Road Remedies

PLAYING CHICKEN
Colleagues – clearly enemies masquerading as friends – suggested me as a panelist for The Trip Chicks' Insider Secrets of the Travel Experts. So I'll be yapping on a teleseminar January 12, 2006.

Blimey. Questions include airfare deals and luggage tips. How do I blag my way through an hour?

Aha! By hiding behind sage Tim Cahill: "Pack half the clothes you think you'll need and twice the money," he advised in Hold the Enlightenment.

I also enjoyed this bit of advice too: "What you really want to do is meet indigenous folks, understand their concerns, find out how things work, make friends. You don't do this in the company of traveling English speakers. So have a quest, some bit of business that will shove you into the cultural maelstrom."

Inappropriate Beau and I disagree on destinations and quixotic ambitions – that's why he's wandering round the world alone for six months. But he's having a jolly good time thus far:"I like Sydney...it sorta like tropical Seattle," he reports.

This news is not well-received under the slug-grey sky of the Pacific Northwest. I don't care how many times people compliment my "dewy Seattle skin". That pallor's from drizzle and no matter how much coffee we consume – liquid joy! – the winters are a slog here.