I travel so much that people often ask me about the places I’ve been, or more typically, if there’s any place I haven’t been after fourteen years of cruise lecturing.
The answer to the second question is easy. I haven’t been to Antarctica. I haven’t been to Africa except on the Mediterranean side, and I’ve been down the Atlantic side no farther than Cape Verde. When people ask me about my bucket list, I point out that it doesn’t get smaller, because I add new things to the bottom. However, if I had to say what my bucket list is in the most general terms, I can do it in one word: Inland.
I have set foot on well over one hundred countries, and I don’t think I can count the ports at this point, but since most of my traveling has been by ship, I haven’t been to many places where there isn’t a port, and even in port cities, I haven’t been anywhere beyond what can be reached on a shore excursion. I will be forever grateful for the opportunities to see the colossal reclining Buddha in Bangkok, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the L’Anse aux Meadows Viking settlement in Newfoundland, the casbah in Tangier, the ancient sites of Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol in Peru, Carnival in Rio, and on and on. None of these would have been possible with the modest resources of my pension, and cruising has transformed my life in ways I could hardly have dreamed of. But I haven’t been to Chiang Mai, or Uluru (Ayers Rock), or Mount Kilimanjaro. I haven’t even been to European cities like Budapest or Lyon. Reason: Inland.
My latest travel obsession is with finding the cheapest business class fares to get me to and from ships, now that age and general crankiness makes long economy flights feel like a horror film. Coming home in November from my upcoming assignment, all the fares directly from Athens to Victoria were astronomical, but I found one on Lot, the Polish airline, that would take me to Warsaw in the evening, with a 20+ hour layover and another 18ish hour layover in Toronto. It would take me close to 3 days to get home. In the past would have scrolled right past, but this time I paused.
Twenty hours in Warsaw would give me time to get a hotel and the next day go see the remarkable restoration of the Warsaw Old Town, which was devastated by bombs in World War II but painstakingly restored from old photographs, paintings, and recent memory to exactly the way it once looked. This involved restoring ground floors with architectural styles dating back to medieval times, and upper floors progressively moving through subsequent centuries–just the kind of thing I go full-on nerd about. Then, that evening I do another overnight flight to Toronto. In Toronto, I will have enough time to go into the city and explore the interesting places I saw on a hop-on hop-off tour I took the one time I was briefly there. Then, back to the airport for the final flight back home.
The last time I tried something similar, staying overnight in a hub airport partway home, I told myself “never again.” My smart way to save money was a great way to exhaust my body and my patience, but that was because I booked separate flights and had to deal with my luggage again, which is no small thing for an assignment lasting over two months in a setting and role that requires a lot of different clothes. This time it will be all on one ticket, so I am thinking my luggage will be checked through, and I will just have my backpack. Just like college days–free as a bird, with my toothbrush, and one change of clothes. Well, except now I’ll have my phone, charger, and iPad, and then I had a camera, rolls of film, and that blue tissue-weight prepaid airmail stationery. Plus ça change….
Right now it seems like a great way to step into that fabled territory called Inland. I’ll let you know in November how it went.
Warsaw after world War II and as restored.
