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BY bernadette noll
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WEB RESOURCES
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Rec. Travel Library: a comprehensive directory to all travel sites.
Epicurious Travel: a resource for researching and planning your next trip.
Microsoft Expedia: a site with features, forums, and a travel agent.
Travelocity: another good site for fare comparisons.
Eurotrip: a site for thorough info on budget travel and hostels in Europe.
The Web of Culture: an outstanding resource to learn about your destination's culture.
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RELATED PODS
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Travel Talk
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I was working as a waitress at a small cafe when I earned the title "Queen of Vacations." Every few months, in order to preserve my sanity and maintain my smiling demeanor, I would schedule a lengthy break from the rigors of the service industry. This caused more than a few sneers from my wait-mates, who wondered how I could afford such luxury when they could barely make ends meet.
Before each vacation I could be found sitting at the cafe's counter, master schedule in hand, in a mad scramble to cover all my shifts. A vacation in the service industry is rarely paid or even scheduled. They happen only when you can find coworkers in dire financial straits who are therefore not only willing to pick up your shifts but begging to do so. I depended on these poor financial planners. As I sat filling in the necessary blocks of the schedule and getting
the obligatory manager's okay, I would be bombarded with questions and
accusations. "You're going away again?" "Didn't you just get back
from a break?" "Do you have a trust fund or something?"
But there were things about my vacations they didn't understand. These holidays were more necessity than frivolity. A well-rested me meant a happier me. A happier me, a more productive me. Thus, a happier workplace for all. This argument failed to spread the cheer I had hoped for.
Another thing my coworkers didn't get was that, other than the fact that I wasn't earning money while away, my vacations were almost as cheap as staying at home. My plane ticket was always the biggest expense, and I got around that by only buying tickets during fare wars. In fact it was these wars that usually drove my decision to go away in the first place.
To my Texas compadres my destinations sounded glamorous, even
exotic. To me they were just the locations of various kith and kin.
To tell a native Texan that I was flying off to New York sounded
positively jet-set. In reality I would be visiting my parents in New
Jersey or cousins in Queens. The difference between boroughs was lost on those who had rarely ventured beyond the lone star state.
Nor did my fellow Texans understand that my vacations were most likely to consist of a simple supper in someone's kitchen followed by hours of
conversation. Many of the folks I visited had children and jobs and obligations which were not exactly conducive to wining and
dining me. Of course I loved to see the cities but more than that I was going to see the people in them.
The most clamorous complaints about my time off came when I was
scheduling a six week holiday in Chicago. Like most of my other trips
it started off as a brief break but as plans were laid it swelled into
an extended leave of absence. Originally this was to be a two week trip to visit a great love I had met in the Windy City on a prior trip. Under the
guise that I was going to see my brother and various cousins, I pined
and planned to see this man. If I was going to spend quality time with all the above mentioned parties, surely at least three weeks was necessary. Then my sister called from Wisconsin and suggested a brief sojourn up her way, "as long as I was up there." I added another week. A friend's band was playing several days after my scheduled departure. A few more days. My brother announced
a big art show in which both he and my aforementioned love would be
showing. This was just days before my scheduled arrival. Another
week. Being a serious victim of FMS ('Fraid of Missing Something), I
couldn't say no.
This much of a break called for a little more finagling than my usual
departures. A month sublet by a friend covered my rent. Several
extra shifts in the weeks before I left covered my bills. More
work meant less time out and this meant more money saved. My manager scorned such a lengthy leave, but I feigned apathy about whether or not my job was there when I returned and she conceded.
I eventually married my great love from the Windy City. I feared that marriage would be the end of my jet-setting. My husband
and I went on a few extended trips but his idea of a grand vacation
was a few weeks at home in his studio. Besides, while two can do a
lot as cheaply as one, flying was not one of them.
The answer to my dilemma came shortly after our marriage. A
favorite cousin called to say she was flying down to Tennessee, the
home of another cousin, for a girls-only weekend. I hesitated,
thinking that still in the newlywed category, separate vacations
violated some sort of code. At the assurance of my husband that we
write our own code, I made my plans for departure. He made his for
temporary withdrawal from the world. This was the first of many
solo flights, leaving my husband waving from his studio door — he the king of his home and I the queen of the road.
Bernadette Noll is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. On being a full-time writer, she says, "My life is forever colored by ten years in the restaurant business. It's always in the back of my mind that there is only one letter difference between writer and waiter."
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