Chapter 1 Planning Your "Trip to Paradise," or Possibly Beirut Planning is a very important part of travel. Just ask Amelia Earhart, the famous woman aviatrix1 who in 1937 attempted to fly around the world in a twin-engine Lockheed and disappeared somewhere in the South Pacific and was never heard from again. This kind of thing can really put a damper on your vacation, yet it can easily be prevented if you do a little advance research by asking some basic travel questions, such as: Will you be flying on a twin-engine Lockheed? Will you ever be heard from again? Will there be meal service? Oh, I realize that not everybody likes to plan every step of a vacation. Some people would rather just grab a backpack and a sleeping bag, stick out their thumbs and start hitchhiking down the highway, enjoying the fun and adventure of not knowing "what's around the bend." Most of these people are dead within hours. So planning is definitely the way to go. Step One is to decide on a destination. The two most popular travel destinations are: Domestic Foreign The major advantage of domestic travel is that, with a few exceptions such as Miami, most domestic locations are conveniently situated right here in the United States. This means that, on a domestic vacation, you are never far from the convenience of American culture in the form of malls, motels, Chicken McNuggets, Charmin Bathroom Tissue, car-window suction-cup Garfield dolls, lawyers, etc. Also, the United States contains an enormous amount of natural beauty, although I do not personally prefer Nature as a vacation destination, because of various factors such as the Dirt Factor, the Insect Factor, and, of course, the Snake Factor (see Chapter Eight, "Camping: Nature's Way of Promoting the Motel Industry"). The United States also contains some history, most of which is located in special humidity-controlled rooms in Washington, D.C., heavily guarded by armed civil servants. Or, if you prefer to get "off the beaten path," you can simply hop in the car and travel the highways and byways of this great land of ours, visiting its many proud little dirtbag towns: Dweebmont, Ohio "Styptic Pencil Capital of the World" Often there will be local fairs and festivals where the kids can ride on the Whirl-'n'-Puke while Mom and Dad enjoy tasty local cuisine such as french fried potatoes, fried chicken, fried onion rings, fried dough, and fried frying oil fried with fried sugar. Of course, if rides are what you're after, you'll definitely want to visit one of the major Themed Attractions, such as Six Flags over a Large Flat Region, or the world-famous Walt Disney World of Hot Irritable Popcorn-Bloated Families Waiting in Enormous Lines (see Chapter Four, "Disney World on $263,508 a Day"). Many of these attractions feature exhibits simulating foreign nations such as Europe, thus enabling you to experience exactly what it would be like to be in another country, provided that it was a foreign country staffed by Americans and located inside a Themed Attraction. But if you prefer the "real thing," you'll want to choose a foreign travel destination. The major problem here, as I mentioned in the Introduction, is that foreign destinations tend to contain enormous quantities of foreigners.2 There's nothing you can do about this except grin and bear it, unless you're in some foreign country where grinning is considered rude and is punishable by death, in which case you should frown and bear it, or stick a finger up each nostril and bear it, or whatever they do when they bear it in that country. But that's exactly the problem. As an American who was raised in America and attended American schools--where, despite years of instruction, the only thing you learned how to say in a foreign language is "The dog has eaten my brother"--you will often find yourself totally disoriented in foreign situations. Europe, for example, is filled with knots of confused Americans, squinting at menus with no more comprehension than a sea gull examining the Space Shuttle ("What the hell does this mean?" "I think it means 'Chicken of the Hot Trouser Parts.' "). Also, you will have to accept the fact that, in foreign countries, you will never have the vaguest idea how much anything costs. All foreign countries have confusing money, with names like the Pound, the Yen, the Libra, the Mark, the Frank, the Duane, the Doubloon, and the Kilometer, all of which appear to have been designed by preschool children. Not one of these monetary units is equal to a dollar, or anything else, and all of them change in value on an hourly basis. This is all a result of the Marshall Plan, which was set up by General Marshall Plan after World War II as a means of making the entire rest of the world rich at our expense, the idea being that Americans traveling abroad would be so disoriented by foreign currency that every now and then one of them will buy a single croissant and leave a tip large enough to enable the waiter to retire for life. But that's the fun of traveling abroad: the sense of romance and mystery that comes from being an out-of-it bozo, from not knowing for sure whether the sign you're looking at says PUBLIC PARK or RADIOACTIVE WASTE AREA. One time I was with a group of five people driving around Germany, and it took us an entire week to figure out that "Einbahnstrasse" meant "One-Way Street." We'd be driving around some German city, frowning at our map, scratching our pointy American heads and saying, "Geez! We're on Einbahnstrasse again!" Ha ha! What a bunch of gooberheads we were! Fortunately, everybody in Germany, including domestic animals, speaks English better than the average U.S. high school graduate, so we were able to get clear directions from passing pedestrians. At times like these, you might tend to feel culturally inferior, as an American, but it's always heartening to remember that, no matter what country you're in, it probably doesn't rank anywhere near the U.S.A. in the nuclear-warhead department. PLANNING TOUR TRAVEL BUDGET The standard formula for computing travel costs is to figure out the total amount of available money you have, total, then multiply this by at least six. But even this formula is probably going to give you a low estimate, because you usually have unexpected costs, as we can see by this Breakdown of Average Travel Costs: Travel, lodging, food, tips--12% T-shirts that you buy after four frozen drinks but that you can never actually wear because they say things like I GOT THE CRABS AT BIG DICK'S--17% Incidentals--71% What I mean by "incidentals" are those unexpected expenses that inevitably come up when you travel, such as buying replacement teeth, posting bail, bribing nuns, etc. My wife actually did bribe a nun once. We were in Rome, trying to get into a famous cathedral, which according to the guidebook contained large quantities of architecture and, more important, a bathroom (see map "The Toilets of Europe"). Our guidebook said that the cathedral would be open, but when we got there our path was blocked by a large unforeseen nun, who told us by means of stern gestures that it was closed, even though we could see tourists walking around in there. Being a seasoned international traveler with a certain amount of "savoir-faire,"4 I eventually realized what the deal was, so I slipped the nun a specific amount of Italian currency worth approximately 325,000,000,000,000 libras, which at the then-current rate of exchange was equal to roughly 57 cents American. Or it could have been several thousand dollars. There was really no way to tell. But I do want to stress that, whatever amount it was, I am certain the nun turned it directly over to the church. THE TOILETS OF EUROPE My point is that whenever and wherever you travel, you're going to have unanticipated expenses, and you need to anticipate them. Fortunately the Visa and MasterCard people have a fine program for travelers, under which you can charge everything, and then when you get back, you simply pay them small convenient amounts for several years, which turns out to be nowhere near enough, so they confiscate your children, which is not entirely a bad thing (see Chapter Four, "Traveling as a Family"). TRAVELER'S CHECKS Traveler's checks are very impressive pieces of paper that are backed by the full faith and credit of actor Karl Malden. They are accepted at thousands of shopping locations around the world, although almost never the location that you personally are shopping in. Nevertheless, traveler's checks are very popular with those travelers who have the brains of frozen vegetables. You've seen these people in those American Express traveler's check commercials: FIRST TRAVELER: Oh no! SECOND TRAVELER: What's wrong! FIRST TRAVELER: I left my wallet unguarded on a café table here in the middle of this squalid, poverty-ridden, crime-infested foreign city, and now it's gone! SECOND TRAVELER: But that's impossible! KARL MALDEN (to camera): Hi, I'm Karl Malden. FIRST TRAVELER: Look! It's Raymond Burr! KARL MALDEN: If you lose your American Express traveler's checks, you can call for an immediate refund. FIRST TRAVELER: But we don't even know how to operate a telephone! SECOND TRAVELER: I don't even remember which Traveler I am! I think I'm the Second Traveler! FIRST TRAVELER: No! I'm the Second Traveler! KARL MALDEN (to camera): American Express traveler's checks. A lot of people never even figure out how to cash them. WORKING WITH A TRAVEL AGENT You should definitely have a travel agent. Why go through all the hassle of dealing with airlines, hotels, and rental-car agencies yourself, only to see the arrangements get all screwed up, when with just a single phone call you can have a trained professional screw them up for you? No, seriously, travel agents are wonderful. At least mine is. Her name is Ramona, and I'd literally be lost without her. I'll be on a business trip, and I'll wake up in a strange hotel room in bed with traces of mini-bar cheese6 in my hair, and in a disoriented panic I'll call Ramona, and we'll have the following conversation: ME: Where am I? RAMONA (checking her computer): You're in Houston. ME (alarmed): Why? RAMONA: You're on a business trip. ME: Can I come home yet? RAMONA (checking her computer): No. You have to go to Detroit. ME (very alarmed): Detroit? RAMONA (checking her computer): And get that cheese out of your hair. I always do what Ramona says, because she has the computer. Ramona could ship me off to the Falkland Islands if she felt like it. Ramona also is good at attempting to explain the airline fare system, which is governed by a powerful, state-of-the-art computer that somebody apparently spilled a pitcher of Hawaiian Punch into the brain of, and it has been insane ever since. I base this statement on the fact that if I fly from Miami to, for example, Tampa, the round-trip fare is often hundreds of dollars more than what it costs to fly from Miami to, say, Singapore. This makes no sense. Singapore is in a completely different continent,7 whereas Tampa is so close to Miami that our stray bullets frequently land there. And what is worse, there is never just one fare to Tampa. There are dozens of them, and they are constantly mutating, and the more Ramona explains them to me, the more disoriented I become. ME: I need to go to Tampa on Thursday. RAMONA (checking her computer): No, not Thursday. ME: No? RAMONA: No, because there's a $600 penalty if you fly on a Thursday during a month whose name contains two or more vowels following two straight quarters of increased unemployment unless you are a joint taxpayer filing singly with two or more men on base provided that you spend at least one Saturday night in a hotel room within twelve feet of a malfunctioning ice machine and you undergo a ritual initiation ceremony wherein airline ticket agents dance around you and put honey-roasted peanuts up your nose. ME: Book me on the Singapore flight. Excerpted from Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need by Dave Barry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
