Free World Tour!
I'm not a good traveller. I hate being trapped in a cramped airplane seat for even an hour. I hate living out of a suitcase and donning wrinkled clothes that I know I ironed before I left home. I hate forgetting my hair dryer or a pair of earrings. I hate being without a vehicle. I'm not crazy about hotel rooms either -- they are boring, and unless I'm sightseeing, there is often nothing to do. Then, of course, there are passports, vaccinations -- oh, yes, and the cost of travelling. I don't even want to think about that.
The bottom line is that I am a creature of habit. I like my own space and I like the regularity of my everyday life. And yet, there are places in the world I would love to visit. Poses a bit of a conundrum, doesn't it? Not to worry. I have a solution.
Books. Novels to be precise. When I want to travel, I read. If I want to visit Africa, I settle into a fat, action-packed adventure by Wilbur Smith. At the moment, I'm reading The Triumph of the Sun, a book that brings the Courtney and Ballantyne sagas together at last. It is set in Khartoum during the Mahdi seige of 1884. Not only do I feel the heat, sail the Nile, squint into the blinding white desert sun from the back of a camel, and walk the streets of the city, I do so as if I belonged there. I am absorbed into Khartoum. For the duration of the book, I am part of it. All my senses are alive, and I am there -- no suitcase, no travel brochure.
I can already see some of you rolling your eyes and groaning, "It's not the same as actually being there." Of course, you are right -- sort of -- maybe. I'm sure a real visit does provide that little extra something, and yet, if the writer I'm reading is good at his/her craft, and if I allow my imagination to carry me away, I am transported, AND the trip doesn't cost me a cent. No, I don't have the first-hand experience, but I do have a realistic experience just the same.
Here's the bottom line. When the traveller's real vacation is over and the credit cards are maxed out, all there is to show for it are photographs (I can get those) and memories. And I have those too, because what is a novel but someone's memories turned into a story?