As this new year starts, I'm thinking about how different the world
of travel is compared with a century ago. We take the Wright
brothers' invention for granted, but what an extraordinary event it
was and how it changed the way we live.
As 2000 dawns, if there's any place in the world we long to see,
it's possible to get there in a relatively short period of
time.
We still need the money, but if we plan and save, so many of us
are fortunate enough to be able to go anywhere on the planet.
Even after all these years, I long to see some places I've
missed. People think that because I work in this field, I've been
everywhere. Not by a long shot.
I keep a list of the many places I've missed, and as this new
year starts, I'm trying to figure out which one or two I can get to
if I can sneak away from the day-to-day demands.
Last year I fulfilled one longtime ambition and got to Vienna
for a few days. This year I'm deliberating about some European
cities I've missed, among them Brussels, Venice and Moscow. Other
European cities I've managed to miss include Oslo and Prague.
Despite all the traveling I've done for 30-plus years in this
job, I'm impressed at how much of world geography I've missed. I've
spent no time in Africa, other than a week in Cairo at the 1992
ASTA convention. I had thought of Cairo as the Middle East until I
looked at a map and discovered it's in Africa.
I've never set foot in India, Sri Lanka or Nepal. I've seen
little of the South Pacific and only a few countries in South
America. Even here at home, I've missed a few of the 50 states,
including a stretch from North Dakota to Idaho that includes
Montana and Wyoming, and somehow I've managed to miss Alabama.
As for Alaska, my vast experience includes a stop in Anchorage
airport en route to Asia. I'm not sure we should count airport
stops.
The conventions I frequent seem to be occurring in a lot of
familiar places this year. The ASTA World Travel Congress is in Las
Vegas in September, and so is our TravelAge West show in June. The
Travel Weekly technology conference is in Chicago in early May. I
enjoy Vegas and Chicago, but they won't add notches to my travel
gunbelt.
Travel people move around at an incredible clip, but everyone
I've met in this business has at least a few places they've missed
along the way. I'd be interested to know which ones you've missed
that are high on your list. Drop me an e-mail at [email protected] and let me know some places
you long to visit.
I'll collect some of the more interesting travel gaps among
readers and write a piece about them.