THOUGHTFUL TRAVEL, OR HOW TO GET WHERE YOU PLANNED ON GOING

Thoughtful travel feels like something that takes the fun out of adventure.

Besides, how thoughtful do you need/want to be in getting someplace?

Plan the place, load up, and head out works. Until it all goes south.

If you have all of your thoughtful travel plans on your phone, then lose your phone on the Paris subway, what would that thought process be like?

Travel plans start with an idea of where you’re going, how to get there, and how to get back.

Thoughtfulness happens in between leaving and returning? Maybe for rookies. We seasoned world travelers embrace it all.

On the way to France I had a seat next to an old lady. She was probably younger than me, but who’s counting. We barely spoke a word, which is my thoughtful way of saying I respected her quiet time.

The few words we shared proved invaluable.

Talk When It’s Important

She was a retired French professor from Iowa. A Hawkeye. I feel a special connect for Iowa, so I was in the best seat.

We shared a cab out of the airport. Her perfect French saved the day. Instead of getting stuck trying to figure out where we were and how to get to the hotel, she took command.

To show our gratitude we invited her to meet up later.

Since it was Paris, she gave us a good response: No thanks. She wasn’t there to do any more tour guiding than needed.

It was a great introduction to the town. Why? I’d heard of the French snub, now I had one of my own, but better.

Thoughtful Travel Is Exhausting

Wife and I saw Paris on a Rick Steves tour. In a nice coincidence our check-in couple on the same tour were from Iowa. That wife’s name was Elaine like my Elaine.

Another couple on the tour were retired Navy who lived in the town I grew up in. The officer knew more about the region than anyone I’ve heard from: A Cold War listening post in North Bend, or Coos Bay? But more likely Charleston.

The Navy wife said she had walked ten miles recently. One look at her and I knew it wasn’t possible. Then she walked everyone down at Versailles with energy to spare.

She kicked my butt, though I tried not to let it show because I’m a big strong man. Just not as strong as her.

After days on end of museums and churches and neighborhoods where Nazis’ rounded up young school kids for execution, I started feeling an odd sensation. Call it freshman year college yips.

After my first year of higher education I joined the army. If I was to follow suit on the same feelings I’d have to join the French Foreign Legion?

“Honey, I’ll be back in a few years.”

Feeding The Thoughtful Travel Vibe

From Paris to London, with a stop in Brugge to stay in the Ralph Lauren Suite, we hit London.

On a train to the town for the Chunnel crossing, we had to walk from one station to the next. It felt ironic to use the ankle express in such a high tech wired-in transportation environment.

After more museums and stained glass windows, we found ourselves in St. Paul’s Cathedral for evensong. It felt so thoughtful and special.

Except the dome had a leak and it was raining. The water hit the floor right over the vent to the lower floor. First one staff person worked the puddle, then more and more. It was a leak that drained down on Admiral Nelson’s final resting place.

The old sailor was getting soaked as if he were still on board ship. We moved back out of the mold inhalation zone.

The last leg of the thoughtful travel was Cambridge, the most thoughtful place of all. My wife has family there, the sort of family that gathers for special occasions. She was a special occasion to them. And me.

We’d met everyone during another England trip over a decade earlier and it felt like no time had passed. They were our people and we were theirs. Family love was in the air.

Why Travel Thoughtfully?

See the top pic? It’s at the Royal Observatory. The young man I know as my son is standing with one foot in the eastern hemisphere, the other in the western.

It means more now than it did then because we had been together a lot at the time. He had already heard and seen more than he ever expected. Just like me, but I wanted more.

Since then both of my kids traveled have together to Mexico and Spain for extended stays. They’ve got enough confidence and interests to drive others batty the way their mother and I drove them. Hi boys.

If you get out and about after everything covid settles back down, do this: make an itinerary, but keep it loose. No matter how you plan, you still won’t see everything the first time around.

About the question of losing a phone in the Paris Metro? What’s it feel like?

I wanted to find a place to lay down, or go home, or be invisible. Who loses a phone? I though I got picked, but probably not. Instead, I got stuck in a turnstile going into the subway.

With legs and bags on either side of the bar pressing up on my grundle, I did an ‘incline bench press with dumbbells’ move. With surprising flexibility and strength I knee-lifted the bag on the outside up and swung my leg over the top.

Normally I’d expect to pull my groin with such a move. Or a hamstring at the least. I credit the rush hour people waiting for me to finish my dance step for motivation.

My phone popped out of my pocket without me knowing. When I made the discovery I wanted to stomp my bag flat in revenge.

But, being a thoughtful travel kind of guy, I sucked it up, told my wife, and spent the next weeks looking at my empty hand.

“Hey, honey, if you get a call from my phone in French, it’s not me. Let me know if you need a charger.”

She was very forgiving about it all. With only a few mentions of, “Why wasn’t your phone in your man purse,” we got over it.

Besides, it wasn’t a man purse. It just looked like one.