getting my travel on

I am David Niven. Or I would like to be.

Not the David Niven of Corporal Miller in The Guns of Navaronne or Major Pollock in Separate Tables. The David Niven I want to be is his role as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days.*

Very few things in life make me happier than traveling. I like waking up in a new place each day looking for things I have not yet done. The more exotic the better.

I have long considered taking a round-the-world cruise that would rival the adventure Jules Verne wrote for Phileas Fogg. There are plenty of cruises to choose from. One that interests me is a 104-night cruise on Cunard's Queen Mary 2 that is a less-than-around-the-world tour because it skips the Americas. I assume out of viral caution.

But I have never booked one of those cruises for two reasons. The first is cost. For a mid-level cabin on the Queen Mary 2, I would shell out almost $50,000 -- per person -- for those 104 nights.

Assuming that the cost factor could be overcome, there are the last two words of the prior sentence to deal with. "104 nights." That is a long time to be cooped up on a ship even if that ship is daily sailing to new exotic locations.

One of the side-effects of the various lockdowns that have been imposed upon us by ourselves or our governments is the erosion of critical thinking. That is a nice way of saying I think our isolation from human contact has driven a good portion of us howl-at-the-mood mad. And what has happened to my travel obsession is Exhibit A of virus-induced lunacy.

I have a friend in Morelia who shares my love of travel. A couple of months ago, she sent me an email during the height of our viral incarceration to let me know there are still travel joys to be had. The attached brochure was from TCS World Travel whose high- level tours I have drooled over in the past.

Like most travel addicts, I enjoy reading brochures of offered journeys. When I lived in England, I would pick up a handful of glossy folders at the travel agency on base and then spend a weekend looking at places I wanted to visit. One of the most tantalizing were the Silk Road tours that I could not take at the time because the countries involved were captives of communist Russia.

The specific TCS offer that my Morelia friend forwarded to me was a round-the-world trip leaving Fort Lauderdale this October. A mere eight months away. With nine stops on five continents (leaving out Europe and Antarctica). And here is the best part. Rather than 104 days on the Queen Mary 2, this trip would take only 24 days. A little more than three weeks.

Obviously, this trip is not on a cruise ship. But the concept is not far from it. Instead of a ship, the passengers are flown from place to place on a Boeing 757. And even though a 757 is built for 200 passengers, the TCS 757 carries only 48.

Each passenger has a fully-reclining seat, but that is primarily for resting. At each stop, the passengers stay in local hotels in Fort Lauderdale, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Fiji, the Great Barrier Reef, Angor Wat, the Taj Mahal, the Serengeti, Tanzania, Petra, and Marrakech.

If you are starting to see dollar signs rolling up on the tally board, you have been sucked into the current of my subtext. That is what happened to me.

Each time I would say, "This sounds great," my Scottish-Canadian self would respond: "What does it cost?" I would then say, "I have to take this trip," and I would hear the same brogue-heavy voice remonstrating, "Let's see the full price."

So, I made a deal with my dueling selves. I would scroll to the price page and take the trip if it did not cost more than -- well, the figure is not important, but it was far more than I had ever paid for any trip. Luxury or not.

Having my "buy figure" in mind, I opened the tab with the basic price. And here it is. $99,950. In US dollars. But that is not the full cost. Because I travel alone, a single supplement is tacked on. That would be another $9,995. Plus the cost of the tours at each stop.

The gap between the real price and what I was willing to pay would have bought me about 18 cruises. It made the Queen Mary 2 look like a bargain.

Not to be outdone, last week my Morelia friend sent me another email informing me she had the perfect trip for me. Once again it was from TCS. But this time, it included a tour of some of the Silk Road countries I have wanted to visit since the 1970s.

"Legends and Empires" includes visits to Vienna, Tirana, Bucharest, Tblisi, Oman, Athens, but most importantly Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. I could almost smell cinnamon in the markets and hear the communist Chinese belt and road initiative tightening around the necks of the folks in Tashkent.

Because I am just like Charlie Brown with the many Lucies in my life holding the football, I had great hope that this trip would be less expensive -- if only because there were only 7 stops in 18 days. But I am also silly enough to believe that the federal government will one day balance its budget.

As I say quite frequently: I was wrong, This trip was even more expensive. $119,950. With a $11,995 single supplement.

But the exercise was not without benefits. I did get to adjust my mind to what the future is going to offer. That there will be adventures to be hand. And, if I am going to dream, why not dream big?

In the not-too-distant future, all of us journey-starved travelers will be lined up like those settlers racing to claim land in Oklahoma. When the starter fires his pistol, we will be on our way to places exotic.

Until then, there are plenty of places here in Mexico that I can visit on day-trips. One of them is the fascinating archaeological site of Guachimontes with its circular "pyramids." 

I will certainly not need a Boeing 757 to get there. And it will not cost twice as much as the first house I bought in Oregon.

I suspect you will find the report on it more interesting than a trip to the Taj Mahal. Even though the Silk Road still calls to me. 


* -- I would be satisfied to play the Cantiflas role.