A Passion for Traveling – An Acquired Taste

As I sit typing in the kitchen of the  Washington, DC apartment where I frequently stay, I think about how different my life will be when I’m at home in Paris, and about how grateful I am for the chance to live and travel abroad.  

I always breathe a sigh of relief when the plane’s wheels touch the ground at Charles de Gaulle airport. Please let there be no strikes of airport personnel. Let the passport control line be short and the taxi queue ditto. Hopefully, we’ll beat the morning commuter traffic into the 6th arrondissement.

My lifestyle changes the moment I reach Gallic soil. I’m no longer a slave to a car.  Where I stay in DC isn’t metro accessible and buses are few and never seem to go where I go without multiple transfers.

In Paris, I don’t have to leave my neighborhood for the necessities of life. There’s a neighborhood bakery and a grocer within a block or two of where most people live. It may not be the biggest (or the best) but it’s convenient. So when I go food shopping, my carry-home bags consist of fresh foods, not to mention hot crusty baguettes and croissants when uncontrollably tempted. (The heavy stuff – cans, bottles and household supplies – will be delivered by the local supermarket or ordered over the Internet.)

After nearly 18 years of doing the aller-retour more often than most people would want to, I’m amazed each time my cab approaches Notre Dame.  I’m no less struck by its grandeur than I was when I first spied the great Gothic Cathedral with its flying buttresses and gargoyles on a teen tour to Europe. And I’m still awed by the fact that Notre Dame was already 400 years old when Columbus discovered America.

When I took that first trip to Europe, international travel was still a big deal. In the 50s and 60s, students who spent a year abroad were considered experimental and parents thought twice about letting children travel so far, even if there was (supposedly more than a modicum of) adult supervision.

My son instead logged over a dozen trips to Europe by the time he graduated from college. He started visiting us in the late 80s, after my husband and I moved to France. Often he would stay with us just a few days then go off on his own or with a couple of friends, with backpack and endless energy. Many years later we learned how profoundly these trips impacted the way he sees the world and his role in it.   He gained perspectives regarding how others live and social differences therein.

I regret we didn’t get to take him along on most business trips to other countries in Europe and Asia. But they tended to be too short to be turned into family vacations, or didn’t fit in with his school calendar.

Those of course are key considerations. Business trips tend to be scheduled at other times than school vacations. In many countries of Europe though, businesses tend to go into hibernation during long school vacations, especially over the Christmas holidays and in mid-summer. So when a business trip happens – or can be made to happen, if one has some control over the timing – think about bringing spouse and children along, especially if the trip is to a foreign country and long enough for the travel costs to make economic sense.

Travel with parents (or an older relative) is a different kind of learning opportunity for children. Turning business travel into a family vacation makes better use of travel time and costs, makes long business trips more bearable, and adds the pleasure of shared experiences.

Getting the logistics right has become easier, thanks to the many books on travel with children and above all to the internet, that literally priceless resource. There are many helpful websites, many of them country- or even city-specific, with suggestions on things to see and do with children. (Warning: a Google search that includes the word “teen” will inevitably include some hardcore porn sites; they can be avoided by going to Google.com and specifying “SafeSearch” in the advanced search menu.)

Even corporations that once had in-house travel staffs to book tickets and accommodations have now turned to the Internet. In fact, many simply have business travelers (or their administrative assistants) handle their own bookings via an online travel agency. The agency can usually add a spouse and/or children to the booking, with the business traveler paying directly for the extra costs.

If the business traveler is paying for his or her travel and accommodations, and will be reimbursed later, it’s even simpler, and if company policies allow it, trading in a business-class ticket for economy can pay for the cost of including family members. 

Hotels rooms everywhere now usually have double or twin beds as a matter of course, and if extra beds are needed there’s only a small additional charge. Meals are another thing, however, and feeding a family of four or five in hotel dining rooms can be burdensome. In many cases, especially on longer business trips, corporate travel policies allow (or encourage) renting a furnished apartment or a suite-type hotel room with kitchen facilities. The cost may exceed the company’s limit. But the extra cost to the traveler would be small compared to the savings if only one meal a day – breakfast is the usual choice – is prepared in the room. Besides, your family would have the fun and learning experience of shopping for food in a foreign country. 

For children who already have the gift of intellectual curiosity, travel abroad is an endless source of new information and insights. And for those – like so many teenagers – who seem interested mainly in social doings and too-loud music, travel is one of the best ways to open their horizons to the big world out there.

The advantages to students can extend beyond school to the job world. With more and more businesses operating on a global scale, candidates for entry level positions find it’s  a definite plus if he or she has spent time working or studying abroad. Such applicants are often considered better-rounded and generally more mature. And if they’ve acquired foreign language skills, they have an even larger lead on other candidates.

To go back to my own life in Europe, one of the joys of living in France is its proximity to other parts of Europe and easy access to countries on other continents. There’s hardly a week (well almost) that I wouldn’t like to take a last minute weekend (remainder) package. Some may think it’s strange to feel like a resident of everywhere but it’s a different kind of liberty, and one that makes me revel in the unique opportunity I’ve been privileged to experience.

© Karen Fawcett