Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Ett lite skritt for et menneske, ett stort skritt menneskeheten.”
Sharing the
excitement of everyone in that room, I realized that while this was an
American triumph, it was also a human one—one giant leap for mankind
indeed—and the entire planet was celebrating.
As an idealistic young adult, I struggled with what I'd do with my one
life. I wanted to work hard at something worthwhile and contribute to society.
I wondered if it was really noble to teach wealthy Americans to travel. As
a child, my earliest image of “travel” was of rich Americans on fancy white
cruise ships in the Caribbean, throwing coins of the deck so they could pho-
tograph what they called the “little dark kids” jumping in after them. h
ey'd
take these photos home as souvenirs of their relative al uence. h
at was not
the kind of travel I wanted to promote.
Even today, remnants of that notion of travel persist. I believe that for
many Americans, traveling still means seeing if you can eat i ve meals a day
and still snorkel when you get into port. When I
say that at a cruise convention, people i dget ner-
vously. But I'm not condemning cruise vacations.
I'm simply saying I don't consider that activity
“travel.” It's hedonism. (And I don't say that in a
judgmental way, either. I've got no problem with
hedonism…after all, I'm a Lutheran.) Rather
than accentuate the dif erence between “us”
and “them,” I believe travel should bring us
together. If I'm evangelical about the value of
travel, it's the thoughtful and challenging kind
of travel—less caloric perhaps…but certainly
much more broadening.
And so, since that i rst trip back in 1969,
I've spent a third of my life overseas, living
out of a backpack, talking to people who
see things dif erently than me. It makes
me a little bit of an odd duck.
For the last 30 years, I've taught
people how to travel. I focus mostly
on the logistics: i nding the right hotel, avoiding
long lines, sampling local delicacies, and catching
the train on time. But that's not why we travel.
