Travel Books of a Different Variety . . .

They say the more you involve kids in the planning and preparations for a trip, the more excited and "into" it they will be. Makes sense. So we've been reading a few travel books with Mitchell and Jackson lately. The ones that tell the story of what life is like for a young person in Tanzania and Japan have been the favourites so far . . . Mitchell was intrigued to read a book about a twelve-year-old Masaai boy in Tanzania who drinks cow's blood. Better than fiction! One of Jackson's favourites was "We All Went on Safari" which teaches you how to count to 10 in Swahili and has great illustrations of African animals. Hmmm . . . maybe I can get them to write a book review . . . and then we can be well and truly done with the travel book theme.

Last Word on Book Reviews . . . and a Great Trip Out West

I'm all done with travel books reviews but here is a link to someone else's opinion of the 50 Greatest Travel Books of All Time. It includes classics by Ernest Hemingway, Paul Theroux, Jack Kerouac, etc. I realize the books I read and wrote about were not necessarily great literature but they were the ones that caught my eye.

I was also thinking about all the great books I've read in the last few years that are not specifically "travel" books, but their settings were such a key part of the novels that you felt as though you had actually visited those places. I'm thinking of books like The Kite Runner (not that I want to visit Afghanistan), The Poisonwood Bible (again, not looking to travel to the Congo), The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (wonderful depiction of Botswana), or how about Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and what it reveals about South Africa? Anyway, I guess I've decided that all books can be considered "travel" books and now I'm on to the guidebooks, Lonely Planet being my favourite at the moment. We have Lonely Planet and Rough Guide books for various parts of Africa, France, Australia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam (including the famous "yellow bible" a.k.a. Southeast Asia on a Shoestring).

On a totally unrelated note, it is good to be back home after a great trip out west for niece Brianna's wedding in Vancouver. She is the youngest daughter of my sister Lori. I had to return to work after the long weekend but Ted and the boys took the ferry to Salt Spring Island for a few more days of sight-seeing. We also got to visit good friends in Kamloops in between it all. Here are a few pics of some special moments . . .

Brianna & Caleb at their beautiful wedding . . .

Mitchell and Jackson looking dapper in their blazers and ties . . .

Give me five, Alicia! This little miracle baby is growing up fast and thriving!




Gazing at the Pacific Ocean from White Rock Beach . . .

With Michaela, Ben and Thalia in Kamloops . . .

Waiting for the ferry at Schwartz Bay on Vancouver Island . . .


At the Salt Spring Inn (owned and operated by Jeremy, good friend of Ted's) . . .



Mitchell takes the helm (rudder?) aboard Jeremy's sailboat . . .

Book #1 - 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time

Well, finally. Time to discuss my favourite travel book of all (at least, my favourite of those I have read over the last year). It was the title that caught my eye when browsing down at the Sunnyside Branch of the Ottawa Public Library: 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Semi-Dysfunctional Family Circumnavigates the Globe (2003). Hmmm, some parallels here possibly, I thought. Author Mark Jacobson is an established journalist who is known for his humour and insight. He is a staff writer at the Village Voice and writes for publications like Rolling Stone, Esquire, and New York so clearly he has the writing chops to turn out a good book. And this book does not disappoint. It is a very honest, very funny (in his wry way), and philosophical account of his family's three-month journey to the "great places" of the world including the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Pyramids in Egypt, the ancient Hindu city of Varnasi in India, Petra in Jordan and the Holy City of Jerusalem. His motivation for the trip? His three children, ages 9, 12 and 16, had become "prisoners of the idiot culture, which seemed a terrible waste of perfectly fine DNA." Read on:

"Like Moses, I would lead my children from pop bondage. Because it wasn't enough to sit around congratulating ourselves because Rosie's school was Russian and Billy's class list contained names like Omar, Juan, Natasha, and Amidou. Brooklyn was full of names, multi-kulti hues; that's why we liked living there. But in the U.S. of A. everything was just a matter of time. With each passing moment it mattered less which far-off land these kids came from. They were playing Wrestlemania 2000 and collecting Pokemon cards like everyone else. Their parents were probably doing the same.

This is what I told the kids. Nothing less than the transference from the realm of childhood to moral, intelligent adults was at stake. Every nanosecond spent under the spell of the corporate "them" was not only making us stupider and more provincial but also more secure in that stupidity and provinciality.

For inspiration, I turned to Montaigne, especially his essay "On the Education of Children." The fact that Montaigne lived in the sixteenth century, before teenagers were even invented, and that he had no offspring of his own, mattered little. When attempting to enlighten a child, Montaigne said, "it was sheer motion that allowed for absorption of what could not be gleaned standing still." This was the true purpose of "going around". It "stretched the imagination" by allowing the traveller to experience himself or herself as not only "seer of foreignness" but also as "the foreign." This was the real path to knowledge, "the chance to rub up against others . . . to rub and polish our brains through contact."

The "rubbing against", the "polishing of brains", this was the Trip Manifest, the highly focused Vision Quest behind the decision my wife and I made to take the family, and most of the money we had in the bank, to go around the world." (p. 26).

When I first began reading this book, I wondered if Jacobson was just trying to be humorous or if he really was nuts. Actually, he seems to be both funny and a little bit nuts, which is realistically, probably the only way to get through life incurring the least amount of damage.

There is an interesting theme throughout the book that centers around his relationship with his 16-year-old daughter, Rae. She interjects her own commentary at various points in the book in a section called "Talkback/Backtalk". Her observations on her family, and on her experience of being dragged, kicking and screaming, away from her teenage friends at home, are priceless. There is definite tension in the family, which Jacobson neither tries to hide or simply laugh off. In the end, they do learn alot, they do come closer together, but it's an on-going process. When he asks them at the end of the book if they ever want to go around the globe again as a family, there are no takers. They tell him to go eat some Indian food if he's desperate for a little weirdness and leave them out of it. Ouch!

Another hilarious recurring theme throughout the book is Jacobson's references to the "travelling Wilsons", a family blog he stumbles across in his trip research. I could completely relate to his insecurity around the whole issue of parenting . . . had they done right by their kids? Could their children have reached greater potential had they only just done this or that, or not done this or that ? Would they make the most of The Trip? Below is one of my favourite passages in the book - the Jacobsons pop into a cyber cafe in Thailand and check out the Wilsons' latest blog. I'm ashamed to admit I found secret pleasure in disliking the Wilsons along with him . . .

"I checked out the website of The Wilsons, my new arch-enemies: "the fantastic Wilsons", we'd taken to calling them. They were going on a similar trip to ours, albeit on a somewhat more grandiose scale. A pair of doctors and their three brilliant towhead children, they had dropped out of the "rat race" and were already into their sixth month of traveling. There were other families who had done the same, and even written books about it, but they traveled in Land Rovers, with a full complement of porter/nannies. The Wilsons eschewed such easily lampooned amenities. Obviously a heartier, bolder crew, The Wilsons planned to stay away for "a year, maybe two." This we knew from their website, which they scrupulously maintained from the road, complete with digital photos of their tanned and marvelously blond offspring climbing the Mount Bromo volcano in Indonesia and throat-singing with Tuvan yak herders.

There was no need for The Wilsons to get home in time for school. The Wilsons were homeschooling, or as they so cleverly referred to it, "home away from home schooling." It was "better" that way, said Tom, the levelheaded but warmhearted dad and webmaster of the clan (although everyone got a chance to do their postings, so it was possible to follow the altogether engrossing musings of your favourite Wilson). The Wilsons had "always" homeschooled, Tom wrote. Traveling was simply part of the program. To them, "life was the curriculum". The Wilson kids never whined about the "quite rigorous" homework he gave them, Tom wrote. They were "two to three grade levels" ahead of where they would have been if they'd stayed home.

According to the most recent entry, they'd just reached the Seychelles, where they planned to "cool out" for a while. Wendy, the mom, planned to use the time to finish the quilt she was making of the various materials she'd gathered on their journey. "What else would someone do on an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean but finish a Yankee quilt," Wendy noted, with wry humour. Those Wilsons, they sure were fantastic. Who else but them would think of folding hundreds of origami ornaments to stick on a baby palm tree after hitting Bali on Christmas?

Where we dreamed of going, The Wilsons went; what we dreamed of doing, The Wilsons did. The Wilsons were the real us, the us of our dreams. If only we could be more like them, bring out our inner Wilsonness. We could homeschool. I could set aside a room in the house. That would be the learning lab. The children would look forward to our many hours in that hallowed sanctum, the lot of us falling in love with the most marvelous works our species has yet produced. Over time we would cease to see ourselves as this scuffling little scrap of humanity, cut off and alientated from life's mortal core. We would become powerful, paragons of human feeling, walking advertisements for true family life.

Fat chance. As soon as I mention homeschooling, the kids begin to roll their eyes and make jokes about hording cans of tuna fish in the basement, as if I'm signing them up for the Branch Davidians. Besides, did any of us really want to spend that much time together? There was no escaping it. We were not The Wilsons. We didn't have their rigor, their vision, their website.

Then again, it could all be lies. There were alot of lies on the Internet. Every day formerly rational people like Pierre Salinger were floating a harebrained theory some idiot believed. Maybe the Wilsons weren't so wonderful. Maybe they were staying in Hiltons or Oberois. Had whole armies of bearers whom they undertipped. Maybe the Wilsons never left home at all. They could be nothing but a bunch of bad-toothed ex-hillbillies, living in a tract house south of Chattanooga, or maybe just the dream obsession of one nutty recluse, not a family at all.

Either way there was no use getting all bent out of shape about it. The Wilsons were the Wilsons, we were us and there was not much to be done about it, I told myself, logging off the website." (p. 67).

What a scream. I think I would rather travel with the Jacobsons, in all their neurotic imperfection, than The Wilsons any day. So there you have it - my favourite family travel book of all, for what it's worth. Five stars.

Book #2 - Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

I'll admit when I first picked this book up at the library, I assumed it would be the tale of a young guy hitting the open road and basically bumming around for a couple of years before getting serious about life. Maybe that's because of of the use of the term vagabond, which conjures up an image of a scruffy person of no fixed address - the human equivalent of "The Littlest Hobo." This book is much more than that.

I was quite impressed with Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term Travel and have read it through a couple of times, trailing Ted around the house saying "listen to this" and "here, read this paragraph". The author, Rolf Potts, is (I believe) a writer and observer of life first and a long-term traveller second. In this book, he offers more than a how-to manual for budget travel (although it certainly would fulfill as that also). Really, he's setting forth his philosophy of life and how that relates to a dream many people share: the dream of extended travel.

Potts regards long-term travel not as an escape but as an adventure and a passion. He counters the argument that it's a self-indulgent, irresponsible way of life or a sign of immaturity and lack of direction. It's a choice of how you want to life your life and spend the only real commodity we have actually been given: time. He is not against work in any way. In fact, he spends quite a bit of the book discussing the relationship between work and travel. He views both work and travel as noble uses of one's time. To travel, you must work to "earn your freedom". But to contribute your best to your work, whatever that may be, you also have to keep learning and growing and exploring the world beyond your own little sphere. Here's an excerpt that articulates his philosophy better than I could summarize in my own words:

"Of all the outrageous throwaway lines one hears in movies, there is one that stands out for me. It doesn't come from a madcap comedy, an esoteric science-fiction flick, or a special-effects-laden action thriller. It comes from Oliver Stone's Wall Street, when the Charlie Sheen character — a promising big shot in the stock market — is telling his girlfriend about his dreams.

"I think if I can make a bundle of cash before I'm thirty and get out of this racket," he says, "I'll be able to ride my motorcycle across China."

When I first saw this scene on video a few years ago, I nearly fell out of my seat in astonishment. After all, Charlie Sheen or anyone else could work for eight months as a toilet cleaner and have enough money to ride a motorcycle across China. Even if they didn't yet have their own motorcycle, another couple months of scrubbing toilets would earn them enough to buy one when they got to China.

The thing is, most Americans probably wouldn't find this movie scene odd. For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don't really need — we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory — a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

Not long ago, I read that nearly a quarter of a million short-term monastery- and convent-based vacations had been booked and sold by tour agents in the year 2000. Spiritual enclaves from Greece to Tibet were turning into hot tourist draws, and travel pundits attributed this "solace boom" to the fact that "busy overachievers are seeking a simpler life."

What nobody bothered to point out, of course, is that purchasing a package vacation to find a simpler life is kind of like using a mirror to see what you look like when you aren't looking into the mirror. All that is really sold is the romantic notion of a simpler life, and — just as no amount of turning your head or flicking your eyes will allow you to unselfconsciously see yourself in the looking glass — no combination of one-week or ten-day vacations will truly take you away from the life you lead at home.

Ultimately, this shotgun wedding of time and money has a way of keeping us in a holding pattern. The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we're too poor to buy our freedom. With this kind of mind-set, it's no wonder so many Americans think extended overseas travel is the exclusive realm of students, counterculture dropouts, and the idle rich.

In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics — age, ideology, income — and everything to do with personal outlook. Long-term travel isn't about being a college student; it's about being a student of daily life. Long-term travel isn't an act of rebellion against society; it's an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn't require a massive "bundle of cash"; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.

This deliberate way of walking through the world has always been intrinsic to the time-honored, quietly available travel tradition known as "vagabonding."

Vagabonding involves taking an extended time-out from your normal life — six weeks, four months, two years — to travel the world on your own terms.

But beyond travel, vagabonding is an outlook on life. Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions. Vagabonding is about looking for adventure in normal life, and normal life within adventure. Vagabonding is an attitude — a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word.

Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It's just an uncommon way of looking at life — a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time — our only real commodity — and how we choose to use it." (p. 3-6).

Inspirational and practical. I loved this book.

Book #3 - First-Time Around the World

This blog is a year old today. Our first post was actually April 9, 2007 but it was Easter Monday just like today . . . so it's not exactly one year old but you know what I mean. I think I made a very brief mention of this book way back then as well. A girl named Jessica (who is a niece of someone I work with) told me it had helped her in planning her RTW trip. She and her husband are currently in South Africa and have been through much of South America, the Antartica, Australia and New Zealand. They're still travelling and, from what I hear, having the adventure of their lives (it's also their honeymoon, imagine).

Anyway, back to the book. It is called First Time Around the World but the sub-title says it all: "A trip planner for the ultimate journey". Yes, indeed. Put together by the team from the Rough Guides, this handy little paperback is (in their words) "not a travel guide, it's the book to read before you go, a planning handbook." The first edition was published in March 2003. Here's what I liked about this book:

• colour photos (got to have those)



• regional profiles and maps - the maps even have overland travel times and prices for local transport so you can do a rough calculation of some costs



• weather charts for regions so you can try to hit the best weather or at least avoid the worst - we are simply aiming not to need heavy clothing for the whole year



• info on essential gear to bring and how to pack it



• tips on planning your itinerary - and warnings about the mistake of planning too much



• the usual stuff about health and safety, insurance, visas and vaccinations



• tips on finding work abroad and/or volunteer experiences



• interesting section on foreign toilets - good to be aware of these things, in order to prepare the children of course



• potential costs/ things to consider - although this is nearly impossible to figure out. Asking "what would it cost to travel the world for a year?" is pretty much like asking "how long is a piece of string?" It really depends on alot of variables such as your comfort level with basic accommodations, where you want to go, and what kind of activities you want to do.

But the book does do a good job of costing out each region of the world across three categories: lowest and roughest (i.e., staying in the cheapest dorm hostel or camping, nights on trains, that type of thing), middle (cheap but hopefully clean hotels - I think this will be our category), and upper (decent hotel, private rooms in hostels). Within those categories, you get a rough idea of what your daily costs might look like. Obviously, staying in a cheaper country (usually a developing country) can save you a ton of money on a long trip. Hence, we will park ourselves in South-East Asia for quite a while. At least, that is the plan at this point. If we do make it to Japan (could not choose a more expensive country if we tried - it is mainly because it is Mitchell's #1 choice of place to see and that has something to do with Pokemon and Nintendo we're pretty sure), it won't be for more than a week or two even though it would be fascinating place in which to spend a long, long time.

I liked the little doses of reality injected into the book as well. This quote is an example of that:

"It's hard to pick up a travel magazine, brochure or guidebook without seeing an exotic cast of faces. The unspoken message seems to be that this is who you'll meet in these countries. The people you're far more likely to encounter, however, are other travellers. And the local people you'll mostly come in contact with are vendors, taxi drivers, guides and hotel clerks - people serving you. To make more genuine contacts takes some effort. Volunteering or working in a place is one of the best ways. But even if you're just looking to take a picture of someone, a thoughtful approach might lead to a more meaningful connection; see p. 208 for more advice."

Aha, you will have to read the book yourself to find out the advice on p. 208.

What else? There's a neat little chart found in Ch. 4 on "Costs and Savings". It's called the "Spendometer" and it judges how many days of travel you could accomplish with $1000. With $1000, you could last approximately 67 days on the road in India but only 14 in Japan. In France, it would apparently last you 20 days while you could live for 54 days in Bolivia. Australia is in the middle at 40 days. Lots of interesting little charts and calculations like this can be found in the book. As usual, though, very little about special considerations for families. I guess the people who write these travel books and guides don't think that we families get out much. Newsflash to the Rough Guides editors: you don't have to be a twenty-something, completely broke, unwashed hippie wannabe to enjoy seeing the world beyond Disney.

All in all, though, a very useful book. I will leave you with another funny travel quote I came across:

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list."

Susan Sontag

Book # 4 - The Travel Book

The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World is a book put together by the folks at Lonely Planet. This book is mainly about the photos, with every country in the world given a two-page spread of glossy, gorgeous photos. The text is actually quite limited - no in-depth profiles of the countries but interesting capsules such as best time of year to visit, essential experiences, books to read and movies to watch before you go, the one word or expression in the country's native tongue that captures the heart of the place, and the trademark things to expect as well as some surprises. Here is an example of a place we are keen to spend time in - Vietnam:

Best time to visit: anytime really, but the dry season is December to April

Essential experiences: riding a motorcycle through North Vietnam's stunning high country and staying at remote hill-tribe villages; having an outfit tailor-made in the beautiful ancient city of Hoi An; floating in a boat along the Mekong

Read: The Sorrow of War by Vietnamese writer Bao Ninh

Watch: The Quiet American starring Michael Caine (set in the final days of French colonial rule and filmed throughout Vietnam)

Eat: pho (noodle soup) and banh cuon (steamed rice rolls with minced pork)

In a Word: Dep qua, phai khong! (beautiful, isn't it?)

Trademarks: postcard sellers; scooter gridlock; constant honking horns; silk shops; tailors; conical hats; rice paddies; limestone cliffs

Surprises: cold weather in North Vietnam; latest fashions have replaced the traditional dress

The 230 countries - presented in simple alphabetical order - range from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In putting together this book, the editors relied on the UN's list of defined countries, of which there are 192. They then added certain foreign dependencies of those countries (e.g., Bermuda, New Caledonia, the Cayman Islands, French Polynesia) because they are travel destinations in their own right. They also separately feature places like England, Scotland, and Wales - as opposed to one entry for the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Similarly, they feature places like Macau, Tibet, and Hong Kong - which are all parts of China - on their own out of respect to their historic identity rather than the current political reality. Antartica and Greenland are also not countries, according to the UN list, but because they are so strikingly photogenic and fascinating to visit, they also got their own entries in this book. Finally, Tony Wheeler and his cohorts at Lonely Planet stuck in 12 bonus destinations at the end of the book - places they say they could not bear to leave out. Curious? Here they are:

1. Ascension (UK) - home to 44 volcano craters
2. Diego Garcia - British Indian Ocean Territory
3. Gibraltor (UK)
4. Montserrat (UK)
5. Niue (island off New Zealand)
6. Saint Helena (UK) - remote island halfway between South America and Africa - famous former resident was Napoleon Bonaparte
7. Saint Pierre & Miquelon (France)
8. South Georgia (UK)
9. Svalbard (Norway)
10. Tokelau (more islands off New Zealand)
11. Tristan Da Cunha (UK) - very remote, near Saint Helena
12. Wallis & Futana (France) - French Pacific colony

So, all in all, a great coffee-table book. I don't actually own it but have renewed it probably a half-dozen times or so from the good ol' public library so it has pretty much assumed a regular spot on the coffee table in our house. Check it out if you have wanderlust!

Book #5 - Bill Bryson's African Diary

How could any list of travel books not include one by Bill Bryson? Bill Bryson's African Diary, published in 2002, is the account of his journey to Kenya with members of CARE International. This book is only about 50 pages in length - you can read it in an evening. I feel a little guilty that I borrowed it from the library, as money from the sales of the book are passed on to CARE International, a charity that has many projects in Africa (as well as other countries) that share the aim of eradicating poverty. Since Kenya is one of the countries we hope to visit - let's hope things will have calmed down completely by then - I was curious to read of his experience.

In the opening chapter, Bryson describes how he was approached by the staff of CARE International to travel with them and write about some of their projects in Kenya. Being the very funny man that he is, he starts off by exaggerating his ignorance about the country, making references to Karen Blixen and the film Out of Africa. He brings to life the slums of Nairobi, the beauty of the Great Rift Valley, and the inspiring work of CARE in the refugee camps and with various agricultural projects. It's his wry take on the danger that sometimes surrounds him that shows him at his most hilarious. Here's a funny bit from when he and the CARE staff are en route to Nairobi from London (p. 8):

"An hour or so after we are airborne, by chance I come across an article in The Economist declaring Nairobi to be the new crime capital of Africa. My attention is particularly arrested by the disclosure that street children come up to cars waiting at traffic lights demanding money and if it's not given they rub balls of human excrement in the victim's face. I share this information with my new companions and we agree that Dan, as group leader, will be our designated "rubbee" for the week. Conveniently, Dan is in the lavatory when the matter is discussed and so the motion carries unanimously. In order not to spoil his enjoyment of Nairobi, we decide not to tell him of our decision until we see children advancing."

But here's my favourite excerpt - a description of the infamous train route between Nairobi and Mombasa (p. 21):

"In the early evening we made our way to the modestly grand central railway station in Nairobi to catch the overnight sleeper to Mombasa.

Kenyan Railways has something of a tradition of killing its passengers. In just the past decade, a little over 200 people have died in accidents on its trains. The accident that seems to have attracted the most publicity in recent years was one in 1999 when the overnight Nairobi-to-Mombasa train jumped the rails at an interesting sounding place called "Man Eaters Junction" in Tsavo National Park, killing 32 people.

The crew blamed brake failure. Kenyan Railways blamed the crew. No one really knows what happened. The following year another 30-plus people were killed in two accidents, both involving runaway trains, in the space of four days. The biggest disaster of all was when a train bound for Mombasa from Nairobi plunged off a bridge and into the "crocodile-infested" Ngai Ndeithya River, killing 140 people. Ngai Ndeithya means "God help us" in Kiswahili, which would seem to be a not inappropriate motto for the railway itself. Almost since the beginning, however, the train has been known as the Lunatic Express. Can't think why."

Fortunately for all of us, Bryson survived the trip and has continued writing great travel books. And no, Nana, we won't be taking your grandchildren on the overnight sleeper from Nairobi to Mombasa. We promise.

Book #6 - A Year in Provence

Proceeding at our glacial pace of travel book reviews, we now bring you a summary of A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle (1989). And by the way, we had a lovely Christmas and New Year's and we hope you did as well. Now we're back to work and school and the whole two weeks seems like a distant blur . . . I know, I know, it's always that way.

But back to France and the lovely region of Provence (not that we've been there mind you, but everyone seems to agree it's lovely). I have been pestering Ted to blog something - anything really - but he's been mired down with other projects. I believe he will blog when we're actually on our trip, but for now, I will have to settle on "interviewing" him to share with you his thoughts on this book. Not only has read the book but he has seen both movies inspired by it: the more literal "A Year in Provence" (BBC mini-series available as a 2-disc DVD set - you can rent it), and the Hollywood version, you know the one with the badly-cast Russell Crowe as the main character ("A Good Year", more of a loose adaptation of another Peter Mayle story - you can also rent it but don't bother). He's the last guy I would have picked for that role, but I'm not in the casting business so I'll just shut up about that now.

"A Year in Provence" tells the true story of Mayle's relocation to this southern region of France. Fed up with the cold, gray winters and damp summers of their native England, Mayle and his wife buy a property and set about restoring it and adjusting to their new life in France. The book is a series of short vignettes, a month-by-month account of their first year. In this way, the reader gets a rich sensory experience of each season, the sights of the changing landscape, the various mouth-watering feasts associated with different holidays and events, and the gradual development of friendships and routines that mark their progression from newcomers to locals. It's hard to know how to classify this book: autobiography, travelogue, cookbook/ restaurant guide, or cultural/historical reference book. I guess it's really all of these things which has no doubt contributed to its enduring popularity. But enough of my thoughts . . . let's ask Ted what he thinks . . . even though he's a bit preoccupied watching a big game between the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings (apparently it's an important game, I may have to wait for a break between periods :(

KE: What made you read this book?

TE: You signed it out at the library and said I should read it. Was that it? Actually I can't remember.

KE: Okaaay . . . what did you like best about this book?

TE: I liked the descriptions about the food and the stories about meeting the local people, with all their quirks and eccentricities. The writing is very good, it's very descriptive and detailed but it's not boring, it's animated. And the notion of fulfilling the fantasy of living in France, it's a very romantic notion, and you get to live it vicariously through the author.

KE: Absolutely! Can you show me a favourite passage?

TE: I think it's in January or February - near the beginning - they get invited to the neighbours' for a meal. It's one of the first, very exhaustive accounts of the food. It's amazing:

"It was a meal that we shall never forget; more accurately, it was several meals that we shall never forget, because it went beyond the gastronomic frontiers of anything we had ever experienced, both in quantity and length.

It started with homemade pizza - not one, but three: anchovy, mushroom and cheese, and it was obligatory to have a slice of each. Plates were then wiped with pieces torn from the two-foot loaves in the middle of the table, and the next course came out. There were pates of rabbit, boar, and thrush. There was a chunky, pork-based terrine laced with marc. There were saucissons spotted with peppercorns. There were tiny sweet onions marinated in a fresh tomato sauce. Plates were wiped once more and duck was brought in. The slivers of magret that appear, arranged in fan formation and lapped by an elegant smear of sauce on the refined tables of nouvelle cuisine - these were nowhere to be seen. We had entire breasts, entire legs, covered in a dark, savory gravy and surrounded by wild mushrooms.

We sat back, thankful that we had been able to finish, and watched with something close to panic as plates were wiped yet again and a huge, steaming casserole was placed on the table. This was the specialty of Madame our hostess - a rabbit civet of the richest, deppest brown - and our feeble requests for small portions were smilingly ignored. We ate it. We ate the green salad with knuckles of bread fried in garlic and olive oil, we ate the plump round crottins of goat's cheese, we ate the almond and cream gateau that the daughter of the house prepared. That night, we ate for England."

Love that last line. And the Elborns too shall eat, in the south of France, in 2009. We shall eat for Canada!

Book #7 - The Voyage of the Northern Magic

I first read the adventures of Stuemer family, not in this book, but as the series of articles that Diane Stuemer wrote in the Ottawa Citizen. The book that tells the entire story of their four-year odyssey circumnavigating the globe in a small yacht is titled The Voyage of the Northern Magic, published in 2002. When the articles first started their run in our local paper, I was home on maternity leave with Mitchell. It was 1997. I read of their experiences - every Saturday morning over coffee - over the next several years with equal parts admiration, envy and longing. Not that I have ever had any desire to live four years, or even four months, in a sailboat, but I did certainly share their desire to travel, see the world and live in the moment. I re-read the book this summer and enjoyed it on a different level - reading it more this time as a student trying to glean some tips on how they organized everything. They were an ordinary suburban family with three boys ages 11, 9 and 5 years when they left Ottawa. Here's an excerpt that gives a picture of what Diane Stuemer and her family had to pull together in their final weeks before leaving:

"By now we had sold our two cars and were running around in a rented car. There was an unbelievable list of details to sort out before we could leave. It's a good thing I'm a list-maker. I had read and read and read, so I had everything pretty well thought out, from medical kit to books. Address changes, radio licences, consultations with doctors, sprucing up our sails, creating an extensive medical kit (even down to IV lines and cathetars), setting up powers of attorney, banking, paying bills, getting inoculations, taking care of school books, these things and a million others filled page after page of lists. My list for August 26, 1997, was 63 items long, not including a separate shopping list. We had lists of what things we had left in our house. We had lists of instructions for our tenants. We had lists of what we had on the boat and where it was stored. What we lacked in personal experience we made up for in research. And lists. There are people in my family who make fun of me for my lists, but as far as I'm concerned they are what held us together" (p. 13).

The first time I read this book, probably about five years ago, I hardly noticed that little paragraph. This time, it grabbed me. I have started a similar list but we still have a good 18 months to cross everything off. I remember when we prepared to move to Saudi Arabia back in 1999, coping with a list of 50-odd items. We took unpaid leaves from work, sold our home, our cars, underwent various medical tests of the blood, chest and fecal variety to prove we would not be bringing in deadly parasites or viruses from the First World into the Second, and basically severed all ties so that we could officially and legitimately be non-residents for tax purposes. I also recall when my sister Sue was organizing things in Vernon, BC as she and her husband Ken got ready to move to South Africa for four years. We talked on the phone a few weeks before they left. She couldn't chat long as she had a list with 70-odd items on the go. It seems to be more of a female thing. This list-making, organizing tendency must be a trait we are biologically pre-disposed to develop.

Anyway, lest you mistakenly think the book is only a catalogue of their detailed preparations, let me just say that you will be inspired to read about all the friendships they develop and the good works they accomplished everywhere they went. Truly an amazing family. The work they began in Kenya continues today. Check out their website for more details at http://www.northernmagic.com/main_page.html. I was entranced to read about the "Friendly Islands" of French Polynesia (Marquesas, Tahiti, Fatu Hiva and Palmerston Island where they single-handedly resurrected schooling for the island children). I wonder if there is still a Canadian teacher there. If you know, leave a comment! Honestly, if we landed in a place like one of these islands, I fear we would never leave.

Sadly, Diane Stuemer died in March 2003 from cancer. The thing I really took away from re-reading this book is that, as much as she loved travel and adventure, it was her love for her husband and boys that led her to set sail like she did.

Book # 8 . . . not so great

I realize, as I write this, that I have not organized my top #10 list very well. I say that because I liked Book # 9 a whole lot better than book # 8. In fact, book # 8 should not have even made the top 10. But don't tell Elliott Hester I said that. He's the author of Adventures of a Continental Drifter. Perhaps the sub-title should have been my first clue: "An Around-the-World Excursion into Weirdness, Danger, Lust and the Perils of Street Food". The author is a former flight attendant who ends up quitting his job to travel and write about his escapades (of which he has apletny). They include:

• fighting off tranvestites in the South Pacific


• getting drunk on Estonian moonshine at the maker's 80th birthday party


• impersonating Samuel Jackson (he really does look like him too, judging by the book jacket photo) at a Film Festival in the Czech Republic


• joining the Finns in their tradition of dashing from steamy saunas into the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea (naked of course - this author likes to get naked)


• and so much more, ad nauseum

Okay so, yeah, it's fun to be young, single and stupid but this book got real old real quick for me. Obviously, I'm looking for more of the family perspective. It made me think about my current home of Ottawa. My experience of Ottawa inlcudes minor hockey, the corner milk store, the local school, my place of employment, my neighbours and friends' homes, my church and of course, Home Depot. If I were to paint a picture of Ottawa with words, it would read as safe, caring, maybe sometimes boring, but definitely comfortable. If Elliott Hester were to visit, he might hang out in Lowertown or Vanier and write about meth addicts, hookers, pimps, and the length of the line-ups at the shelter. We would have two vastly different takes on Ottawa, I'm quite sure. So I don't think I can really trust his perceptions of the South Pacific or any other place he writes about in this book. He's puposely seeking out bizarre, weird experiences and he manages to find them. I wonder what would have happened if he sought out normalcy in these places. Likely he would have found that too. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Give this book a pass unless you're 24 or younger . . .

Family Visits, Family Pics & "Family Travel" (Book # 9)

Book # 9 is Family Travel: The Farther You Go, The Closer You Get (edited by Laura Manske). Great book, please excuse the poor photo above. But more on that later. We've been busy . . . with family! We've had a lot of great family visits lately. Being way out here in Ottawa, we don't see family as often we'd like. It's usually famine but this past month, it's definitely been feast time.

First, Ted's Mom (Carol) came for a visit in October.




This was followed by a visit from my own Mom (Dodie). In fact, the two Nanas (as they both like to be called) actually overlapped for one day and one night.




One of the highlights of my Mom's visit was that she may have passed on her Scrabble passion to Mitchell . . . we had a few good games until little brother Jackson decided to pick up the board, causing letter tiles to spill all over the floor. This led to fisticuffs between the boys and the use of words by some of us that have yet to be printed in the Scrabble dictionary . . .




And another fantastic family event . . . my niece Tenille was recently married in a small, private ceremony to a great guy named Sean. My sister Sue helped organize a reception for them and I was so glad I was able to attend. Here are some pics from that fun family gathering . . . Tenille is a wonderfully unique girl, her hubby Sean will certainly never be bored.




And just for fun, here are a few Halloween pics. Mitchell was Link from Legend of Zelda. Jackson was a football player (Cincinnati Bengals, mostly because he was partial to the tiger stripes on the helmet).




And now, about the book. This is not a guide book, not a work of fiction, not a how-to manual on family travel. Rather, it is a collection of 45 personal essays - some sad, some poignant, some hilarious - that share the theme of travel as a way to reconnect and revitalize a family. Some authors are familiar names such as Paul Reiser, Mary Morris, Michael Crichton and Calvin Trillin. My favourite essay in this collection is called "Honolulu Mamas" by Robert Strauss, about a son who takes both his mother and mother-in-law on a trip to Hawaii. He's a great writer - here's an excerpt:


"I had no idea what we would do for five days. More importantly, I had no idea if our mothers would get along. My mother-in-law is a firebrand who marched through the streets of Berkeley in the sixties. At the slightest hint of any injustice done to anyone anywhere in the world, her first comment is likely to be, "The bastards!" A piece of plastic litter blowing down the street will start her off on a crusade against the multinational petroleum companies ("The bastards!"). On the plane to Hawaii she insisted we hang on to the sandwich bag and other plastic items for recycling on the mainland. I still haven't found the courage to tell her that, on occasion, I have voted Republican.

My mother, on the other hand, can't stand confrontation. "Isn't that a shame" or "Isn't that awful" or "Someone ought to look into that" are about the strongest comments she can muster about something like, for example, the Chernobyl disaster.


Mom has spent thousands of hours in the beauty salon. My wife's mother washes her own hair and leaves styling to the wind. She grew up eating spicy Middle-Eastern food. Anything more daring than a boiled chicken breast send my mother to the gastroenterologist. As the plane approached Honolulu, this family vacation in Hawaii was looking more and more like a tsunami about to wash ashore."

Funny stuff. I highly recommend this book, whether family travel is in your imminent future or not.

Book #10 - Exotic Travel Destinations for Families

Exotic Travel Destinations for Families by Jennifer & Bill Nichols is my choice for Book #10. I didn't love this book but parts of it were interesting. A couple and their children travel off the beaten path to some exotic locales such as Bangkok, Ecuador, Morocco and Tibet. The first few chapters offer basic advice that is pretty obvious - things like make sure to get immunized, make sure your passport is up to date, etc. I guess I was looking for something more in-depth . . . I liked that the authors talked about the benefits of foreign travel for their kids, such as growing in acceptance of strange cultures and foods and becoming more adaptable to life in general. I also liked the personal tone of the book. But I have to say I was a little put off by what I perceived as a kind of preachy, arrogant tone when talking about the home-schooling aspect of things. Actually I think I may be a bit sensitive in this department . . . apparently the Nichols children love to read, learn and draw pictures and write stories about all the places they visit. For those of us with kids who equate holding a pencil with torture, those parts were a bit painful to read. Can you tell I'm a bit worried about the home-schooling business? Yes, yes I am . . . more books to come.

Travel Books - Best & Worst

Well, it seems the Elborns have become a bit negligent keeping up this blog. It's not that we haven't been thinking about, ruminating, cogitating, and pondering all the ins and outs of our year away. Just haven't been disciplined enough to keep the written record of late. But this summer was great. I'm blessed to have the kind of job that allows me a very generous summer vacation - 6 weeks in total. In addition to hanging out and having fun with Mitchell and Jackson, at the park and wading pool, and catching up on "play-dates", I spent a good deal of time engaged in one of my favourite activities: reading. And my choice of genre? You guessed it . . . travel books. I read some great ones and some lame ones. In subsequent posts, I will review my top 10 and maybe they will inspire you to travel abroad as well! (Ted meanwhile is completely engrossed with "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse" by Peter D. Schiff). There, now at least I have a plan for the next few blogs . . .