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Feb 7, 2004 So you’re thinking of escaping your snowy confines and retreating to a sunny island paradise for an end-of-winter getaway. Good on you! It’s certainly better than wasting away on the couch, watching yet another episode of “My Big, Fat, Crude, Pimply, Crusty, Vegan Fiancee,” while the snowdrifts outside threaten to devour your car, and possibly your house, like a giant white frigid blob-like monster. Q. What is the best exotic locale to visit? A. After weighing several important Travel Factors, like affordability, cleanliness, number of toxic airborne viruses, and jellyfish count, I have determined that the best, most inexpensive vacation hotspot is Butte, Montana. Q. That’s not an exotic locale. A. It is if you live in Delaware. Q. Which sunny destinations are most frequented by travelers? A. The most popular vacation spot is the Caribbean, known for its beautiful beaches, its bubbly nightlife, and a ridiculously high incidence of groin pulls. Q. Groin pulls? How come? A. Take your average overweight North American male, give him enough pina coladas to fill a kiddie pool, and throw him in the middle of a merengue dance floor, and you’ll see what we mean. Q. Once I find a place to go, how should I book my trip? A. There are two ways you can do it, either online or through a travel agent. If you choose to search on the Web, you’ll need a computer (duh), and a valid credit card (Sorry, Travelocity doesn’t take briefcases full of cash, so don’t ask.) You’ll also need a very long book, since there are dozens of security- related web pages to navigate through, and each of them takes between three minutes and 12 days to load. Q. So what about going to a travel agent? A. Oh, you mean selling your soul to the Antichrist. Q. Quaaaa???? A. Pardon my outburst. I actually love travel agents a lot. And who couldn’t? Their job is to send people to dreamy locales, with sparkling pools and open bars and all-you-can-eat blowfish...what a great bunch of people! And always with the smiles! Travel agents will smile through anything: “Well, sir, it looks like the only opening I have for Hawaii leaves at 2:56 am Saturday morning, in the cargo hold section of a Boeing 767 with only one functioning engine. That’ll be $340, plus airline tax, travel agent tax, cargo hold tax, cloud tax and landing tax. So your total today is $56,250. Will that be cash or credit? *smile*” Q. Would THEY send me to the wrong city? A. Absolutely! But their oversight would be no accident. Disgruntled travel agents are worse than disgruntled postal workers. At the post office, the worst thing that happens is having a parcel accidentally sent to Beirut. Travel agents can send entire families to Beirut. Q. How early should I arrive at the airport? A. Plan to be there two hours before departure time, unless you’re intending to bring a lot of metal on your vacation. Why you might do something like that is certainly none of my business. Maybe you have a lot of piercings. Maybe you’re a spoon smuggler. I’m in no position to question. Q. What would a good spoon smuggler make per year? A. $75,000, with the right clientele. Q. How are people usually boarded? A. Business-class passengers are often boarded first. They’re the ones in the pressed silk suits, talking on their gold cell phones, laughing and dropping dollar bills as they walk. Q. Why do they get their own section? A. Because they’d be beaten and robbed if they sat with us. Q. What about everyone else? A. The rest of the passengers are seated according to whatever order the flight crew decides to select. This might include seat number, height, weight, alphabetically by middle initial, or which passengers have the coolest shirts. Anyone left over gets to sit in the aisle, or in the overhead compartment, provided they are no bigger than a standard carry-on bag. Q. What should I expect to encounter on my flight? A. For a standard six-hour flight, expect two meals of “potato-and-meat-flavored substance”, two classic movies from the Tom Arnold file, a seat beside the reigning “How Loud Can YOUR Baby Scream?” champion, and a minimum of five layovers, including three in Topeka. Q. But what if I’m flying to Australia? A. Then you should ask yourself why the plane keeps landing in Topeka. Q. So I finally arrive. What should I do? A. Get to your hotel. Negotiating taxi fares before you get in the cab is another important Traveling Tip. That way, if you don’t like the fare the taxi driver gives you, then you simply walk away. Q. Will he try to run me over? A. Yes. Q. What tips can you give to help maximize my stay? A. Too many to list. But since I have a lot of space to fill, here are several suggestions I can make: 1) Tip well. Hotel staff can make your tropical stay a great one. They can also make you wish you had gone to Bangladesh instead. Being a good tipper isn’t simply about giving money to bellhops and porters. It’s about doing it often enough to keep them from throwing your suitcases in the pool. So bring lots of American dollar bills, because as I learned the hard way, bellhops don’t take Stove Top stuffing coupons. They have no sense of humor, those bellhops. 2) Beware of bad weather. Nothing beats a sunny day in Paradise. But Paradise is moody. Sometimes, Paradise just wants to be left alone. So don’t be surprised if Paradise throws a tantrum in the middle of your vacation, complete with blinding rain and winds powerful enough to carry a beach towel from Cuba to Spain. Though infrequent, tropical storms and even hurricanes can put a real damper on a vacation by hurling your hotel into the ocean. In the case of nasty weather, get inside immediately. But do NOT seek shelter in anything made of straw or sticks. It didn’t work for the Three Little Pigs, and it sure as heck isn’t going to work for you. 3) Don’t drink the water. Foreign water will mess you up inside. If you ever wanted to punish your internal organs for something they did, maybe a trick they played on you, then drink water from a Caribbean country. That will even things up in a hurry. Ha ha! But seriously, I don’t like diarrhea. In fact, if I never had diarrhea again in my life, I wouldn’t have to accomplish another thing for the rest of my days, and I would still die happy. I feel the same way about intestinal parasites. Never had one, personally, but they sound unpleasant. So if you have similar convictions about not sitting in agony on the toilet for ten days, then stock up on bottled water, or just stick to a booze-only diet. If you’re going to ravage your innards, you might as well get a buzz out of it. 4) Learn a bit of the language. Travelers make things far too difficult on themselves when they show up to a foreign destination and don’t know a word of the native tongue. For some reason, it occurs to people that whenever someone doesn’t understand plain English, the sentence needs to be repeated louder and more phonetically: MAN AT RESTAURANT: “I think I’ll have the grilled swordfish.” WAITER AT SAME RESTAURANT: “Que? No hablo ingles, senor. MAN AT RESTAURANT: “I SAID I THIIIINK I WILL HAAAAAVE THE GRILLLLLLED SWORDFISSSSSSSH.” Don’t be “Man at Restaurant”. Take some time to learn some of the language, or at least some of the important words and phrases. Here are a few to keep in mind: “I love your country.” “Where’s the bathroom?” “I believe you’re wearing my pants.” “55 bucks for THIS?” “Why is our luggage in the pool?” That should get you through the first two hours. You’re on your own for the rest. ------------ About the author: James Bisson is a reporter/editor for Canadian Press in Toronto. So yes, he does have a real job. And no, he's not in a mental institution. Yet. Email James A. Bisson: jbisson@cp.org Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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