My friends can’t believe I actually took a real vacation. No work … just making long-held travel dreams come true. In fact, I took two vacations!
As the pandemic eased, my favorite travel partner and I found ourselves as busy as ever, and we were ready for a break. We debated what would be our best choice: a week on a gourmet barge floating gracefully down the canals of Burgundy, or a week hiking in the magnificent Swiss Alps. Unable to decide, the commonsense answer hit us each at the same time: Let’s do both!
Fifteen years ago, while filming one of my TV shows, I acted as if I were vacationing on a canal barge in Burgundy. And ever since then, I’d dreamed of actually doing it—spending a lazy week floating through that tasty corner of France. With just four passengers and a crew of three (the captain, chef, and first mate), it was decadent … it was gourmet … and it was delightful. Sure, it was a splurge. But how do you put a price on a literal dream come true?
Then, a four-hour Dijon-to-Interlaken train ride bridged our tale of two vacations. Settling into our home base in the rustic village of Gimmelwald, we swapped our cruise attire for hiking gear and began our high-altitude Swiss Alps fun. We’d hiked around Mont Blanc before (a great experience) and we wanted to do something like it again … but this time with a little more cow culture thrown in. So, we chose Switzerland’s rugged Berner Oberland—Jungfrau country—where the dominant sounds are cowbells, distant avalanches, and the crunchy footsteps of happy hikers.
For decades in my lectures, when raving about the Swiss Alps, I’ve said, “Imagine you’re on a ridge—tight-roping high above the valleys. On one side you’ve got lakes stretching all the way to Germany. On the other, cut-glass peaks—the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau … and up ahead, you hear the long legato tones of an alphorn announcing that the helicopter-stocked mountain hut is open. It’s just around the corner, and the coffee schnapps is on.”
Oh baby! I’d first hiked the same thrilling trail as a student 45 years ago. Returning to that breathtaking ridge was a high point—literally and emotionally—of our thin-air adventure.
Back home, I was thankful to have melded two vacations into one, and memory-banked all those wonderful experiences. I’ve never regretted the memories created while on the road. And while I reflected on those fresh experiences, I filed them away with other dreams that I managed to make real:
It’s after dark and I slip away with a glass of dessert wine from my Algarve restaurant and settle into the sand on Portugal’s finest beach. Then I sip it to the roar of the waves and the twinkle of the stars.
I’m the last person on the Acropolis, alone with the Parthenon, as the sun sets over Athens. Even though four out of every 10 Greeks live within sight of my Athenian perch, I savor a kind of timeless tranquility. Then the guard blows his whistle at me and it’s time to go.
I nurse my second pint in an Irish pub—on the far west of the island—where locals gaze out to sea and say, “Ahh, the next parish over is Boston.” It’s the kind of place where they say strangers are just friends who’ve yet to meet. I nudge my way into the convivial pub crowd and, before I know it, I’m a temporary local, surrounded by new friends. I even pick up a bit of an Irish brogue as the fiddler fiddles, the drummer drums, and the lyrics mix with the alcohol to open my heart.
Up early, I’ve found a slice of workaday Italy without the tourists. It’s the farmers market—with a chorus of merchants singing their sales pitches—where anchovies are just off the boat, artichokes are in season, and the fava beans are finally here. It seems everybody knows everybody. And early, while the other tourists sleep, I witness the daily dance of a community in action.
I’m naked in a Helsinki sauna—sitting on a towel with strangers in a woody world of steam, sweat, and long blond hair plastered to ruddy faces. Dousing my head under a bucket of frigid water, I close my eyes. Opening them, I think, “If I had just opened my eyes to this experience, I wouldn’t know what century I’m in … but I’d know the place: Finland.”
Savoring my travel memories always stokes my travel dreams, making me yearn to get back out on the road. And maybe I’ll take another real vacation again, too, heeding the advice I often share with my readers: Travel is recess, and we need it.