Top 3 ways to maximize your vacation
workout routine
I’ve started wondering if maybe part of
the appeal of travel is actually something that’s generally
considered a negative: the hassle.
Why? Well, for one, travel keeps us busy, doesn’t it?
When you’re on the road and you’re occupied with simply getting through the mechanics of it all, it obscures any existential angst or ennui.
All the self-doubt, aimlessness and boredom of modern life is washed away. You’re thinking about things like: where am I staying, what do I want to see, where should I eat, what should I eat, is that thing safe to eat, what even is that thing, where is this bus actually going, oh fuck is it going to RAIN, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
You simply don’t have time for thoughts like, ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘What am I doing with my life?’ or ‘Why didn’t I listen when they said I should learn how to code?’
That’s where a travel workout comes in. Nothing like contemplating your life choices while getting lost on a long run or doing lunges in a park while puzzled locals look on.
But of course, things like regular
exercise and diet often go right out the window when you’re on the
road.
Even if you have the best of intentions, vacation workouts are really hard to stick with. Add to that the fact that generally speaking your diet is going to get more adventurous and likely less healthy when you’re traveling, and the results can be less than ideal.
You’ve heard of ‘The Freshman 15?’ How
about ‘The Traveler 20?’
Just pour the coffee in my mouth. And stuff a cruller in there too, would ya? Quinn Kampschroer / Pixabay
However, there are some ways to help you work out and burn some extra calories while traveling.
1. Walk
It’s a given that you’ll be walking more than usual when you’re traveling. But consider the possibility of consciously deciding to walk even more by thinking of it as part of your travel exercise routine.
Instead of automatically looking to take a taxi, metro, or bus, think about walking instead, if it’s not ridiculously far (and assuming you’ll exercise proper caution and research the neighborhoods you’ll be traversing.)
Not only does extra walking add bonus calorie-burning to your travel exercise routine, it’s also a great way to see more of a place. You’ll pass through real communities where real people live rather than popping in and out of metro stations at each tourist hot spot, those areas that are likely overrun with postcard stands and t-shirt shops and depleted of any speck of genuineness anyway.
Walking the York city walls. kjb / York, England 2019You might even see a rainbow… kjb / York, England 2019
2. Just do
If you can manage to stick to a fitness routine at home, there’s no reason why you can’t exercise on the road too. It’s far too easy – and again, guilty as charged here – to sort of mentally throw up your hands when you embark on a trip, and assume that since you can’t do your travel workout precisely the way you do it at home, it’s just impossible.
Pass the morning beer!
It doesn’t have to be like that.
Yeah, sure, there will be morning beer days, at least for this dirtbag traveler.
But just as with exercising at home, I try to approach travel exercise with a mindset of ‘These are the days when I work out. Period.’ Set a plan for your travel exercise routine and stick with it.
Sure, you may have to make adjustments,
you may have to do some improvising, but that’s part of travel in
general, isn’t it? If Tuesday is a running day and I happen to be
on a plane, I’ll make a point of running Wednesday instead. Making
adjustments is okay; compromising exercise altogether is slow, fatty
fat-fat death.
3. No gym? No problem.
You can try to find a gym where you can work out while traveling that’ll let you in on a day pass, but in my experience these are prohibitively expensive. I think one gym in Barcelona quoted me €10.
Do feel free to fuck right off with that.
Instead, I try to bring as much of the
gym with me as I reasonably can.
Portable gym equipment includes running
shoes obviously, but you can get a really good travel workout with
small, packable things like a jump rope and resistance bands.
For me the best portable exercise
equipment to work out while traveling is the TRX
cable system.
It packs away into a little bag and weighs like 1.5 pounds, making it a great portable workout gym for travelers. I found a used one for like $25.
And while it doesn’t feel quite as
productive as hitting the free weights, it’s nonetheless quite
versatile – and you will feel it afterward, I promise.
When I was in Barcelona and going to the muscle beach outdoor gym regularly, I’d do my other travel workout stuff then hook up my TRX to close out my routine. The other meatheads – like, the serious meatheads, not pudgy, aging wannabes like me – they always wanted to have a go on it even after doing muscle-ups and the other ridiculous shit they were into, so it’s not without its uses.
They actually completed this while I was there and it was glorious. kjb / Barcelona 2019
Bonus: 4. Work ya body wherever
And that brings up my other point: the
gym is where you make it. Sure, not every place will have a cool-ass
outdoor workout area like they do in Barca, but every place you go
will at least have playgrounds and parks.
If you keep an eye out you can find
chin-up bars, places to do pushups, sit-ups, stretches, planks,
lunges – there are tons of bodyweight
exercises you can do as a travel workout that rival the burn you
get from gym equipment.
And really, truth be told, isn’t a
good workout a great way to wash away the soreness of travel as well
as the angst of modern life?
Those of us who love travel often find
it revitalizing and inspiring. Not to go all ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ on
you, but travel really is balm for the soul sometimes.
But that’s once you get where you’re
going. On the way there it can often be grueling and exhausting,
leaving you a physical wreck, greasy, sweaty and completely wrung
out.
No matter how much you love to travel,
no matter your age or fitness level, travel will take a physical toll
on you.
And with good reason: you’ll end up
walking a lot more than usual, you get thrown into more stressful
situations, you cram yourself into a variety of increasingly
laughable seating arrangements on various forms of transport, you lug
around bags or a backpack – travel is actually kind of brutal when
you get down to it.
Whose child are you and why did they leave you here? holidayweekly
But there are some tried and true
travel tips for helping you to minimize the physical demands travel
exacts from your body to help you maximize your enjoyment once you
arrive.
1. Pack light
Do some careful planning before you
pack up a massive bag for your travels. I’ve witnessed people in
their 60s and 70s trying to haul suitcases nearly as large as they
were up and down staircases – bags that when I went to lend a hand
were heavy even for me.
Sure, it’s nice to have every little
thing with you when you arrive at your destination. But you have to
remember that you’re going to be spending a fair amount of time
getting in and out of taxis, on and off buses, into and out of
airports, and to and from your Airbnb or hostel. Do yourself a favor
and make sure it isn’t going to cost you an extra recovery day as if
you played in an NFL game every time you change locations.
If you haven’t heard of deep
vein thrombosis and you’re planning a long-haul flight, do
yourself a favor and read up on it. It’s a condition in which blood
clots can form in your legs after prolonged periods of sitting still,
clots that can be extremely dangerous. If they break off and travel
to your lungs they can even be life-threatening.
Some of the risk factors for DVT
include people who:
are overweight or obese
are pregnant or in the first 6
weeks of postpartum
Do compression socks look silly as hell? Yes. Should you be grateful I didn’t use a pic of what deep vein thrombosis looks like? Also yes.
Some people swear by compression
socks to keep the blood flowing and prevent DVT, but at the very
least you should be aware that a few simple air travel tips will help
reduce the risk, and also help you arrive at your destination less
stiff and cramped even after a long-haul flight:
move around the aisles as often as
possible
avoid crossing your legs (as if
you even could in today’s airline seats…)
stay hydrated and avoid alcohol
frequently stretch and flex your
legs even while in your seat
Personally, I say go beyond just
stretching your legs. Whenever I get up to move around or go to the
bathroom I try to take the opportunity to find a little space near
the galley or at the front of a section to touch my toes, rotate my
trunk, stretch my arms – anything to get the blood flowing and
avoid arriving feeling like you ‘slept wrong’ on your entire body.
3. Schedule your flights carefully
Jet lag is real and it’s a bitch, for
some people more than others. It can cost you days of feeling groggy,
tired and unable to think clearly.
But you can help yourself by scheduling
your flights in such a way that you’ll arrive closer to bed time in
the new time zone where you’re going to get yourself on the correct
schedule sooner. Avoid tight connections and really early flights or
red-eyes that take you way off of your regular schedule too, as they
just make the process of adjusting to your new time zone more
difficult.
There are even people who suggest
booking an extra layover day if you’re going on a particularly long
trip to help alleviate jet lag. For instance, if traveling from
London to Australia, you might stop off for a day or two in Bangkok,
breaking up a 21-plus-hour trip into two parts – and seeing the
Thai capital in the process, however briefly.
I’m trying to sleep here, peasant. kjb / Kotor, Montenegro 2019
4. Sleep if you can
Some of us have an easier time sleeping
on airplanes than others, but there are some ways you can increase
your chances of catching some much-needed shut-eye, helping your body
to recover even while you’re still in the air.
Get ear plugs, get a sleep mask, and
get an inflatable neck pillow for starters. Also, some people
strategize their airplane sleep by getting a window seat. Hit the
bathroom right after the meal, then curl up in your corner and you
won’t have to worry about people banging into you as they pass by in
the aisle or climbing over you.
Not the kind of sleep mask I had in mind, but whatever works for you… Łukasz Dyłka / Pixabay
5. Take a cab or Uber
Of course one of the prime directives
for dirtbag travel is keeping costs as low as possible, which means
we lean toward public transportation.
But when you arrive in a strange place where you don’t know your way around, hauling all your shit and trying to navigate a bus or other public transit can be a nightmare, physically as well as mentally. Once you get settled and have a moment to get your bearings, you can rely on public transportation — and I usually end up finding public transport way back to the airport when it’s time to head out too.
Still preferable to hauling all your shit onto a bus and simultaneously trying to figure out where you’re going when you first arrive. Michael Gaida / Pixabay
But unless you’re solid on how to get from point Airport to point B – and certain that you’ll be able to easily wrangle your suitcase or backpack on a crowded bus or train – it’s often worth it to just say fuck it and call an Uber or take a taxi.
Yes, it costs more, but to be able to
toss your bags in the trunk and be assured that you’ll get to where
you’re going, door-to-door, without having to fret over the map or
wrestle your bags through a commuter crowd is sheer bliss at the end
of a long day of travel.
If you do opt for a taxi, make sure
it’s a legit, registered cab with a meter that works, or negotiate a
price before you get in. Avoid going with the touts that come inside
the airport and try to grab tourists coming off of international
flights, because sometimes they’re scammers or worse.
6. Exercise before and after
I like to get in a run or a workout the
day before or the day of travel, so as to stave off the inevitable
physical compromises you’re bound to make when you’re on the road and
taken out of your schedule.
Also try to get in some kind of exercise once you’ve arrived, even if it’s just a walk around the neighborhood where you’re staying, a swim or a short run – anything to break out your muscles and joints from the stiffness that sets in following hours of inactivity on the plane. Sleeping on that stiffness instead of working it out may be what you really think you want, especially if you’re exhausted, but often makes it even worse when you wake up the next day.
Don’t be like Toupi when you arrive. Get out and go for a walk before you crash. kjb / Valparaiso 2018
And if you’re traveling longer-term,
it’s a good idea to try to stick to your workout schedule as much as
possible to help your body stay in the best possible shape for faster
recovery from travel days. I bring a TRX cable system and a jump rope
with me wherever I go. It’s not as productive as going to the gym,
but along with push-ups, lunges, and chin-ups and of course running,
it’s a whole lot better than nothing.
7. Eat right
Travel means yanking yourself out of
your routine, and that of course includes your diet. You’ll want to
try new foods and you’ll probably eat more and worse food than you
normally would, that’s a given.
Dude, if you eat mayo on your fries, you deserve everything you get. skeeze / Pixabay
But that doesn’t mean you have to throw
everything in the shitter the moment you hit the airport. Pack some
fruit and nuts and other healthy snacks in your carry-on, and do your
body a favor and limit the junk food. You’ll feel better physically
and recover faster than you would if you load up on tons of sugar,
salt and fats.
You might be surprised who’s ultimately to blame for the word ‘gringo.’
If you’re from the
United States, there’s a word you’ll no doubt encounter if you spend
any time traveling South or Central America: ‘gringo,’ or ‘gringa.’
It’s mostly used to refer to white people from the U.S., and
sometimes white Europeans.
But if you ask
people for the ‘gringo’ origin story, nine times out of ten they
either won’t know, or they’ll subscribe to one of the common but
apocryphal stories about it.
The Meaning of
Gringo
But first, one of
the most common search terms when it comes to this strange word is
‘what does gringa mean?’
Typically, a gringo
or gringa is a person from the U.S., usually Caucasian. I’ve had
conversations with people native to South America who say that
Europeans are never gringos, only people from the U.S.
Others say that white people of European descent, whether they’re from the U.S. or elsewhere all qualify as gringos. Still others say that ‘gringo’ can be applied to anyone who doesn’t speak Spanish, or even people of Hispanic descent who aren’t in touch with their roots. So this is a point of contention that I have no intention of trying to sort out.
Howard Yanes / NPR
Is gringo
offensive?
As to the question is gringo offensive, I can only really speak from my own experience of living in Chile and the conversations I’ve had here and while traveling around the rest of South America. (In my experience, the word gringo isn’t commonly used in Spain, which in itself is interesting, when you see where this gringo origin story is going.)
But based on those
purely anecdotal observations, ‘gringo’ as it’s used today could be
seen as a tiny bit derogatory, but in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way.
It was probably a much more salty sobriquet years and decades ago.
Get the gringo some mental help, maybe…
Today it’s a word
with just a little bit of denigration built into it, a sense of
light-hearted mockery more than true offensiveness or a nasty insult.
So, yes, while ‘gringo’ is something of an epithet, for the most part
it’s used in a gently teasing kind of way – or even as a
matter-of-fact reference.
As in, ‘Did you
meet the gringa who’s also staying at the hostel?’ You might say that
in the same way you’d ask after ‘the redhead,’ or ‘the tall guy.’
Now, a HUGE caveat:
is it possible that I only ever hear the word gringo used in this
particular way because I happen to BE a gringo? Particularly, a
large-ish and rather scary-looking one with ‘resting bitch-face’ for
days?
This isn’t even my final form. kjb / Toledo, Spain 2018
Sure, of course. Nonetheless, if you’re asking me, is ‘gringo’ offensive, I’ll stand by my impression that it’s rarely if ever meant as a truly vile word anymore, like the n-word or something. It just isn’t used like that. Unless the person saying it has run out of every single curse word they know and already hit 10 or 12 ‘conchatumadres’ and they’re still angry.
Gringo Origin –
Green Go?
But what’s truly
fascinating is the myriad of legends and myths surrounding the gringo
origin story.
One of the most
common tales of the origin of ‘gringo’ has to do with the color of
the uniforms of U.S. soldiers who were deployed in Mexico during the
Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. The story goes that the
Mexican people, quite naturally despising the invaders, shouted
epithets at them when they saw their green uniforms:
‘Green, go home!’
And, so the story goes, from ‘green, go,’ we get the shortened
version ‘gringo,’ as the letter ‘I’ as it’s pronounced in the Spanish
language has a sound like ‘ee’ in English.
It’s not easy being green-go.
¡Verde,
vayanse a casa!
Now, astute readers
might notice right away that there are a couple of problems with this
‘gringo’ origin story.
First and most
pressing, why on earth would Mexican people yell at the soldiers in
English? A more accurate phrase, assuming it were true that it
originated with angry Mexican soldiers, farmers, and townsfolk in the
mid-1800s might be ‘Verde, vayanse a casa!’
So, I guess if the
shortened term were something like, ‘verdevaya,’ we could maybe
believe this gringo origin story.
Another sticking point in this tale of the origin of gringo is that during the Mexican-American War, U.S. soldiers mostly wore blue uniforms. So even if the people of Mexico – the masses of whom surely were not bilingual – had made up a word to insult the U.S. soldiers, in English no less, it likely would have been based on blue uniforms, not green ones, wouldn’t it?
‘Vayazul,’ anyone?
Gringo Origin –
Green Coats?
Now, one regiment
from Kentucky allegedly did wear green, and were known as the
Kentucky Green Coats. You may notice a sound in their name that rings
a bell. Some people have opined that this single regiment, with their
green coats, had their nickname bastardized into ‘gringo’ and that
the name was then applied to anyone from the U.S.
This is also pretty
unlikely, even if we ignore the previously mentioned linguistic leap
the Mexican people would have been required to make to even refer to
their coats as green and not ‘verde.’
That’s
because of all the U.S. military to serve in Mexico during the war,
only 5,000
total came from Kentucky, and it’s pretty clear that not even all
of those 5,000 were from the Green Coats regiment. But even if they
were, those 5,000 guys would have to have made quite an impression
among the sea of blue-uniformed U.S. soldiers for this epithet to
have been coined to refer to all white people from the north.
Gringo Origin –
‘Green Grow?’
Another version of
the gringo origin story that I had heard – and which seems
plausible at first glance – has to do with a number of songs the
U.S. soldiers supposedly sang to keep their spirits up while deployed
in Mexico.
One of these songs
is the English traditional song ‘Green Grow the Rushes, O.’ Another
is a Robert Burns song called ‘Green Grow the Rashes, O,’ and still
another candidate for a tuneful gringo origin story is ‘Green Grow
the Lilacs,’ which was appropriated and altered to create an American
cowboy song, ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’
Apparently these are ‘rushes.’ Now, as to why everybody was always singing about them, I can’t help you. Image by Lucian Aeris from Pixabay
Turns out that there’s no real contemporaneous evidence that the soldiers sang any of these songs en masse. And if enough of them were singing it, presumably singing it constantly to the point where the Mexican populace took notice and actually gave them a nickname based on it, you’d assume it would show up in contemporary records, and it just doesn’t.
You’d also assume a much shorter war, because apparently all these dudes were doing was walking around singing about grass all the damn time.
Gringo Origin: First Time in Print in the U.S.
However, in 1849, shortly after the war ended, the word ‘gringo’ does appear in print in the U.S. in two places. The first was the diary of John Woodhouse Audubon, the son of the famed wildlife painter John James Audubon. The younger Audubon joined a trek from New York to California during the Gold Rush, with a plan to collect specimens and document the mammals of North America for a book.
You could say the
expedition took the long way around, as they passed through northern
Mexico, prompting Audubon to make this journal entry in July of 1849:
‘Cerro Gordo is a miserable den of vagabonds, with nothing to support it but its petty garrison of a hundred and fifty cavalry mounted on mules. We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called “Gringoes,” etc., but that did not prevent us from enjoying their delicious spring water; it was cool and delightful. Our men rushed to it, and drank two pint cups full each, hardly breathing between times; it was the first good water we had had since leaving the Mississippi.’
John WOodhouse Audubon
While Audubon’s journal wasn’t published until years later, another book that became quite popular using the word gringo hit the shelves toward the end of 1849, titled Los Gringos; or, an inside View of Mexico and California. The book was written by one Lieutenant Henry Augustus Wise, who wrote in the preface:
‘The title — Los Gringos, with which this volume has been christened, is the epithet — and rather a reproachful one — used in California and Mexico to designate the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon race.’
Lt Henry Augustus Wise
Gringo Origin: Journalists and ‘Green Grow’
It was over 30 years later in 1883 when an article was published that retroactively ascribed the origin of gringo to ‘Green Grow the Rushes, O’:
‘The word Gringo, the term applied to American and English by the Mexicans, is said to have had an amusing origin. A lot of sailors belonging to an English man-of-war at Mazatlan went ashore, and got on a rip-roaring drunk. While parading the streets one of them was singing “Green Grow the rushes,” etc. The Mexicans only caught the first two words, and dubbed them Grin-go’s, and it has stuck ever since.’
unknown, Newspaper article circa 1883
Popular journalist Nellie Bly added fuel to fire of this particular version of the gringo origin story when she wrote a piece reporting on a six-month trip to Mexico that was published in newspapers all across the U.S.:
‘People often wonder and ask why the Mexican calls the American a “Gringo,” or what the word means… When the Americans went to war with Mexico, a melody, every verse of which ended with “Green grow the rushes, O,” was very popular. It pleased almost everybody’s fancy, and was sung by old and young. While in camp the soldiers would sing it constantly, and all the Mexicans could hear was “Green grow the rushes, O.” They immediately began to call the American soldiers by the first two words as it sounded to them, “grin go,” They made it into one word, by which they will ever know the American — “Gringo.”‘
Nelly Bly
Whether the song ‘pleased everybody’s fancy’ or not, Bly’s gringo origin story turns out to bullshit.
People were already pushing back against Bly’s explanation of the origin of ‘gringo,’ even in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, they pushed back with their own dubious versions of the gringo origin story. Another journalist, S.E. Roberston, wrote in 1889 in the Washington D.C. Evening Star:
‘”Nellie Bly” makes more errors still. Her explanation of the word “gringo” — a familiar native designation for the American — is absurd. Instead of attributing its origin properly to the “green coats” of a Kentucky regiment stationed in Mexico during the war of ’40-47 she says it came from the popularity of the song, “Green Grow the Rushes, O,” in the American camps.’
s.e. Robertson
Gringo Origin – It’s all Greek to Me
But turns out Robertson was just as wrong as Bly. In 1889 American scholar William Dwight Whitney published the ‘G’ volume of his Century Dictionary which included an entry for the word ‘gringo,’ attributing its origin story thusly:
‘[Sp. gibberish; prob. a pop. var. of Griego, Greek.]’
William dwight whitney
The basis of Whitney’s explication of the origin of gringo as a bastardization of the Spanish word ‘griego,’ meaning Greek, came from a Spanish language dictionary that was published in 1787, a good 60 years before the Mexican-American War.
The reason for this is that it turns out English-speaking people aren’t the only ones to call any unintelligible language ‘Greek,’ as in ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
In El Diccionario Castellano, Esteban de Terrero wrote:
‘Foreigners in Malaga are called gringos, who have particular kinds of accent that deprive them from easy and natural Castilian speech, and in Madrid the name is given especially to the Irish for the same reason.’
From the 1600s through the 1800s, Irish soldiers of fortune often went to Spain to fight in the Spanish army, so the Spanish soldiers and townsfolk would have been acquainted with what was apparently their mangling of the Castilian accent.
So if you’re looking for someone to blame for the origin of the word gringo, you need look no further than the Irish, and their ‘particular kinds of accent.’
My first time setting foot in Europe at
long last was…effervescent. From head to toe, those first few days
were like having a fizzy drink bubbling inside my brain, just
wandering around giddy. Like, I imagine I looked like Danny Devito’s
character Martini from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” just a
permanent idiot grin plastered across my face and a little giggle
perpetually on reserve, one that could come tittering to the surface
at any moment.
I was in Europe at long last, the
Europe of my ancestors, the Europe of so much western history for so
many millennia, the place where Shakespeare and the Romans and Don
Quixote and Beowulf and Monty Python came from. The place where so
many had lived and died, where so much had been built and torn down
and rebuilt, over and over again.
I think this is in Parque Retiro. kjb / Madrid – 2018
Part of my joy was simply the notion of
finally being on this other continent – this was 2018 and I am
very, very old – this continent that I had read so much about and
longed to visit for so many years. I wonder if my feeling was similar
to the sense you still get from native Europeans about their desire
to come to America.
But I wonder if it matches our reverse
longing to visit Europe. It seems like it might be a bit different;
their longing to come to America seems like a hopeful, wide-eyed
springing forward, even at this late date. On the other hand, our
desire to see Europe seems more like a longing to look backward, a
need to touch the glory of the past, an expression of our national
insecurity, a declaration of fealty to our betters. Both attitudes
are hopelessly bound up in romanticism and delusion, of course.
Accordion player in Parque Retiro kjb / Madrid – 2018
The other giddifying factor (yes, it’s
a word, but don’t look it up) that enraptured me was that I had just
come from four years in Chile.
Now, I have a great love of Chile, and
especially Valparaiso, as I hope to share with you on these pages.
But the simple truth is that the South
American standards for a lot of things, and especially public
facilities and cleanliness are significantly different than those of
the US or EU. There are of course economic factors; colonizer states
that spent centuries conquering other peoples and extracting wealth
from them are by definition going to be more wealthy, and are thus
likely to have a better standard of living.
But there is a certain grim ugliness in
Chile when it comes to providing anything for the public, a sense of
doing just the barest of bare minimum necessary to get by. I suspect
that this attitude comes straight out of the Dictadura years and the
brutal crush of the Chicago Boys neoliberal economic system that was
imposed on Chile in the 1970s.
‘Fuck the people,’ in a nutshell.
According to this economic model, all public goods are to be
extracted, exploited and sold off.
Thus, things like public restrooms,
public wifi, parks, buses, the metro, street cleaning and garbage
pickup, the nation’s Social Security administration – ownership of
the fucking water of the entire nation – pretty much all of these
things are run with the very visible hand of a not-at-all-free market
guiding them. Public places and public services are kept at just the
bare minimum of functionality in Chile; wherever there is no money to
be made, no one in charge gives a shit about how shabby things get.
Even down to something as pedestrian as
walking out to the baggage claim area after passing through customs
in the Madrid airport I was struck by the comparative opulence of the
place: clean, roomy toilets, hand driers that work – my God, hot
water! You can’t get hot water in a public restroom sink anywhere in
Chile.
Atocha Station in Madrid kjb / Madrid – 2018
Even stupid things like the comfy,
plentiful chairs arrayed around the baggage claim belts in Madrid
were a joy – things like benches and seating in public waiting
rooms in Chile always seem to have been furnished begrudgingly, as if
they searched out the very cheapest, shoddiest, oldest furniture that
they could find out by a dumpster – and there it remains until it
literally falls apart underneath you. And that is only if they have
seats at all. Baggage claim in Santiago has none.
All of this has something to do with
money, of course, and those colonizer coffers that have been
overflowing over the course of 500 years of exploiting the resources
of places like Chile. But it also has to do with the attitudes about
how to spend what public money there is.
Not that the people themselves, the
actual public wouldn’t prefer things to be nicer; just that the
public in Chile always seems to be the last to get any benefit from
public funds, and then only with the maximum of resentment from the
state or whatever subsidiary, for-profit entity is providing it.
But that’s of course not where the
differences between Chile and Spain end.
There is a buoyancy and a freedom that
permeates the Spanish crowds; people talk loudly and laugh out loud
as they navigate the sidewalks in an open, easy manner that Chileans
would never dare. In Chile there is often a furtiveness, a sense of
gloom and a barely-concealed hostility as you maneuver in the
streets, always in a rush to get somewhere, always worrying about
money, always fearful, always suspicious. (All of this of course goes
out the window when Chileans, especially young Chileans, are drunk.
Then it’s like the cork has been let out of a bottle of baking soda
and vinegar that has been held in check for a very long time.)
Metropolis Building from afar kjb / Madrid – 2018
Please, please understand that these
are overly broad (and slightly ridiculous) generalizations that don’t
apply to every single individual. But I think a point about a Chilean
cultural norm of blending in can be illustrated by how prevalent
clothing that is the color black, gray, or dark navy blue is in
Chile. There’s a grayness to the faces and oftentimes a black look
that crosses them when you’re out and about making your way through
the city streets. There’s a sense of not wanting to stand out, of
laying low, of getting your business done and getting on with it, of
getting away.
Not to belabor the point, but I think
it’s not at all crazy to view these observations through the lens of
nations that were conquistadores versus those who were conquered. And
especially in Chile, where first the violence and cruelty of the
Spanish, then later the Dictadura and the imposition of stark
austerity and the monetizing of public goods and services have all
served to crush so many people’s economic hopes for so many years, it
just makes sense that a logic of avoiding trouble underlain with
sublimated anger and despair would bubble under the surface.
But back to Madrid. Whatever parallel
sense of being crushed by their own dictatorship the Spanish people
may have had as a culture before it ended in the 1970s was not
terribly evident (at least not in Madrid. That’s a very different
thing in Catalonia, as I later learned.) No, what I observed was a
people much more open and free with themselves, chatting on the
streets not only with their friends and family but also with
strangers, passing the time of day in vast, green parks, strolling on
broad, pristine, well-maintained sidewalks, sitting at overflowing
sidewalk cafes every night of the week drinking, chatting, eating in
voices loud, triumphant, free.
Hanging with my homies in the park. kjb / Madrid
Truth be told, I was terribly confused
when I first sat at table at a little cafe in the neighborhood where
I was staying (near Metro Embajadores or Las Delicias, if anyone’s
interested. Very cool hood, not fancy but not run-down either, with
plenty of shops and restaurants and bars, and easy access to a number
of tourist destinations.) That was my first night there after rolling
off the plane early in the morning all jet-lagged and sleeping for a
few hours that afternoon in my Airbnb.
I sat at a table in the
plastic-windowed tent set up on the sidewalk and ordered a beer. The
old man server – one of those wiry, tough, beef-jerky old men who
operate without a single wasted motion and have been waiting tables
for decades – brought me some tapas with my beer and I was puzzled.
And then a second beer, and a second
plate. And I was worried I was being suckered into paying for
something I didn’t want, haha.
Sunset in Spain kjb / Madrid 2018
Of course in Madrid the tradition still
stands of serving some kind of tapas along with each round of drinks
you order, as I quickly learned. The bars often have serving lines of
cafeteria-style, glass-covered pans displaying the various tapas that
are on offer that day, and you can choose among them if you want, or
just take your chances with whatever the beef jerky server man
decides to bring. Some places have a full-time chef or cook on hand
to whip up new batches of whatever strikes their fancy throughout the
course of the shift as various tapas run out. It’s kind of a cool
system, and really nice to have a snack with your beer.
I admit I ate more than a bit of meat
while I was there, trying the Iberica ham and other tidbits. I’m a
bad vegetarian…
Travel tips and travel hacks to make
your life on the road easier
It sounds counterintuitive, but it feels great when you head out on the road with just a few things in a backpack — maybe a ukulele — and little else.
That said, there are a few more things
to add to the list of what you really ought to pack, and some travel
hacks that can make the process easier on you. Here are some
must-pack travel essentials that will make your life on the road much
easier.
1. Kindle
I’m amazed when I meet fellow travelers who are still lugging around hard-copy books. ‘Travel light’ is one of the mantras of intelligent travel, and packing books – plural, inevitably, because if you’re a real reader you’re going to want more than one – just seems silly when the alternative is readily, cheaply available.
Kindles come in all kinds of various sizes, capacities and price points, but even the bare minimum model is going to hold thousands of ebooks. Converting books from almost any format including PDF almost always works a treat, and reading on a Kindle is just as easy on your eyes as reading an actual book, since it has no LCD screen like on a computer or tablet.
They stay charged for weeks, plus, as a confirmed dirtbag, I can assure you that it is very, very rare when you can’t find a particular title for free online one way or another. In other words, a Kindle saves you money on top of everything else.
It’s just easier this way. Give in to your digital overlords. free images/pixabay
I get it, I get the argument that some
people prefer the tactile experience of reading actual books. I do
too. The feel and smell of old books is incomparable in its ability
to transport you. But using a Kindle, especially as a travel hack,
isn’t like a loyalty oath to Baron von Bezos or something. You’re
still allowed to read real books, I promise.
2. Universal adapter/USB extension
cord
There are some more or less universal adapters out there that go for like $12-$15 bucks. Some travel tips sites recommend bringing a lightweight power strip, but this kind of adapter works fine for me, since the only thing I really need an actual outlet for is my laptop, plus USBs for phone, tablet, etc.
I also have a really long USB extension that comes in real handy since the outlet is always, always going to be in the most inconvenient location possible, no matter where you go.
(Links are not recommendations, just to show style, price, etc. I know, I know, it’s fucking Amazon. So’s the Kindle and I hate that it is. Fact is, I’ve bought exactly two Kindles from them in the past decade, and maybe half a dozen books total, so.)
3. Plastic bags/Laundry bag
Gotta hate plastic bags, and I try to avoid them whenever possible. But since we end up with them anyway, I reuse them to death. I have a Sainsbury’s bag that I still use for grocery shopping and I haven’t been in the U.K. in four or five months.
And when you travel, plastic bags come in handy since you’re going to have stinky or wet clothes that you’ll want to keep separate. Also, extra bags come in handy for packing delicate or spillable items like shampoo, lotion, or bottles of booze. Won’t necessarily save you from some clean-up on Aisle Backpack, but it could help minimize the trauma.
As far as laundry goes, it might be worth the investment in an actual laundry bag, but again, I’m a dirtbag, so I just use and re-use a plastic one.
Shit breaks, and when it breaks on the road you’re often going to be forced to buy replacement shit at stores you’re unfamiliar with, and you’ll have limited time to seek out the best bargains. A suitcase with a busted zipper is a nightmare, but paying three times the regular price to buy a replacement at the airport or in the first shop you find is pretty horrible too.
So while slapping some duct tape on there might be the whitiest of white trash moves (white trash is the inbred, toothless second cousin of the noble dirtbag, but we are not the same, just so you know) it works as a temporary fix until you have a chance to shop frugally for a replacement. Or a split raincoat, or a shoe, etc. etc.
Again, I’m not saying I’m walking around London or Madrid with duct tape all over me for weeks at a time, wearing condoms for shoes like the Crack Fox or something. We’re just talking about a temporary, emergency fix until a better solution that isn’t a complete rip-off presents itself.
Now, super glue. Here’s a travel hack I’ve used to temporarily fix sunglasses, phone cases, and all kinds of things while on the road. But the best reason to pack some superglue is in case you get a cut or other small wound and have no bandaids.
This might sound like some action movie shit, but the truth is, if you have a minor cut or one of those splits you get next your fingernails due to dryness or whatever, if you clean the wound then slap a bit of superglue on it, it won’t bother you anymore. It closes and protects the wound so you’re not forever banging it on something or poking it, and thus it heals faster, at least in my experience.
*Disclaimer: I think it should be clear by now that I AM NOT A FUCKING DOCTOR, lol. There is such a thing as actual, medical-grade superglue that is likely less toxic, but the regular stuff is apparently okay to use occasionally too. Given all the other chemicals we put in our bodies and breathe in every day, it’s probably not going to kill you to do this once or twice.
**Again, NOT a qualified medical opinion.
5. Hand Sanitizer
Oh dear lord, may the old gods and the
new help you if you travel without hand sanitizer. As travel tips go,
bringing hand sanitizer may be a bit of a cliché or already known by
everybody who reads these kinds of things, but I see far too many
people on planes, trains and buses who don’t use it. All you have
to do be convinced, in my opinion, is take a moment to feel the sort
of grubby, grungy, greasy feel of the handles and straps on a city
metro.
Laden with germs, every one of them. Eduardo Davad/Pixabay
No, really. Really take moment to run your hands over the surface of the metal. Reeeeally get in there. Brushed aluminum is supposed to be smooth, isn’t it? Not pebbled? Or abrasive? Or sticky?
And then think about how we talk about the recirculated air on airplanes causing colds and worse: WTF do you think the bathroom door handle on an airplane – or any other surface for that matter – is doing??
When I first came to Santiago and started teaching English as a second language, I had to pick up lots of classes that were all over the city, so I rode the metro and bus a lot. But I found shortly after I arrived that I got super crazy sick with a nasty cold that lasted forever.
This part is strictly speculative, but I think there is something to be said for the idea of your immune system not being equipped to deal with strains of germs and viruses that are not common where you’re from when travel a long way. Even after I got over that initial nastiness, I found I kept getting sick on the regular.
Then I noticed two things: those grubby handholds on the metro and buses that I mentioned before, and the fact that there is almost never soap in Chilean public restrooms, and hot water literally never.
It all came together one grim winter morning on the metro when I saw this old guy sneeze into his hand – thank you for the courtesy on that – but then immediately grab the hand-hold metal pole again after a perfunctory wipe on his pants leg.
Presto change-o, once I bought and
started RELIGIOUSLY using hand sanitizer EVERY TIME I got off the bus
or metro, my frequency of colds plummeted.
Anyway, hope these travel hacks/travel
essentials help you on your next trip! Thoughts and comments welcome
as always.
Let’s think for a moment what the actual act of travel entails.
You voluntarily yank yourself out of your comfort zone, cram a tiny percentage of your stuff – stuff you really like and have spent years quite deliberately accumulating, by the way – into a bag, head out of your cozy home where everything is just the way you like it, and fight through traffic to get to the dystopian hellscape that is the modern airport.
Like, you go to the AIRPORT. On PURPOSE.
Right from the get-go, this is just all kinds of wrong.
There, you will fight through packs of strangers who are similarly stressed and tense and nervous about being late, just as you are. Then you will be subjected to a humiliating series of pointless ‘security’ inspections of varying degrees of theatricality, herded through an array of corridors and chutes – which are alarmingly reminiscent of those you find in cattle slaughtering facilities.
Next, you are met by overworked flight attendants whose impatience and loathing is barely disguised by practiced, glassy smiles who herd you into jamming yourself into a tiny seat fit for a child or a dollhouse inside a ridiculous metal tube that should in no way be trusted with your life while hurtling through the sky at 600 miles per hour.
Finally, you’re off the ground. Hooray! That’s where you’ll spend the next several hours breathing stale, germ-laden air while your body has every bit of moisture sucked out of it – along with every bit of your patience and goodwill toward your fellow humans.
Your only diversion that you don’t provide yourself, aside from the passive-aggressive struggle over the armrest with the massively overweight gentleman next to you (or alternatively, praying to all the gods that ever existed and never existed that the screeching infant in your row will fall into a food coma) will be that you are offered bad, overpriced food that, despite being bland, flavorless cardboard, is far too meager.
But don’t worry, you’ll also get thimblefuls of water or warm, overpriced beer to wash it down with.
You can look forward to having all your routines completely shredded, which for some people that means your bowels will be stopped up altogether – or possibly opened up like a horrific firehose reminiscent of Jackson Pollock if he had gone through a Brown Period.
Now you get to navigate the cattle-slaughtering chutes and further inspections and humiliations of another airport. Notice as you await your turn to be digitally prodded and poked – fingers crossed in hopes that your bag made it to the same destination as you – that although wifi exists at this airport, you are inexplicably unable to connect for some reason. ‘WiFi available’ is only theoretical, or perhaps it only says that to mock you and doesn’t actually exist at all.
Either way, forget about communicating with the outside world. You are airport people now.
Eventually, you step up to the counter and smile desperately through your fatigue at stony-faced customs and immigration officers, hoping to display a benign, inoffensive demeanor that will mean you’ll be able to pass through hassle-free. But far from putting on a cool and casual show of a sophisticated traveler at ease, you actually appear to them as a greasy, exhausted, jittery freak, completely wrung out, smelling terrible and with worse breath. The immigration guy shuffles you through quickly, yes, but just to get rid of the foul, sub-human abomination before him.
All the while, you’re wondering where the nearest toilet is and what the fuck ever happened to water fountains.
Finally, exhausted, you shove through the mob of bovine gawpers who gaze slack-jawed at the baggage going round and round yet insist on standing right next to the belt even though theirs hasn’t arrived. [Sidebar: I suspect that every airport has groups of locals that come out just to watch the bags go around. They aren’t traveling anywhere; this is just their entertainment, so of course they want to get up close to watch. ‘Get in the car kids, we gonna go watch the suitcasey merry-go-round! Hooray!’]
Yee-haw! Looka them bags go roundy-round y’all! I told ya this was better than the water slide! the travel lady
You are eventually able to make a lunge for your baggage – if it turns up at all, that is – and lug it out to the street in a strange city where you may or may not know the language and you almost certainly don’t know your way around at all, there to be accosted by alleged cab drivers and hucksters of every stripe.
You manage to grab what you hope is a legit taxi in which you won’t be mugged and dumped on a side street without your passport, bags or money, or you climb on a bus, just crossing your fingers that you’ll be able to figure out where you’re going. And of course, assuming you do actually get there, just hope that your Airbnb host will be waiting to let you in, or that you’ll be able to figure out some way to get in touch with them because no wifi/no cell.
And, you know what?
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Rose man kjb/Buenos Aires, 2018
Like anything else, the more places you go, the better you get at traveling. You learn shortcuts and tricks and methods to minimize the inevitable emotional abrasion and wearing down of your soul as you navigate the hard edges of modern travel. You chat with other travelers, you make jokes with the various workers at various counters, cafes and shops, you hide behind your headphones as needed, you read.
You figure it out.
And once you do get settled in your room or apartment and take a moment to breathe, maybe grab a shower — definitely grab a beer — that first time you head out into a brand-new city or town, wander among the crowds, smell the odors of unfamiliar food, hear the sounds of music and laughter and conversation in another language, see all the faces and the shops and the buildings and the streets — well, it’s just the best.
When it comes to travel tips, it may be
a cliché, but you can pretty much assume that anything that can go
wrong, will go wrong.
I mean, yeah, it’s a cliché, but
like most truisms, it’s based on truth.
Part of the joy of traveling is of
course learning to embrace the unexpected. Dealing with all the
things that life on the road throws at you is half the fun: we adapt,
we shift our expectations, we improvise.
Why must I always be waiting, waiting for you… (pixabay)
But having said that, there are certain travel essentials, ways to make it easier on yourself when you’re far away from home and likely to have limited knowledge of local shops.
And it’s also going to be cheaper if you don’t have to make emergency purchases, without a doubt.
Items like socks or adapters – and essentials like beer – are of course usually pretty easy to find, no matter where you go. But for the dirtbag traveler, avoiding extra, unnecessary costs is vital. (You want to keep that beer budget intact. Don’t need to be wasting that money on frivolous items like, you know, food.)
And it is often cheaper than food. Or at least more fun… kjb / Pichilemu, Chile 2018
At any rate, these travel essentials
can not only make it easier on yourself, but also on your thin-ass
wallet. Here are a few travel tips that I’ve found come in really
handy when I’m on the road. (Products linked are not an
endorsement, merely to demonstrate style and price.)
1. Bluetooth headphones
Yes, I realize we are talking dirtbag travel tips here, and bluetooth headphones sounds like one a them fancy city folk devil devices. Nevertheless, Bluetooth headphones will change your life. You can find a pair of perfectly serviceable Bluetooth headphones for $20, and believe me, they are well worth it. The hassles you avoid by not having to deal with tangled cords, ear buds forever getting yanked out of your ears, or damaged by getting caught on things is priceless.
Plus you can listen to music or podcasts and adjust volume, change tracks, pause, mute or stop all from a button on your ear rather than hauling out your phone every time you need to adjust something. That is super helpful when your hands are full dealing with your bags or paying to get on the metro or any one of a million other situations you find yourself in while traveling. Not only that, even when you’re not listening, Bluetooth headphones are a great prop to help you avoid unwanted conversations with lunatics and Mormons and the like.
‘Scuse me bra, do you have a moment to talk about Dude Jesus Christ? kjb / Pichilemu, Chile 2018
2. Earplugs
While we’re on the subject of ears, why not mention earplugs? On the plane you will inevitably be seated next to some mewling brat at some point, and good earplugs are a lifesaver. Plus, no matter how closely you peruse the Airbnb or hostel listings and reviews, you can never really know what the neighborhood’s noise situation is going to be like until you get there yourself. And one travel tip I strongly recommend is shelling out a little more for the gel type of earplugs. They cost a bit more but save you money in the long run because they last forever, unlike the cone-shaped foam ones that get squeezed to death pretty quickly, in my experience. On top of that, you can use them for swimming – six months later I still have an entire box of three pairs I bought last summer in Montenegro and I was in the water every day. (Yes, they aren’t pretty, but hey, I am a dirtbag after all, right?)
3. Cash
So I rolled in to Belgrade, Serbia
around 10pm after a really cool all-day train ride through the
mountains from Montenegro, only to find that the tiny little train
station – which, granted, is being upgraded and moved – had no
ATM. Plus, it was way the hell out on the edge of town, so there were
no shops or banks with ATMs nearby, and thus I had no way of getting
local currency like I had planned to do upon arriving. That meant
that I couldn’t pay for a taxi even if I had been able to find one.
On top of that, once I got to an ATM after I managed to contact my
super awesome host (who actually drove out there to pick me up) we
discovered that my bank had shut down my debit card because I forgot
to inform them I was traveling to Serbia.
Fucking oops.
Makes the world go around, unfortunately. (pixabay)
Plus it was Saturday night, and the
bank’s customer service lines didn’t open again until Monday
morning Mountain time. So several lessons learned all in one neat
package: luckily I had euros and found an open currency exchange, so
I could exchange them on a Sunday, otherwise it might have been a
very hungry and sober Sunday and most of the day Monday due to the
time difference. Bring extra cash even if you plan to exchange or
simply withdraw money when you arrive where you’re going, because
you just never know.
4. Snacks/Breakfast
This one is a pretty common travel tip, to bring snacks with you, not only to avoid starvation, but to avoid exorbitant airport and airplane prices. I always try to bring stuff like peanuts, an apple, or a peanut butter sandwich, and to be honest I go pretty heavy on all that because I get fucking cranky when I’m hungry.
No, coffee makes the world go round. (pixabay)
But I take the snacks thing a step further and try to already have something for the next morning as well. I hate waking up in a strange place starving, and then right off the bat having to go out and forage for food. Yes, of course there’s always a restaurant around that’s willing to take your money if you’re truly famished. But I’d rather save my precious funds by eating simple stuff I prepare myself for breakfast and lunch, and only occasionally spring for a nice dinner. For starters I always bring my little Italian coffee maker and a Tupperware container of coffee because I am not fit for human contact without a cup of real coffee. Another easy-peasy way to make sure you have at least something to line your stomach before venturing out is to bring some oatmeal in a Ziplock bag. Most Airbnbs or even hostels are going to have hot water and sugar, and if you have some fruit to go in there, even better.
5. Wet wipes
Wet wipes are an absolute lifesaver of a travel tip that will make you feel so much less dingy and gross. Yeah, you’re going to sweat, yeah, you’re going to be waiting for buses and trains and cabs amid the dust and exhaust of stations and street. But if you can occasionally wipe your face with a cool, damp wet wipe, it can change your outlook 100 percent. Plus if you run out of hand sanitizer – and dear god, don’t do that – a wet wipe is a decent workaround. Never assume there will be soap in the bathrooms where you’re going!
Also, as far as wet wipes go, let’s not get into it, but the bathroom, guys.
(I’m talking about pooping. And your taint. You know, the place where you get stinky. I hope that was subtle enough.)
I’ve got a bunch more of these that are
less gross, but I don’t want to make one single, insane, long-ass
list, so I’m going to break it up into pieces. More to come, and if
you have any ideas for travel tips of your own, or thoughts about
these, please leave a comment or send an email!
“Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.”
Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
Whenever people ask me where I’m from and I’m trying to give them more than a perfunctory answer, it always starts something like, “Um, well…you see…” or something like that.
My relationship with where I’m from? It’s complicated.
I have only rarely if ever felt like I was someplace I would call “home,” and even then it never seems like it’s going to be a permanent thing. Even when I do stay in one place for a long time, there’s always a piece of me somewhere deep inside that is prepared to leave. Like in the old blues song, “Got one foot on the platform, the other foot on the train…”
Moving a lot as a kid has without question colored my attitudes and my life: whatever sense of belonging somewhere and with certain people I have ever had has always been fleeting. I’ve always felt somehow separate; there but not there.
I think this may be part of why I have always been enamored of journalism: the journalist naturally adopts the perspective of the observer. He or she isn’t a participant; the journalist is by definition outside the action. And when you don’t feel like you truly belong anywhere, there is a comfort in observing. It’s a position that allows you a connection – of sorts – with whatever is going on, but at the same time you get to keep your distance because after all you are here to observe.
Don’t fence me in kjb/San Pedro de Atacama 2018
One thing I have done nearly all my life is to write, whether as an actual journalist or not. So as travel writing has blossomed, I’ve been lucky enough to bumble into gigs writing for various travel-oriented websites and contributing to them in a variety of ways. But writing for someone else – and not incidentally, writing for a paycheck – of necessity tends to dampen your true, wild, free and full-throated voice.
Enter The Dirtbag Traveler.
Step-dog. kjb/San Pedro de Atacama 2018
This blog lies at the nexus of my sense of rootlessness, my perpetual desire to see whatever the next place around the corner might be, and my love of writing. I came up with the name when I realized that a dirtbag traveler is exactly what I am – not much imagination needed to connect the dots there. And though I call myself that with at least a bit of tongue in cheek, nonetheless I contend that there are varying levels or tracks when it comes to travel, and not just in terms of economics or style either.
By my definition, the dirtbag traveler is the opposite of the safe or mundane vacationer. The vacationer or mundane traveler is the one on the guided tour, yapping away only in his or her native language at other people from his home country. He or she is the one who is always in clean clothes, the one who eats in nice restaurants — preferably chains he is already familiar with — every single meal, the one who gets excited about going to the shopping mall.
So, yeah, dirtbag travel is indeed contingent on budget constraints. But it has more to do with attitude, I think, and being okay with and even eager to spend time sinking down deeper into a place, allowing a place to seep under your skin rather than skating across its surface. It’s the difference between being in an airboat skimming over a swamp versus stripping naked and jumping in the bubbling, brackish water just to see what happens.
Portal to the unknown kjb/Valparaiso 2017
The dirtbag traveler sees new places through the lens of the scratched and dirty Plexiglas of a city bus, jostled and bumped, mired in the sweat and breath and funk of locals. The mundane traveler only catches glimpses of the cityscape from behind the tinted windows of the air-conditioned shuttle van.
I think part of my sense of being a certain type of traveler versus the other stems also from having read and fallen in love with Kerouac’s “On the Road” when I was in my teens. It is not only a book about travel itself, it is also a story firmly rooted in the tradition of Steinbeck and the working class and the people who had been systematically denied the American Dream. And it is about how those people were slowly waking up to the fact of that betrayal, their eyes opening to the nakedness of the emperor and realizing that There Is No American Dream, not for people like us anyway.
So coming from that tradition of travel, when I read most travel blogs I find them to be annoyingly chirpy and false. Everything’s too clean, too well-mannered and too tame to encompass the reality of travel. Most travel blogs read like extended Instagram posts or model auditions: vapid, devoid of context and serving no honest purpose other than to portray the protagonist in the best possible light, always having THE MOST FUN EVAR, YOU GUYS!
That, and to make money.
So while I’m not planning on making this solely about shitty circumstances that sometimes happen when you travel – nor am I planning on making any money – neither am I going to airbrush what I’ve seen or attempt to paint it in any light other than the cold reality of my lived experience.
People forget that the Beat Generation was so named to acknowledge the weariness, the shabbiness, the dirt and sweat and the un-fun parts of their lives and especially their travels. “Beat” meant beaten down and weary, but it also meant “beat” in the sense of some thing or place or experience itself being tired, boring and dreary: “This party is so beat.”
This is what beat looks like. (Kerouac )
Hence the drive to go, go, go. Get going to the next place, then the next and the next. That particular piece of the Kerouac puzzle may well be the part I can most relate to.
The Need to Get Gone.
But perhaps there’s a kind of Zen there as well: Kerouac went on to add new layers of meaning to the word, in later years suggesting that Beat also could imply upbeat, or beatific in the sense of reaching a kind of nirvana, or the sense of being “on the beat” or in time with music.
I think all of these definitions fit in nicely with my sense of dirtbag travel. So I’m hoping you’ll enjoy reading about my thoughts and experiences as I share stories about where I’ve been — and maybe even a few travel tips shoehorned in to rambling, disjointed nonsense like what you just slogged through.
