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  Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need

  Dave Barry

  “READ ‘EM AND LAUGH ...”

  “If there’s one thing you can count on from Dave Barry, it’s extreme humor. Non-stop yuks.”—Dallas News

  “Dave Barry is the only living writer who makes me laugh out loud, something he accomplished on virtually every page of his latest collection of craziness—from the introduction to the final page.”—The Boston Globe

  “Have you ever had a vacation where you didn’t lose the car keys or traveler’s checks, get a seat on the plane next to a crying baby or airsick adult or end up divorced without ever going near Nevada? If so, you probably wouldn’t understand what’s so funny about Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need. The rest of us, however, would.”—Kansas City Star

  “For good old belly laughs and delightful play with cliches of the language, there’s Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need.”—The Boston Phoenix

  Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist at the Miami Herald. His books include Homes and Other Black Holes, Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits, Dave Barry Slept Here, and Dave Barry Turns 40, among others.

  Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Wilbur and Orville Wright, without whom air sickness would still be just a dream.

  Introduction

  Mankind has always had a yen to travel. Millions of years ago, Mankind would be sitting around the cave, eating raw mastodon parts, and he’d say, “Marge, I have a yen to travel.” And Marge would agree instantly, because she had frankly reached the point where if she saw one more mastodon part, she was going to scream. So off they’d go, these primitive tourists, exploring new territory, seeing new sights, encountering new cultures, and eventually having their skulls bashed into tiny fragments by the Big Rock Tribe.

  But that has not stopped us. No, the human race is far too stupid to be deterred from tourism by a mere several million years of bad experiences, and today we’re traveling in larger numbers than ever. We travel because, no matter how comfortable we are at home, there’s a part of us that wants—that needs—to see new vistas, take new tours, obtain new traveler’s checks, buy new souvenirs, order new entrees, introduce new bacteria into our intestinal tracts, learn new words for “transfusion,” and have all the other travel adventures that make us want to French-kiss our doormats when we finally get home.

  Of course, traveling is much easier today than it used to be. A hundred years ago, it could take you the better part of a year to get from New York to California, whereas today, because of equipment problems at O’Hare, you can’t get there at all. Also, in the olden days a major drawback to traveling was the fact that much of the world was occupied by foreign countries, which had no concept whatsoever of how a country is supposed to operate. Many of them did not accept major credit cards. Sometimes the people would not understand plain English unless you spoke very loud. A few of these countries—it’s hard to believe this was even legal—did not have television in the hotel rooms.

  So as you can imagine, traveling was often a harsh and brutal experience. In one case, a group of innocent American tourists was taken on a tour bus through a country the members later described as “either France or Sweden” and subjected to three days of looking at old, dirty buildings in cities where it was not possible to get a cheeseburger. It reached the point where the U.S. government was considering having U.S. troops, with special military minibars strapped to their backs, parachute into these countries to set up emergency restaurants.

  Fortunately, however, most of these countries eventually realized the marketing advantages of not being so foreign. Today you can go to almost any country in the world and barely realize that you’ve left Akron, Ohio, unless of course you are so stupid as to go outside the hotel. “Never go outside the hotel”: this is one of the cardinal rules of travel. Another one is: “Never board a commercial aircraft if the pilot is wearing a tank top.”

  These are just two of the many vital nuggets of information you’ll find throughout this book. Another good thing about this book is, it doesn’t mince words. The problem with most so-called experts in the travel industry is that they are—no offense—lying scum. These people want you to travel. That’s how they make money. That’s why they’re called “the travel industry.” So naturally they’re going to tell you whatever they think you want to hear.

  You: So, are there modern hotels in Latvia? TRAVEL AGENT: Oh, yes. Very modern. Extremely modern. YOU: Have you been there? TRAVEL AGENT: Not technically, no, but I have perused almost all the way through a brochure about it, and I can assure you that the modernity of Latvian hotels is pretty much of a legend. “As modern as a Latvian hotel” is an expression that we frequently bandy about, here in the travel industry.

  And then, of course, when you get there, you discover that the hotel elevator is powered by oxen, and you have to share a communal bathroom with several Baltic republics, and the toilet paper could be used to deflect small-arms fire. But at that point there are no representatives of the travel industry within a thousand miles. You’ll never find them in Latvia. They spend their vacations at the mall.

  Most travel guidebooks are the same way. For one thing, most of these books are filled with information that was gathered during the Truman administration. The writers never have time to update the information, because they’re too busy cranking out next year’s edition (NEW! REVISED! HIGHLY INACCURATE!). Also, no matter what destination these books are talking about, they’ll tell you it’s wonderful: “Even the most demanding traveler is bound to feel a warm glow after only a few days in Chernobyl ...”

  This is not that kind of travel book. We call them as we see them. If we think a country is awful, we’re going to say so, even if we’ve never been to this country and know virtually nothing about it. That’s the kind of integrity we have. Right off the bat, for example, we’re rejecting Paraguay as a destination. “Stay the hell out of Paraguay” is another one of the cardinal rules of travel, and we’ll be giving you many, many more of these time-tested axioms as we think them up.

  And what qualifies us as a travel expert? For one thing, we frequently refer to ourselves in the plural. For another thing, we have been traveling for many years, dating back to when we were a young boy in the early 1950’s and our father used to drive our entire family from New York to Florida in a car that actually got smaller with every passing mile, so that by the time we got to Georgia the interior was the size of a standard mailbox, but not as comfortable, and the backseat hostility level between our sister and us routinely reached the point where any object placed between us would instantly burst into flame.

  Yes, we have many fond travel memories. You are going to read about every damned one of them. Also, we may decide to make you look at the color slides we took of our trip to the Virgin Islands, featuring nearly two dozen shots of the airplane wing alone.

  But mostly this book is intended to help you, the modern traveler, plan and carry out your business and vacation travel adventures with a minimum of unpleasantness and death. Throughout this effort, we will try to remember the famous thirteenth century tourist Marco Polo, who, having managed against all odds and with great effort to cross Persia, the plateau of the Pamir, the forbidden regions of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan, and the Gobi Desert, finally arrived at the legendary Kublai Khan’s palace at Shang-tu, where he uttered the words that have served as an inspiration for travelers ever since: “What do you mean, you don’t have my reservation?”

  Chapter One. Planning Your �
�Trip To Paradise,” Or Possibly Beirut

  Planning is a very important part of travel. Just ask Amelia Earhart, the famous woman aviatrix (“Aviatrix” means “deceased person”) 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:

  1. Will you be flying on a twin-engine Lock—heed?

  2. Will you ever be heard from again?

  3. 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:

  1. Domestic

  2. 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, Charming Bathroom Tissue, carwindow 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 (In the form of Japanese tourists). 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 (also we have Wayne Newton).

  Planning Your 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 expences. I do want to stress that, whatever amount it was, I am certain the nun turned it directly over to the church (Or she bought a Ferrari). 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

  Travelers 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 cafe 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 p
eople 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 minibar cheeses (At $127.50 per ounce) 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 (Possibly Africa), 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.