Grand Tourist

By Ellen Boer and Peter Boer

When Peter asked Ellen to marry him some fifty years ago she asked what he thought their life would be like. He answered, I will show you the world. Their own Grand Tour has taken them to seven continents and over a hundred thirty countries, and to favorite sites many dozens of times. Their love of history, geography and wildlife has led them to explore the Polar Regions, the African savanna, and the ruins of great civilizations. In this volume, they recount not only the best venues but share their practical insights into how to plan a perfect trip.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483603063

Ellen Boer

F. Peter Boer has written eight books, is an authority on research and development finance, and the author of nearly one hundred articles in the scientific and business literatures. His books have been translated into five foreign languages. He holds a PhD from Harvard University, is a former professor at Yale University, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Through board directorships, he remains an active leader in global business. Ellen Boer is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and an attorney specializing in educational law. She is a top contributor to TripAdvisor, with a broad following of serious travelers.

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Copyright © 2013 by Ellen and Peter Boer.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013903811

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             Softcover     978-1-4836-0304-9

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Rev. date: 03/13/2013

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1   Motivation

Chapter 2   Planning

Preplanning

Guidebooks

Chapter 3   Practicalities

Airlines

Hotels

Packing

Food

Languages

Currency

Cameras and Diaries

Chapter 4   Oceans, Seas, Rivers, and Ports

Greek Isles—1973

Galapagos—1983

Turkey and the Sea Cloud—1994

Circumnavigating Arabia—1996

The South Seas—1998

Western Mediterranean—1999

Baltic—2000

Antarctica—January 2001

Greenland and Baffin Island—2004

The Panama Canal—2004

The Aleutians and Kamchatka—2006

Alaska Cruise—2007

Svalbard and the White Sea—2007

Belize—2008

Bahamas, Dearma’s Cruise—2009

Black Sea—2011

Danube River—2012

Indian Ocean—2012

Chapter 5   Africa

East Africa—1972

Rwanda and the Gorillas—2011

Southern Africa

Timbuktu, the Niger River, and Casamance—2006

Morocco

Libya and Tunisia—2006

Egypt—1983

Chapter 6   Asia

China—1989

Tibet and South China—2007

Mongolia—2008

Turkestan—2009

Caucasus—2010

India—1991-2012

Japan—1975-2006

Far Eastern Highlights

Israel—1983, 1983, 1997

Dubai—2012

Chapter 7   Europe

Italy—1960-2012

France—1958-2010

British Isles—1960-2010

Germany—1958-2009

Russia—1960-2011

Other European Gems

Chapter 8   Fabulous Travels Around the World

Choteau, Montana—1998

The Polar Bears of Churchill—2008

Mayas and Incas—1975, 1987, 1990

Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—1975-2010

Colombia—2012

The Amazon—1994

Australia and New Zealand—1976-2005

Fiji—1975

Indonesia—1975

Appendix   Ellen’s Reviews

PREFACE

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage. Though primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy landed gentry, similar trips were made by wealthy young men of Protestant Northern European nations on the Continent, and from the second half of the 18th century some South American, United States and other overseas youth joined in.¹ Broadly speaking, it was an endeavor designed to expose the traveler to enlightenment, adventure, art, and culture.

In the twenty-first century, the concept of the Grand Tour is at the same time old-fashioned and eternal. The pursuit of this goal is now available to millions, while the original scope of the goal is far too narrow. In the eighteenth century, it was predictable that young scions of noble houses would soon be influential persons in their governments or in commerce. The logic was impeccable—learn what could be learned before taking on the responsibilities of big jobs. Today, there is much less predictability; young persons from middle-class backgrounds regularly rise to become powerful corporate chiefs, investors, and politicians. The pool of potential leaders is much larger, but the logic that they should be exposed to the world before having to deal with it remains strong.

In addition to a much bigger pool of potential leaders, the scope of the subject matter is vastly larger. Today, it is laughable that knowledge of classical antiquity, the Renaissance, French culture, and the Christian religion constitutes an adequate education. World power is shaped by a dozen major cultures and by many minor ones, there are four major religions with a billion adherents, all the world’s continents are known and mostly accessible, and science and technology has advanced vastly since its origins in the seventeenth century. The workings of the world can no longer be grasped in a tour of a few months, and indeed, it is more appropriate to take it in layers, over a lifetime. Much can be learned from professors, reading, and the media. However, our experience is that all of these sources are highly selective and that many are dangerously biased. There is nothing like seeing it for yourself and talking to real people on the scene.

For us, expanding the scope of our children’s and grandchildren’s knowledge to a global context has been an educational imperative. Our purpose here is to scope out one way in which it can be accomplished.

An additional aspect of the old Grand Tour was the collection of art, especially paintings. The works were typically crated and shipped home to decorate the walls of stately homes. Even today, there are many art shops and galleries in Paris and Rome that cater to travelers with this objective. On a lower level are souvenir-type items, some of it intrinsically beautiful and authentic, most of it incredibly tacky. The best objects are almost irresistible, but as our bookshelves filled up, we have become much more selective. However, the modern Grand Tour allows one to identify the elements of style and eventually develop some standards of taste. One alternative is to be eclectic, decorating one room in the manner of Renaissance Italy, another in French Rococo, and yet another with a Japanese theme—indeed royal palaces often took this approach. The other alternative is to choose for oneself a style that one is comfortable with and use travel to educate oneself about the details; Ellen eventually settled on British eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and our furniture, paintings, and china now largely reflect that taste. Some of our actual acquisitions have been made in London or Dublin, but most from auctions or dealers in America itself.

This book is in part a second edition of Peter Boer’s Accounts of My Travels, published by Xlibris in 2011. It is reorganized to focus, in the early part of the book (chapters 1 through 3), on the ideas and techniques we have used to enhance the value of independent travel. The second part of the book explores the some 135 countries we have visited and our observations on the best (and most difficult) aspects of traveling there. The material has been substantially reorganized to bring related geographical content together. Chapters 1 through 3 are essentially new content, and some new material has been added to chapters 4 through 8 based on recent travels to Africa, South America, the Black Sea, and Italy.

An appendix has been added incorporating selective reviews written by Ellen that add perspective to some of our recent trips.

CHAPTER 1

Motivation

The key to happy travel is motivation. Sorting out one’s goals is the foundation of a successful trip. Consider ranking any proposed trip on ten one-to-ten scale:

1.   Culture

2.   Nature and environment

3.   Archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology

4.   History

5.   Art and architecture

6.   Physical exercise/adventure

7.   Personal luxury and relaxation

8.   Theater, concerts, and dance

9.   Gastronomy

10.   Cost and value

Each of us will assign different values to these elements, and some may question the structure of this list. Some goals will overlap. Goals will change over time. Physical adventure fits one’s twenties and thirties; beyond the sixties, exposing grandchildren to the great cultures of Europe and Asia can be very satisfying. No single trip can rank high in all these elements. However, multiple trips can provide balance and fill in many of the gaps.

A life of travel is a choice. Many never venture forth, or do so but to a handful of destinations. Others travel extensively during an active business life and are one day quite content to say no more. Ellen and Peter have chosen to continue, even if with different motivations and different priorities. Ellen loves the total immersion of travel and the challenges of dealing with its inevitable surprises and opportunities. It is enough to remove the stresses of ordinary life and the all-too-human tendency to live a life of habit. Peter finds travel a source of perpetual renewal; when one encounters an unusual site or a new culture, it creates the occasion to learn far more about it in a way that no television documentary can equal. The human mind seems to be able to hang a great deal of ancillary knowledge on a single real experience. Peter also observes that as people retire from an active life, even executives with cutting-edge experience and high-level responsibilities, they quickly lose touch with the dynamics of modern life and their dinner-table conversation centers increasingly on their local circumstances and what is fed to them by the mass media. Indeed, our two approaches are complementary; and before we even finish one trip, we are planning the next.

Value, for us, is a major consideration, and this book will explain how we try to create it. At an earlier point in our lives, budgets and costs constrained what we could do. Now, the chief constraint is time, defined by our personal and business calendars. We would therefore consider a high cost but superb experience, superior to a bargain price and a mediocre trip. We are increasingly conscious that budgets, for better or worse, are a factor in segregating interesting and experienced travel companions from tourists that are clueless, boring, or even rude. We freely admit we are not particularly interested in islands, beaches, or mountains (category 7), emphasizing great views, golf, gambling, and culinary delights, though we enjoy such settings and respect those who prefer them. To us, daily life at one beach or mountain resort is not sufficiently different from one locale to another. So this is not a book that will guide potential travelers to conventional vacation sites at attractive prices, but one that blends the ten elements just listed above.

As such things do, our journey began as kids on a hill. Not exactly kids, but hardly adults. The physical hill was real enough—a foothill of the gentle mountain range known as the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. There, in 1961, Peter told his future wife Ellen, on a hillside at Mount Holyoke College, that if she married him, she would see the world. Perhaps the setting had something to do with the outcome, for nearby Mount Holyoke was once a leading travel attraction in the United States, only somewhat eclipsed by Niagara Falls. It boasted one of the East’s first summit lodges begun in 1821 and expanded many times to become the grand Prospect House, complete with a tram to take passengers debarking from the steamboat dock on the Connecticut River up some 400 feet to the summit.

Peter’s promise was certainly not enough to seal the deal, but Ellen was forewarned. She soon traveled with him to Western Europe and Russia. She was not then fully converted. As discussed below when he suggested a safari, she dismissed it as too risky, saying that if he wanted to visit zoos, there were plenty closer by. He won that discussion, and she has been back to Africa a dozen times. But she added a dimension to his travels; she liked the best accommodations. That was a benefit. On the other hand, she passed on two excellent trips because some of the accommodations were primitive. But she unintentionally became a nearly fearless traveler, quite willing to travel on her own, whether in Europe or in Africa. We have taken some risks because risk adds stimulus to experience, and the real world is not Disney World. But we also consolidated a view that foolish risks are foolish, and we avoid dangerous conveyances, dangerous people, and volatile politics.

In later years, we developed the option of mixing in some high-end travel, which also can broaden one’s view about the better things in life. One should have flown the Concorde and roomed at the Ritz if only to define the experience.

To be fair, a lifetime of travel has its demotivating factors. Jet lag, both on the first days of a trip and upon returning home, is a drag. Air travel surprises, security and border bureaucracies, visas, petty theft, and occasional rudeness create a measure of annoyance. Some of our friends seem prone to the dangers of local food. A weakness of group travel is that the groups too often include people that are not fun to travel with. (Some groups and guides are very good, by the way, and through a process of self-selection they get better, the more obscure and the more expensive the itinerary.) However, these inconveniences are made up by the surprising hospitality one receives in most parts of the world. Travel grows on one as other interests wane. Peter finds spectator sports and conventional mass entertainment (movies, TV) significantly less interesting than he once did. These forms of content disappear from memory with incredible speed and barely compete for attention with the real thing. History grows richer the more one learns of history itself and the factors that shape history such as geography, technology, and economics. And it is more fun to walk into a real tomb in Egypt or China than to watch a Tomb Raider reenactment.

One doesn’t just decide to travel to exotic locations. There is the matter of time, the matter of money, and the matter of common sense. Getting there is only a third of the experience: selecting the site, planning the itinerary is another third. Research, both pre-trip and post-trip, to put what one has seen in context is the most enriching third. Practically speaking, guided tours move much too fast for reflection, for reasons of logistics and because of limited attention spans. Adjust your planning for these realities. Finally, planning must take into account the realities of life cycles. Young people cannot usually afford long periods away from their jobs or expensive travel budgets. Later in life, the expenses may be less daunting, but time is still an issue. There may be a sweet spot at retirement. In Peter’s case, his work brought him to many new places because his jobs contained an international component. Knowledgeable business colleagues enhance your experience in any foreign city. You can use the weekend to add some culture. Given the costs and time of getting to an international destination, once the initial bill is paid, one should not lightly pass up the opportunity to see what there is to see. The local attractions are not only valuable of themselves, but they synthesize your historical, cultural, and geographic experience.

This book aims at providing the reader a perspective on what the world holds for a curious traveler. There already exists a wonderful notion of seeing the 1,000 best places before you die, popularized in books and websites. Our tale of travel begins long before such a checklist was conceived. It covers a significant portion of these sites but attempts to put them in the perspective of modern history, earlier history, technology, economics, and geography. That may help a reader order her/his priorities, but her own research and interests will carry her yet further. A thousand sites is a lot to cover. At one per week, it requires twenty years. Some sites, like Easter Island, are so remote that the cost/benefit equation is questionable, even if the bragging rights are impressive. Later in life, physical limitations rather than money may become the limiting issue (trekking in the Himalayas cannot be postponed too long). Still, during our travels, we have been impressed by the number of intrepid elderly adventurers soldiering on to see more and more while time remains.

In any case, seeing it all has never been our goal. Much more, it has been defining and experiencing the new Grand Tour. Our journey began with trips with a useful purpose and then progressed to trips inspired by curiosity and adventure. This progression² through the psychological levels of safety, curiosity, and synthesis has brought us to more than 130 countries. It has had some scary moments, but it has been fun. The emphasis of this book too will be on the unique places and experiences: there is no need to describe such essential but well-documented sights such as the Tower of London, the Louvre, Piazza San Marco, the Parthenon, or the Great Wall, spectacular and interesting as they may be. But what is off the beaten track will be the heart of our tale: Kwando Lebala, Banpo, Elephant Island, Ouarzazate, and Falun—these are worth describing. Some of these places are quite fragile and will never be accessible in the same way. The rich wildlife on the Nile River in Uganda was obliterated during a period of political chaos. Yemen has joined a substantial number of places where kidnap risk has become an important consideration. Old Buddhist statues in Afghanistan have been demolished by fanatics. There was a time one could walk freely around Stonehenge or the Athenian Acropolis and when Angkor was a remote location; now all these sites have been spoiled by the need for security and crowd control.

In some ways, though, travel has become easier and more productive. Infrastructure across the world is improving. Travel specialist firms have expanded itineraries and access to new sites. The Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular can be used to enrich the experience, as well as to avoid making poor choices. These sources complement the guides, who only have so much time, are constrained by budgets, and the reality that clients have different interests and sometimes short attention spans. Digital photography has vastly increased the power of the camera, eliminated all the drawbacks of film, and allowed one to print an image or view it on a brilliantly lit screen. One can photo edit the best images and readily publish them in the form of physical or virtual photo albums.

CHAPTER 2

Planning

Preplanning

Our first advice regarding planning a trip is to preplan several of them. This practice prepares one for unexpected opportunities. Each year, tour companies, university travel associations, and cruise lines will offer hundreds of itineraries, many predictable and a few unique. Unique features include great lecturers, a terrific boat (such as the Sea Cloud), or difficult destinations, such as Papua New Guinea, Easter Island, or McMurdo Sound. Other trips simply fill gaps missed by previous travels. Yet others may fit in with visits to overseas friends or business trips. For example, we planned a short trip to Malta from London on the tail end of a business trip; it is probably easier to get there from London than via nearby Sicily.

An important consideration is the season. The Arctic and Antarctic are available only a few months a year. Deserts can be simply too hot for a few months of the year. Winter in temperate climates can be bleak, with short days. On the other hand, going off season can eliminate the summertime crowds and offer better or less expensive access to prime hotels. We particularly like to travel in the second week of December because business matters are pretty much wound up by the first week and the family activities of Christmas season are not quite upon us. Whether it is India or Italy, the hotel space will be available.

Wikipedia is an amazing planning resource. One can visit a virtual city in seconds, see photographs of the key attractions, and understand the historical context. Interestingly, when time is limited and the choices many, this ability can not only help select great destinations, but to postpone lesser ones. This situation occurred recently during a short driving trip through the Netherlands, which is very rich in cultural sites and has some great hotels too. Selectivity is a must under such circumstances, as in choosing between a day in Delft or a day in Leiden.

In unfamiliar regions of the world, it is very useful to use proven itineraries, such as those marketed by university alumni travel sites, such as the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA). You don’t need to be an alumnus to read the itinerary, and usually any affiliation with the university will let you join the group. There are many purely commercial travel agencies, such as Abercrombie and Kent, that offer similar tours. If the lecturers are good, these can be great experiences. Still, the dates or budgets may not fit with your schedule.

There is a good thing to know, however. Generally, three levels of agencies are used to put the tour together. Each has its own way of making a profit. First, there is the group that markets the tour, such as HAA (often one of their people goes along to sort out any problems). Secondly, there is a travel specialist (such as MIR or Wild China) that has broad connections in certain regions of the world. One of their agents will come along, and they are usually very good. Thirdly, there are local agencies that provide local guides, cars and drivers, and someone who masters the details of when museums are open, get tickets for theater or concerts, and knows which restaurants are good.

Generally, one can skip the marketed tour and contact the travel specialist directly, who will put an individual tour in place for you with a similar itinerary on your choice of dates and even customize it to do more of your favorite thing and less of something else! It should cost no more.

Hotels are a special issue. The marketed tours may or may not make the best hotel selection at each of your stops. This may be in part to keep the total cost of the tour competitive, but also because of established relationships between various travel agents and the hotels themselves. In addition, some of the best hotels will not take groups, but this consideration does not apply to you on a custom itinerary. We consider it a must to check with TripAdvisor on each of the recommended hotels. You are likely to find some surprising comments, although more often you will rest assured that your agent has made a wonderful choice. With just another click, some alternatives come up. Many times, they are better and sometimes even less expensive. Finally, you may have frequent guest mileage that you may want to redeem. Expect to spend a few hours on the hotel project, for they will pay off.

Guidebooks

Next, a word about guidebooks. These have their uses, but wiki is making them increasingly obsolete. Some of the Frommer’s guides are good, others mediocre. The Lonely Planet series seems to be designed for budget travelers and is a last resort. Michelin Green guides have the advantage of rating attractions as worth a journey (3-star), worth a detour (2-star), interesting (1-star or no stars). This feature is great in selecting which medieval town in Italy to stop at or which three churches in Venice should be the top priority. They are also wonderfully durable publications, but their maps are challenging. The Michelin Red guides are all about restaurants, and we think TripAdvisor may be more useful. Michelin Red is heavily biased toward expensive French cuisine, and there are lots of politics in getting the two or three stars. Reservations are often tough to get on short notice. Unless you are a committed gourmet, using it to select your restaurants may actually limit the excitement and variety of great dining experiences in places like Amsterdam or London. There are also excellent guides to boutique hotels, such as Leading Hotels of the World and Relais and Chateaux. These hotels and inns seldom disappoint on quality, are often unique architecturally, and can help shape a driving itinerary. But the books are best used at home for planning and are too heavy to carry.

CHAPTER 3

Practicalities

Airlines

The first time Peter traveled to Europe in 1958, it was still by ocean liner. The second time in 1960, it was by a propeller-driven two-engine Convair 340 charter, which stopped three times—Gander, Iceland, and Ireland—for fuel. On his first flight to Japan in 1977, it was a thirteen-hour nonstop flight on a luxurious Pan Am 747, a plane introduced in 1970. The aeronautical progress over two decades was astonishing. Flying was still an elite experience. Airport security was unobtrusive, fares were high but predictable, and the first frequent flyer programs were two years in the future.

Since deregulation in 1978, airline competition has resulted in much lower fares (perhaps 45 percent) for the average passenger, but to a race to the bottom in the quality of the travel experience. The number of flyers has increased exponentially, and most seem to buy their tickets based on cost. Older terminals are crowded beyond their design assumptions, seats are notably smaller, and multiple amenities have been replaced by multiple fees.

Today, upmarket international travel is anything but simple, owing to complex fare structures, where fares vary constantly with demand and booking date. It is said that it is highly unlikely any two passengers are paying the same fare. Finding the best solution incidentally tends to create long and multiple conversations with airline agents, a huge inconvenience to passengers, and a huge cost to airlines, but presumably still a net benefit to the average airline, which counts on zinging the last-minute business traveler.

These are our basic observations:

1.   Fly business class except for flights under two hours. The cramped conditions in coach class are physically exhausting and a health hazard (especially respiratory disease exposure and deep-vein thrombosis) to older passengers.

2.   Concentrate your travel with a single airline and airline group (i.e. US Airways and Star Alliance) to maximize your elite status. With high status, free domestic upgrades are frequent, but these don’t translate well to international upgrades. Low status on several airlines is useless. Your choice of primary airline will depend on whether you fly primarily north-south or east-west.

3.   Accumulate mileage on your primary airline and on credit-card mileage programs. They add up fairly fast, but the airlines constantly dilute the value by restricting dates, increasing mileage requirements, and adding fees. Date restrictions are the biggest problem, but many airlines let you buy choice dates by paying more mileage. Do this since keeping more mileage in the bank subjects you to ever-worsening terms.

4.   Be opportunistic. The twelve-hour-plus class of trips—to the Orient, South Africa, Argentina, and Australia—should be long enough to amortize the cost (either in dollars or miles) over ten days or more. On the other hand, good deals are available that make a short trip to Europe or other closer points feasible when one has an open week to play!

5.   Recognize you have three choices. First, you can buy tickets: when fares are low and mileage is long, this may be a great option. There are few date restrictions. Second, you can upgrade using mileage. This is difficult on international flights because of date restrictions. Third, you can buy first or business class trips paying entirely by mileage. If you can get the dates, which may require multiple phone calls, it can work well.

6.   We have long had a rule of thumb that an airline mile is worth five cents. In fact, the number is constantly dropping as the airlines cumulative obligation to frequent fliers keeps increasing. The spread in value is considerable, and it is highly circumstantial. Travel articles and blogs analyze the details. But this rule is still useful in sorting out your options.

7.   Factor in the differences among airlines. At present, flying east (from New York), we find Lufthansa tops, with great lounges in Frankfurt, and its affiliates Swiss and Austrian very good. All the American carriers, British Air, and Air France are spotty on quality and have some terrible terminals. Flying west, ANA and Asiana (Korea) are good—modern planes, decent service, and good terminals (except Narita).

8.   Some airlines are risky, particularly in Africa and the former Soviet Union, where maintenance is poor and safety culture is weak. The Tupolev 154, still in service, has had about forty fatal crashes; and in Kyrgyzstan, the interior ceiling fell down on our takeoff roll. In Madagascar, the pilot assured us the rivet pops on the wings were nothing to worry about. In some places, there may be no choice; but if there are alternatives, use them. And it’s not just foreigners: Cape Air, which flies to foggy Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, uses relatively inexperienced pilots under challenging weather conditions. The pilots appeared to be under pressure to meet the demanding schedule and nearly took off into an oncoming storm. We now prefer the ferries.

Hotels

As mentioned earlier, in the planning phase, use TripAdvisor or other websites to do some basic research.

In the big cities, the first rule in hotels is location, but you will inevitably pay for it. Top spots are Mayfair or Knightsbridge in London, Saint Honoré in Paris, Midtown Manhattan, and the Via Veneto in Rome. A mile or so outside these districts, prices drop significantly. If available to you, reciprocal clubs can put you in great locations (i.e. Pall Mall) at a very reasonable price, but the rooms may be shabby. How to beat the game? Redeem your hotel mileage credits abroad, especially in expensive European cities.

Consider a junior suite, especially if you are staying a few days. There is more space for luggage and more desk space for your computers and papers. From a junior suite, there is a better chance of a free upgrade to a serious suite, which will bring with it two bathrooms and a living space where the children (if any are along) can set up their games and puzzles.

The concierge lounge, if available, is a great deal. Three full meals a day in restaurants chops up a day and is expensive in big cities. A light breakfast and a snack in the concierge lounge, with perhaps a glass of wine in the evening, helps take the pressure off. Concierge lounges can be free if one has elite status with the hotel chain. But beware that many are closed on the weekend.

Packing

Lost luggage can be a disaster for a trip, particularly if you arrive in time just before your cruise boat departs for obscure ports. We have seen people spending the week onboard in the same tee shirt, listening to questionable assurances that their luggage will be meeting them in the next port. We have three tips.

1.   Avoid tight connections on the way out. A commuter airline feeding an international airport can easily be transformed into a missed connection by a summer storm. Take the earlier flight and relax.

2.   If possible, get to your destination a day early. Don’t plan any activities for day of arrival—just catch up on sleep, clean up, and take a walk around town. This strategy helps solve the jet lag problem, and likely if your luggage has been lost, it will arrive the next day, if not in the next few hours. Never risk changing planes to save money.

3.   Carry on and wear what you need to survive on land for an extra day or two, plus essential medicines. You can supplement this kit as you go along by shopping and renew it with laundry services.

Laundry services in luxury hotels are annoyingly expensive, but on African safaris, many lodges are happy to provide free, if basic, services. A two-day stay can be used to do some hand washing. These considerations help determine how many shirts, undies, and socks you need to pack.

Our favorite travel uniform is blue blazer and khakis. It has the drawback of instantly identifying you as an American, but the advantage that officials, airline employees, and other travel professionals will accord you more respect. It has happened that we have thereby been pulled from long immigration queues into the diplomat/VIP lane. Blue jeans are not helpful in this respect. The blue blazer is a marvelous invention. It can help keep you warm, has five pockets for documents, glasses, pens, etc., and is acceptable garb for dinner in any good restaurant. A light cashmere sweater is great to wear on the airplane or in town on a cool day. Layers are a clever way to keep warm in cool weather; consider a tee shirt under a cotton dress shirt, plus a sweater, plus a light jacket. Add a pair of lightweight gloves, and you are all set for anything above forty degrees. Heavier stuff is needed below that temperature, but it is terribly bulky. Shoes are important: everyone needs at minimum one sturdy pair of walking shoes, or sneakers, and a pair of dress shoes for dinner. A safari jacket is useful where it doesn’t look silly. It can carry a lot of useful stuff such as camera accessories and guidebooks, and its inside or zippered compartments provide secure storage for passports and wallets. In places plagued by pickpockets, a money belt is a good precaution. Broad-brimmed hats and sunscreen are a must, and in many destinations, insect repellent is a good idea.

Food

A cardinal rule is not to ruin a few days of your vacation with tourista. Our experience has been very good probably because we follow a few simple rules. Drink only bottled water, soft drinks, beer, hot tea, or coffee. Don’t add ice. Avoid fruits and salads. This precaution is especially tough because the offerings often look great, and your travel companions will be enjoying them. Don’t risk it. The problem is that somewhere in the supply chain, an employee with poor hygienic practices has handled the product—remember not all restaurant and hotel employees have running water at home. The exceptions are Europe, Japan, and good cruise ships, where the risks are minor. A luxury hotel in a developing country may be OK, but from experience, we consider it a risk. Forget food from the local market.

Consider bringing a small amount of packaged food, such as cheese and crackers, with you. You will be in places where food is unavailable or unappetizing; these snacks will hold you until you get back to base.

Languages

Our advice is not to sweat language skills. The world is moving to English, and all senior employees in the travel business have good-to-exceptional English skills. In London today, for example, most of the front desk folks seem to be from Eastern Europe, but their English is good.

Taxi drivers can be expected to have limited skills though, and in many countries, the man on the street you ask for directions is unlikely to understand you. In Japan or China, a hotel business card presented to a taxi driver is a good guarantee that you can get back from your adventure. Pronunciation is a huge barrier. One can learn a few dozen words from a phrase book, but that does not guarantee that you will understand them when spoken to you or comprehension when you attempt to say them. Our practice is just to enlist a native speaker such as a guide or driver to tell us some key local words and attempt to practice them.

From a language viewpoint, the world is separated in two parts. There is Europe and the former European colonies, which actually comprise the larger piece. Former British colonies are a cinch, Spanish covers Latin America, French is extremely useful in Africa, and Russian in Central Asia. On the other hand, there are places of limited European presence. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and the various Turkic languages are exceedingly challenging.

The authors were fortunate to be somewhat ahead of the game. Ellen has basic Spanish. Peter has taken language courses in French, German, and Russian. Both of us studied Latin. This base makes it far easier to comprehend related European languages such as Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, or Polish. Yes, it’s primitive; but with some effort, one can get the general idea of what a museum sign means or of the contents of a local newspaper. If you are in East Africa, your ranger, with whom you will spend a lot of time, can teach you some Swahili.

Reading signs with outlandish characters is fun, like deciphering a puzzle. It doesn’t take long to learn the Greek, Russian, or Arabic alphabets, and some mysteries are quickly removed. A dozen of the simpler Chinese/Japanese characters can be mastered quickly as well.

Our bottom line is that none of this is necessary for a great trip, but getting immersed in language adds to your sense for the culture, and it makes friends.

Currency

If you are careless about such things, unwise currency practices can add up to 5 percent to your costs. The most unwise activity is to change dollars into local currency at an airport kiosk or the hotel. The next most unwise practice is changing local currency back to dollars at the airport on your return. Some money changers give you both a bad rate and charge you a fixed fee. Sometimes, using them is necessary, but mostly it is not. We have the following tips for a grand tourist, who we assume wants to have a modest reserve of local money in his wallet during the trip for the various circumstances that may arise.

1.   Keep envelopes of a few hundred dollars worth of the most useful currencies in a drawer at home. Take them with you so you can handle cabs and tips at the airport and get straight to your hotel. The currencies we never change back but keep in envelopes are the Euro, the UK pound, the Canadian dollar, and the Swiss franc. Over the years, these have mostly appreciated.

2.   Get local currencies from ATM machines. The rate is usually much better, and depending on the local bank you use, the fee may be zero or very modest. In many cases, there are good ATMs in the airport. Don’t count on them, however, since some will not recognize your card or may be out of service. But it usually works.

3.   Understand the exchange policies for any credit or debit cards you may use. Some may charge as much as 3 percent above the published interbank FX rate, but there are some that give you close to that. American Express Platinum gives a great rate but does not give you cash. The Fidelity Smart Cash debit card works well for cash. VISA and Mastercard will usually cost you 3 percent or so.

4.   Take your major currencies back home with you and keep them for the next trip. It’s nice too that you now have a mix of large and small bills.

5.   There is a way to avoid exchanging back local currencies that you may not ever use again—such as South African rand, Thai baht, or Turkish lire. Apply most of your stash to your last hotel bill before giving the cashier your credit card. Keep just enough to pay the cab to the airport and spend any balance, which will now be tiny, in the shops. Again, you can apply that to a bottle of wine or a necktie in the duty free shop and charge the rest to a credit card. All gone.

6.   In some poorer countries, Laos for example, you should not bother to change money at all because the locals prefer dollars. A small stack of fifty or so one-dollar bills can be useful for tips.

Cameras and Diaries

Until good digital cameras began to be available around 1999, our staple in Africa was a Nikon F2 with a 200mm zoom lens; and we assembled a library of 10,000 photos in transparency film format, which we subsequently digitized. On subsequent trips, to Africa and elsewhere, we transitioned to the digital age, which, taken together, with a diary means, these trips are well documented. We used three generations of digital cameras in rapid succession—a small primitive one Peter used while dinosaur hunting in Montana with Alexa; a Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot, which didn’t have the focal length necessary to be very useful in Africa; and then two generations of SLRs (the Nikon D70 and D80). The newer generation comes with a 70-300 mm zoom, an 18-70 mm zoom, and takes pictures at 2-7 megapixels. The lenses are also gyroscopically stabilized. Importantly, the new digital cameras store metadata, including the date of the shot. The latter can be correlated with Peter’s diaries, which he has been keeping since 1995 and gives additional information about location and circumstance. So these trips are largely documented.

A word about the diaries. At the end of 2012, Peter will have completed thirteen volumes of handwritten notes in bound volumes of about 300 pages each. Though his practice varies from day to day, he averages about three day entries per page unless there is something remarkable to say. Occasionally, he summarizes his thoughts in longer discourses. These are a remnant of his practice of keeping a lab notebook from his scientist days. The notebooks are elegant and durable. They are also occasionally very useful in documenting or recalling past events that assume new interest.

CHAPTER 4

Oceans, Seas, Rivers, and Ports

We have found cruise ships to be a marvelous way to visit places that are otherwise very difficult to reach. Accommodations are a matter of price, but it’s worth paying for the very best cabins or suites. Their availability is often an issue and makes planning more difficult. Food is usually good but overabundant. After overeating for a day or two, one settles into a more measured routine and leaves the ship no more than five pounds heavier. Lastly, when there are no tours, days at sea are an isolated and