A Rebuke to Jon Winokur’s Travel Introduction from “The Traveling Curmudgeon”

Definition of Curmedgeon: [ Historically ] A crusty, ill-tempered, churlish old man.  [ Modern ] Anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner.

In his amusing reading companion for experienced travelers, Jon Winokur points out that travel writing is the literature of complaint – and that bad trips have always been the seed of good material, from the Odyssey to Robinson Crusoe.  Very few want to read about a sun-kissed cruise on glassy seas, flying first class with your own bottle of Dom Perignon aboard a half empty 747, or a sumptuous stay at a first class hotel with incredible food and obsequious service.  Comfort and luxury are forgettable, he says.  “Misery is memorable.”  Your audience wants to hear about the train wreck.

A bad trip is guaranteed to rivet listeners at a party.  And result in a situation sure to induce reciprocity.  You will have to endure listening in turn to their travel horrors also.  Winokur suggests experienced travelers revel in their misfortune, as a form of snobbery.  “Look what I endured,” he opines, “because I love to travel.”  He points out certain parties assume one can’t be cultivated without extensive travel, and this particular set is determined to “broaden” themselves in the face of adversity.

Winokur questions however, whether there is really any broadening going on.  “What have they learned other than how to operate the shutter delay, tip the concierge, and file a lost luggage claim?” he asks.  “What have they seen besides the usual tourist traps on an increasingly beaten track around an ever more crowded and homogenized world?”

He goes on to suggest travel isn’t what it used to be (if it ever was).  Endless security checks, jet lag, homesickness, loneliness, strange beds, strange food, unpleasant seat mates, the shocking realization the US Constitution has no authority outside the United States— “the hardships are hardly worth the rewards.”  Slyly, he goes a bit further and notes that “Travel” derives from travail, early French for arduous toil.   We are told that if you trace the etymology back even further and you find the word for torture.

Tongue firmly in cheek, Winokur questions the need for travel.  “Why travel when you can experience almost anything in the world vicariously, in the comfort of your own home,” he asks.  “With the advent of streaming video, HDTV, and sooner or later, virtual reality – why go anywhere?  Let someone else do the work while you reap the rewards without the hassle and the risk.”  Winokur claims The Traveling Curmedgeon as an anti-travel book, to explode the myth that travel is some sort of cultural tonic necessary for mental, spiritual and cultural growth.  “Avoiding travel will liberate you from the tyranny of the travel-industrial complex,” he concludes, “and I trust persuade you to make all your journeys imaginary.”

I think it more a poke-in-the-eye artifice to increase his streams of income.  But who is to say?

Okay, I know he’s spoofing.  He’s globetrotter himself several times over.  But I’ll bite.  Here is why we travel via train, plane, automobile, dugout canoe, on foot, by donkey cart and all other available means instead of hopping the nearest computer and getting our travel jollies in the sedentary – and safe -- way.

And that is, primarily, because travel is our planetary lab.  It gives us perspective beyond a 17” screen.  It enculturates us in a way that no piece of hardware ever can.  It gives us a chance to practice and perfect those lessons we have begun at home.  And to display talents (such as languages) we dared not try under the watchful eye of friends and family.  Or did not have time for …  It allows us to experiment and make mistakes, and to correct them, in a less competitive and at times more forgiving environment.  It allows us to cement relationships begun by mail, or over the internet. The virtual world is for whetting the appetite and planning your endeavors; travel is for satiating them.  Ultimately, travel allows us to connect with others from different cultures in a hands-on way and ensures that we do not become myopic in our world views.  Paraphrasing Sting in a song he wrote years ago, once you have traveled to Moscow, you realize “Russians love their children too.”  We are more the same in this world than different.  Travel allows us to celebrate what we share in common (universally: a love of family, a desire for amusement, a thirst for higher knowledge and a relationship with a higher power, and a hunger for freedom).  At the same time, we get to explore our differences in a manner that allows you to see “up close and personal” why these differences exist.

Come to think of it: The adventures and scenery and food and company involved along the way aren’t often bad, either !

I could go on.  I won’t.  This just about handles what I wanted to convey.  Jon is wrong.  He knows it already.  He manifested a straw dog for us to beat up on, and is undoubtedly laughing all the way to the bank.  But thanks for serving up the softball pitch, amigo, and offering us the amusement of “Traveling Curmedgeon.”

--Larry Cenotto