, I like to see a city's hot spots and important landmarks. But I also like to experience places that I travel to for what they truly are: with all their warts and also their wonderfully new way of looking at and doing things.

I can watch an entire episode of Samantha Brown's shows with no problem. I enjoy learning about places I want to go and hotels I could only dream about staying in. But those are accommodations that I do not really want to stay in, when I stop and think about it. 

What I want to stay in is places where I get to know local people . . . and fellow travelers. I do not really want to spend half a day in a spa, as Brown often does. I would rather spend that time wandering streets that most tourists have never even heard of. That does not make me right or wrong, nor does it make the tourists who flock to touristy places right or wrong. It's a matter of opinion, a matter of taste. Different strokes for different folks. 

I guess I have never finished a Bourdain show because it forces me to see or think about how I actually travel and who I really am. As we all do, I often do not want to take the time or the effort to see myself for who I truly am . . . and evaluate myself for who I truly want to be. But I am going to try to do that here, on my travel blog. I will try to describe things a little more like Anthony Bourdain than Samantha Brown-because that is simply who I am.

This is my travel blog. I want to describe my travels. I want to share what they have meant to me. And hopefully, along the way, I can be of help to fellow travelers out there.

And maybe, just maybe, the next time a Bourdain show comes on TV, I might just sit down and make it all the way through it.

I took this picture on my recent trip to New Orleans, on a sidestreet in the Lower Garden District. I love it. I think it really captures what I love about that city. And I think it captures what I love about travel . . . and a little bit of who I am: