On Travel, And Other Drugs

If I read another travel article touting the wonders of folding myself into an extruded aluminum tube and shot across the skies to see an ever smaller and more homogenized world, I am going to, well, write an essay like this one.

Travel isn’t wonderful. It is an escape. It’s an addiction, no different than drugs, sex, and alcohol.

I know.

I traveled almost every week for 42 years.

I waited in endless lines at ticket counters, security checkpoints, and in baggage claim areas for bags that were perpetually late or didn’t arrive at all. I sat in cheap plastic seats in airport concourses, feet stuck to filthy carpet waiting, waiting. And waiting some more.

I drove rental cars in deep nights to places I couldn’t find.

I was felt up and had my property seized by security for no other reason than they could.

I ate food that tasted like dog shit smells or had no taste at all.

And, I was lied to relentlessly.

But . . .

I was paid well to do it. To travel, that is. I wasn’t paid to work. I loved my work. I was paid to leave home.

And even a first class seat, unlimited booze, and high-end airport lounges just dulled the pain of confinement and the knowledge that I was wasting a day, a week, a life, moving from one point on the globe to another.

I never believed it could get worse. But it has.

I flew this week against my better judgement and wishes. No cash permitted to buy a coke or a cocktail. I gave the flight attendant a credit card and he handed me back a machine that gave me the option of a 15, 20, or 25% gratuity. I’m actually tipping a sky waiter for handing me a pre-packaged snack off a cart.

Fuck. Will the pilot be next? Surely a safe landing worth 50% of the ticket price.

So when I hear “I just love to travel,” I don’t get it.

Even when corporate world was paying me to go from meeting to meeting, I never saw anything that made that light worth the candle. Other than the money, of course.

And now that I don’t have to travel anymore, I only suffer the ignominy of airports, and planes and rental cars to make others happy.

But, you may object . . .

What about getting to the intended destination, the one that everyone is talking about, the one that will broaden your horizons, open you to new ways of thinking, and make you more interesting in cocktail conversation?

I’m still waiting.

Sure, there are interesting places in the world, but they seem more the same than different as each year passes. What there is now are Disneylands of former destinations.

Don’t reflexively disagree. Think about it. How much difference is there between London and Singapore, Lisbon and Mexico City, São Paulo and Los Angeles? They are all cities with good restaurants, luxury hotels, and mind-numbing traffic. You can buy Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, and Chinese gimcracks there. Anywhere.

Everywhere.

The decision left to me, the farthest I would travel would be to a resort hotel in the city where I live, or maybe the next one over. They are all the same. Rosewood resorts, regardless of location, look and feel the same because they are the same. They are supposed to be the same. Like Starbucks but with a nice room.

And dare I mention the in-your-face hypocrisy of hopping onto a 747-800 that burns 3,000 gallons of dirty jet fuel every hour and then talking righteously about global warming, or paying $13,046 USD for a business class ticket from San Francisco to Sydney while lamenting income inequality and global poverty?

If one is bored enough with their current location to need to “see the world,” open up your IPad. The world is there.

Or, if its an addiction, chew on an acid blotter. Lots of sights to be seen without even leaving home.