Travel – Getting the Full Experience

~ My recent review of The Texas Cowboy Cookbook prompted a friend to ask: Why on earth is a travel blog reviewing a cookbook? And a Texas cowboy cookbook at that?

So today I thought I would explain my rationale for reviewing the cookbook (and other publications), in the hope that it will encourage readers and prospective travellers to expand their reading list and broaden their research before they hit the road.

For me, travel is not only about ancient monuments, famous landmarks, lying around on the beach getting sunburnt, or taking yet another golden sunset photograph. It is also about all those other things that go into making travel experiences truly memorable and unique.

Things like trying to gain insight into the culture and history of the countries I pass through. It’s about digging deeper into the morés and traditions of the people that make these countries what they are. And it’s about immersing myself in the travel experience, so that I can hopefully come away from my latest journeying with a deeper understanding of the world and the peoples that inhabit it.

I am a firm believer that you don’t have to actually be travelling to immerse yourself in the travel experience. The travel experience for me begins with research, with reading a wide range of books about the countries I plan to visit. With gaining a basic understanding of the language of the people so I can deepen the connection with them as I interact with them on a daily basis.

Most people, when preparing for a major journey, confine their ‘research’ to general country guides or location specific guides like the one for New York City previously reviewed on this site (Knopf MapGuide: New York), or Road Trip USA (Road Trip USA). As good as they are, these guides, by their very nature, cannot provide you with the deep background insight into a nation you get from reading good travelogues, biographies of important national figures, and the histories of the people, places, and nations you are planning to visit.

Hence my recent review of Robb Walsh’s 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, Bill Bryson’s Down Under, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, and Bypass by Michael McGirr – to name just some of my book reviews.

Actually, I have also wanted to include reviews of feature films, documentaries, and television series on this blog as well, but I just haven’t had the time to devote to this. I believe there are many films and TV programs that help provide another level of insight into the travel experience. For instance, the brilliant documentaries of Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, etc), the travel adventures of Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor (The Long Way Round, and Long Way Down), and the journeys of Michael Palin (Sahara, Himalaya, and Full Circle, etc), all come to mind.

Then there are great feature films like those of the director Werner Hertzog, whose wonderful films, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo fuse drama, stunning cinematography and magnificent landscapes to transport you to a world that is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. Or the more recent Tulpan, by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film, which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, looks at the fast disappearing world of nomadic sheep herders in Kazakhstan, and combines comedy, drama, and documentary style film making to show us a landscape that few city dwelling westerners (or ‘easterners’ for that matter), will ever get to see.

In fact, just writing this entry has prompted me to start putting aside some time to watch these movies, and television programs and write reviews of them. So look out for these in the near future.

I hope this brief rationale for my reviewing policies also prompts you to broaden your research parameters, and gets you thinking ‘outside the box’ about ways you too can get the full experience out of your travels.

NOTE: To see a full list of all the books reviewed on The Compleat Traveller, click on the ‘In Review’ label below.

Image courtesy of Gregor Books…

Sunday Supplement 01

~ Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert seems to be experiencing problems with his luggage, in this comedy routine recorded from an unnamed Australian television broadcast. The clip is from YouTube.

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And then there is David Holmes, who works for America's Southwest Airlines. David has achieved fame (as only the internet and YouTube can bestow it), as a rapping flight attendant who knows exactly how to get his passengers to pay attention to the pre-flight announcement that all airlines include at takeoff.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, enjoy the rest of the weekend.

And a Happy Father's Day to everyone celebrating this day in Australia and elsewhere.

The Week That Was #11

Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: First up, I’m posting a video for you to watch, but only if you promise never to do what you are about to see on your next international flight.

Promise? Ok, then. Now you can watch it:



The Useful: 5 secrets for avoiding sky-high cell phone bills. Christopher Elliott, over at Consumer Traveller writes about ways to avoid exorbitant cell phone bills while you are travelling, and recounts one example of Verizon greed when a traveller returned home from vacation to a staggering $8,000 cell phone debt. Among the strategies Elliott suggests for keeping your cell phone costs under control are these: Buy another phone in the country you are visiting; Get a plan that specifically includes overseas calls at favourable rates; Go VOIP and use services such as Skype; Swap cards — that is, swap out the SIM cards on your phone with a local national card; and finally, if all else fails, turn your phone off or better still, leave it at home. Read more here…

The Downright Bizarre: "Putpockets" give a little extra cash. How’s this for a weird promotional idea? A British broadband provider is paying reformed pickpockets to surreptitiously slip money into the pockets of unsuspecting Londoners. Instead of ‘pickpockets’ the firm has coined the word, putpockets, because the former thieves now give people money instead of steal it from them. "It feels good to give something back for a change -- and Britons certainly need it in the current economic climate," said Chris Fitch, a former pickpocket who now heads TalkTalk's putpocketing initiative. Fagan would be rolling over in his grave! Read more here…