Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

GEOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS

Wanderlust in the time of Coronavirus Dispatches from a Year of Traveling Close to Home

Don George

WANDERLUST IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

Dispatches from a Year of Traveling Close to Home

DON GEORGE

WANDERLUST IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

Copyright © 2021 by Don George. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from Geographic Expeditions, Inc., GeoEx, and the Inner Asia Travel Group.

For my family, my GeoEx colleagues, the travelers we serve,

Published by:

Geographic Expeditions 1016 Lincoln Blvd. San Francisco, CA 94129 USA

and wanderlusters everywhere, whose love of the world binds us,

wherever we call home, wherever we may roam.

www.geoex.com

® Geographic Expeditions, GeoEx, and To the Ends of the Earth: registered in the US Trademark Office

CST #1006401-10

Image credits:

Front & Back Cover: Christy Hedges; p. 6: Kim Keating; p. 8: Christy Hedges; p.14: Jaynes Gallery / Danita Delimont; p. 20: Mike Swigunski / Unsplash; p. 26: Sorasak / Unsplash; p. 32 Ioan Sameli / Unsplash; p. 38: AWL Images / Danita Delimont; p. 44 Lightscape / Unsplash; p.48 Fran / Unsplash; pp. 56, 62, 66, 70, 73, 74, 78: Don George; p. 86: Free-Photos / Pixabay; pp. 92, 97, 99, 105, 106, 110: Don George; p. 116: John Warburton-Lee / Danita Delimont; p. 128: Mason Fields / Unsplash; p. 135: Amanda McKee We would like to extend a special thanks to GeoEx traveler Christy Hedges for allowing us to use her exquisite cherry blossom images on the front and back covers of this book.

CONTENTS

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Introduction: An Unexpected Adventure Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus Adventuring Close to Home & Around the World Time, Gratitude & the Importance of Dreams When Can We Travel Again? Earth Day: Three Epiphanies Underneath a Cherry Tree The Infinite Wonders of Our Everyday World Post-Pandemic Travel: What Will It Look Like? Bay Area Road Trip: A Glimpse of Future Travel Starting Over: A Pilgrimage to Stinson Beach Up Close & Personal: A Pilgrimage to the Golden Gate Bridge Old Growth: Hiking into the Heart of Muir Woods Lost & Found: A Pilgrimage to Point Reyes The Future of Travel: Six Emerging Trends A Passage to Pakistan: My First Adventure with GeoEx Ten Silver-Lining Lessons of 2020 Epilogue: Ten Travel Resolutions for 2021 About the Author

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Introduction

AN UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE

O n January 1, 2020, I sat in my study with a glass of champagne in one hand, looking at my travel calendar for the coming 12 months. In March and April, I was scheduled to lead three trips in Japan. In July I was going to spend two weeks teaching a writing workshop in Paris, and then two more weeks on a cruise along the Rhone River. In September I was supposed to teach and speak at a conference in New Orleans. In October, I was set to lecture on a grand, three-week around-the-world journey by private jet. Finally, in November, I would return to Japan for three weeks. In all, I was looking at eight trips totaling 18 weeks of travel to 14 countries. I raised my glass to a year of exhilarating adventures. Unbeknownst to me and most of the rest of the world at that moment, two days earlier, Dr. Li Wenliang of Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan, China, had sent a text to his medical colleagues warning them about a new respiratory virus. The following day, the government of Wuhan had confirmed that health authorities were treating dozens of cases of pneumonia from an unknown origin. Three short days after my celebratory toast, the WHO announced that it was starting to track a mysterious group of

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mailing list. The response was extremely generous and encouraging, with more than 70 people sharing their own reflections, artistic creations, travel memories, and survival strategies. As the weeks went by and the planet settled more deeply into lockdown, I wrote a second essay, and then a third, and we published these on the GeoEx blog. I continued to share my thoughts and then, on April 23, I wrote about a very-close-to-home excursion to view blossoming cherry trees in my local park, which had unexpectedly transported me in mind to a very similar scene a year earlier in Kyoto, Japan. The enthusiastic response to these pieces encouraged me to keep sharing my reflections and, as restrictions eased, to undertake and write about some day-trip adventures around the Bay Area. Over the months, these columns came to organically assume a rhythm of their own, and they became a treasured part of my sheltering-in-place routine. At a time when communication seemed more precious than ever, they also became a lifeline to the GeoEx community of travelers and to other readers who were finding the column through social media posts or friends’ recommendations. And so the contents of this book grew naturally, organically, without any overall plan, throughout the course of the year. Eventually they blossomed into the collection you are now reading, 16 pieces in all, nine essays on the effect of the pandemic on the travel impulse and the travel industry, and seven accounts of adventures close to home (including one on the Karakoram Highway of memory).

pneumonia cases that had appeared in Wuhan. One week later, the first death from the virus was reported by Chinese media. From there, events accelerated. On Jan. 13, the first case outside of China was confirmed in Thailand. Over the next week, cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. In February, the first deaths outside China were recorded. By March 7, COVID-19 cases had been reported in more than 90 countries, more than 100,000 people had been infected, and the death toll had reached nearly 3,500. On March 11, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Two days later, President Trump declared a national emergency. On March 16, the seven San Francisco Bay Area counties, where I live, announced an immediate lockdown on all but essential activities. In ten weeks, the world had turned upside-down. Contemplating this stunning reversal and its almost incomprehensible implications, I did what I have always done when I can’t make sense of things: I wrote in my journal. What happens to my beloved travel when travel is suddenly impossible? What does it mean? How can I make sense of this? That’s when the seed for this book was planted. I ended up writing an impassioned essay called “Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus.” Initially, this was a very personal attempt to make sense of something that was striking at the very heart of my life, of my religion. But after I finished the piece, I thought it might be worth sharing with others. I showed the essay to my colleagues at Geographic Expeditions, where I have been editing the Wanderlust blog for more than a decade, and asked if they thought it would be appropriate to publish on the blog. They all enthusiastically said yes. I reworked it as a personal letter addressed to the community of GeoEx travelers, and we published it on March 18. At the same time, we emailed a note about this letter to GeoEx’s

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to do everything I can to make our planet a better place. * * * The idea to gather these pandemic-inspired pieces into a collection bloomed as organically as the pieces themselves. As the end of 2020 approached, to prepare my final column, I reread all the pieces we had published during the year. I was struck by the arc of their journey, and by how they seemed to innocently capture the spiritual pilgrimage of the year. It seemed to me that while all of these pieces were available individually to anyone online, putting them together accorded a momentum and resonance to the collection that enhanced the power of each one and the poignancy of the whole. I suggested this to my colleagues at GeoEx, and they lent their wholehearted support—and their expertise and talents. The result is this beautiful collection, exquisitely photo-edited and designed by Jenny Velasco and expertly edited by Katie Stoyka. This collection would simply not exist without them and all of my cherished colleagues at Geographic Expeditions, who have been extraordinarily encouraging of these columns from the very beginning. I am happy from my core to be part of this wonderful company and family. I also want to thank my global tribe of travel writing and editing friends and colleagues, whose camaraderie has sustained me throughout this challenging year, and who buoy and inspire me in both the best and the worst of times. As always, I want to thank my family for all the wonder, delight, grace, and love we have shared throughout our lives; these have grown even deeper and more connecting through the challenges of the past year. And finally, I want to thank all of the readers who have taken the time to respond to these columns with your own reflections and tales. I cannot adequately convey how much your notes have meant to me and to all of us at GeoEx. Through some

Reading these pieces from start to finish now is like a compressed time-capsule of the evolution of the pandemic and our response to it. In the early stories, my feeling is that this may last half a year or through the end of the year at most. I feel certain that come spring 2021, I’ll be celebrating under the cherry blossoms in Japan once more. As the essays continue, that feeling becomes less and less assured, and the sense that we don’t know what the timeline of the pandemic will be grows—and the multi-layered lessons that this suspended state bestows deepen and evolve. Now, as I write these words, near the end of January 2021, I don’t have a clear sense of when we will be able to resume widespread, free-spirited travel again. At present, while more than 60 countries are welcoming U.S. travelers, many of these have significant visitor restrictions in place, and the pandemic is far from being under control in most countries. So my crystal ball is still cloudy. But there is good news. Effective vaccines have been developed and are being distributed. Would-be travelers are being inoculated. A new sense of the critical importance of clearheaded guidelines and communal resolve is emanating from our government. By this time next year, I believe that popular travel will have recommenced internationally as well as nationally. I am hopeful that travel will begin on a broad scale even before then, by the autumn of 2021—but I am also mindful that a widespread, coordinated, and continued effort will be needed to contain the pandemic on a planetary scale. We shall see! For now, reviewing in my mind the roller-coaster ride of the past year, I am grateful beyond words for all the sacrifices that so many individuals have made to keep our country and our planet functioning as well as it has been. I am mourning the inconceivable, and inconsolable, loss of so many precious lives. And I am re-committing myself to live with resolve and intent,

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truly dark days, they have been profoundly buoying points of light, illuminating the connections at the very heart of travel, that give the journey of life its deepest meaning. On January 1, 2020, I raised my glass to the exhilarating adventures in the months to come. Little did I know what lay ahead! But now, a year later, I raise my glass again, to a year that took us places we never expected to go and taught us lessons we never expected to learn, to the unexpected adventure that made us stronger, and closer, along the way. And now, I’d like to offer one more toast on the cusp of the year to come: To ever better and brighter adventures in 2021!

Yours in abiding wanderlust,

Don George Piedmont, California January 23, 2021

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March 18, 2020

WANDERLUST IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

I f this were a normal year, I would be in Japan right now leading a group of American travelers, exclaiming at the first cherry blossoms, savoring Kyoto kaiseki cuisine, and communing with the monks on sacred Mount Koya. But this is decidedly not a normal year, and instead, I am sheltering in my suburban San Francisco study, surrounded by books instead of blossoms and maps instead of monks. In ten short weeks, our shared planetary journey—our ordinary-extraordinary globe-girdling human adventure—has been disrupted with mind-staggering speed and scale. In the introduction to my book of travel stories, The Way of Wanderlust , I wrote, “Travel is my religion.” It really is. I have been a travel writer and editor—and more recently, also a trip leader and lecturer—all my professional life. My entire career has been founded on and fueled by travel. Over four decades of world-wandering, I have learned that travel teaches us to appreciate the global mosaic of landscape, creation, custom, and belief, and to cherish each and every distinctive piece; travel leads us to approach unfamiliar cultures and peoples with curiosity and respect, and to realize that virtually all people everywhere, whatever their differences in

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same wonder-frisson that I normally feel only on the road. I’m traveling vicariously too. Instead of flying to Japan, I’m being transported to that poignant land by reading Pico Iyer’s wonderful Autumn Light and listening to Sadao Watanabe’s marvelous My Dear Life . I have a list of movies that will spirit me away, starting with Michelangelo Antonioni’s gorgeous and transporting The Passenger . As I always do when I travel, I’ve also been trying to make sense of this journey. What lessons can we glean from the experience of traveling in an off-limits world? One lesson I have re-learned is how privileged I am to be able to travel, and how precious this right and ability is to me, how it brings such fundamental meaning and value to my life. As a result, I am already making a list of the places I will go—right away, not putting off until an uncertain tomorrow—when we are free to travel again. Another lesson it has made me realize is just how intricately interconnected our planet is. The fact that a virus in a remote region of China can spread to infect the entire globe in less than three months is stunning. Conversely, it is profoundly moving to witness the unifyingly brave and selfless acts of medical workers and first responders around the globe, and the desperate efforts of researchers working around the world and around the clock towards the creation of a cure. And this makes me think: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could realize just how globally crippling all manner of other “pandemics”—pollution, poverty, ignorance, hunger—really are, and work together to find a cure for these as well? Might this current pandemic make us all better planetary citizens? I know, I know, this is just crazy idealistic talk, but still… “We are all in this together” once seemed just an idealistic slogan —until COVID-19 showed us just how “in this together” we all truly are. For the moment, my wanderlust is focused on traveling in

background and creed, want to treat their fellow humans with care; travel forges unbreakable bonds between peoples, cultures, and countries. And in all these ways, I have come to fervently preach, travel paves the pathway to global understanding, evolution, and peace. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has effectively stopped me—and all my fellow believers in the Church of Wanderlust— from practicing our religion. In ten short weeks, humanity has stumbled into uncharted territory. An unknown virus transmitted in a market in central China has transformed into a global pandemic. Everyday life has been massively interrupted and overturned, with virtually incalculable, quantum-leaping personal and financial effects. Surveying this surreally unfolding scene, I have been wondering how to navigate this new and very foreign place: How do we thrive—and keep our wanderlust alive? The first thing I tell myself is that this is temporary. We will find a way to contain this virus. The day will come when we will once again freely intermingle with each other and explore the far corners of the globe. We know this day will come, but we don’t know when. And so, I’m trying to make my Wanderlust more Zen. I’m focusing on appreciating the little things that I’m normally too busy to notice: the way the sun bright-stipples the spring-green leaves outside my window, the soul-soothing heat and aroma of a good cup of tea, the richness of the artifacts—a miniature moai from Easter Island, a pottery plate from Crete, a woodblock print of Mount Fuji—that surround me. And since travel continues to delight and define me, I’m traveling in my own backyard, literally. I’m communing with the yellow freesia that have just begun to bloom, exulting in the buds on the persimmon tree’s boughs, urging the birds of paradise to take orange-winged flight. I’m approaching home as if it were a new and exhilarating place and feeling some of the

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my neighborhood and in my imagination. For the latter, we at GeoEx will do our best in the weeks to come to nurture your wanderlust with inspiring travel photos, tales, and videos, all to celebrate the ordinary and extraordinary riches of this planet we share and to prime you for the blessed moment when we are once again able to venture out there. What about you? I would love to know what you’re doing to keep your wanderlust alive. What books are you reading, films are you watching, songs are you listening to? What other wanderlust-whetting suggestions do you have to share? Please email them to me at don@geoex.com. Together we can turn this imposed isolation into a community celebration. I look forward to traveling with you! Finally, in this time of global suspension and unease, I want to thank you, as always, for sharing your passion and trust with us, around the world and online. I believe firmly that we will eventually emerge from this wiser and stronger than ever before, and more keenly aware of the precious interconnectedness of our planet. With this in mind, I remain yours in wanderlust, even—or especially—in challenging times!

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March 26, 2020

ADVENTURING CLOSE TO HOME & AROUND THE WORLD

L ast week I sent you my reflections on “Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus.” The response to that email was tremendously heartening and inspiring! More than 70 readers took the time to write back to me, sending everything from poems and paintings to book and film recommendations to heartwarming descriptions of travels past and to come, and strategies to continue to thrive within our current confines. Thank you! I can hardly express how much that response buoyed me and all of us here at GeoEx. Some of you sent book recommendations. Eileen Kurahashi wrote, “I’m stuck in Australia and reading The Biggest Estate on Earth , by Bill Gammage.” Claude Bernstine recommended Walking the Kiso Road , by William Scott Wilson, and Danniece Bobeche sent a photo of the book she’s reading, Caribbean , by James Michener. Marty Krasney wrote, “I’d like to suggest The Leopard , by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa—book best, movie fine.” And Stephen Joseph Kukoy kindly wrote, “I recently reread your book, The Way of Wanderlust , and enjoyed it thoroughly. I agree with you—‘travel is my religion’ as well, so to make up for the inability to travel physically at this time,

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I’m rereading Paul Theroux’s The Pillars of Hercules and just starting his new book, On the Plain of Snakes . If we can’t travel as we are used to doing, we can certainly travel with our minds.” Amen! Some of you shared what you’re doing to keep thriving at home. Gwen wrote, “I’m cherishing my walks outside as travel. For now.” Amy Poster said, “Best for me is keeping in touch with friends worldwide.” Irene Rawlings wrote, “I, too, am putting together a list of places to go when the world stops tilting.” Kathy Wales said, “It’s also time to reflect on our travel memories and to finally edit all the photos.” Arnold Kanter added, “Aside from looking at photos, I’m reading those old journals that I wrote, some more than thirty years ago, that I thought neither I nor anybody else would ever look at again. Those journals evoke so many details of trips I’d taken that enhance the richness of my memories even more than the photos.” And Barbara Krause said, “I think I’ll brew a cup of tea, grab one of the cookies I just made, peruse my travel bookshelf for something to read (or reread), and settle in.” Some of you sent even more ambitious responses, including poetry, essays, and paintings. We have created a blog page to share some of these responses here. Thank you all! As for me, since I wrote you last week, I have become a bit more accustomed to the rhythms, rites, and riches of this new life. I have slowed down and embraced a much more Zen- infused approach to everyday acts. I’ve been remembering how, when I was studying Japanese tea ceremony, I learned to attend to and revel in each moment: the soothing shoosh of thick white socks crossing tatami mats, the slow lifting of the bamboo hishaku ladle to transfer hot water from the iron pot

to the tea bowl, the plonk of the thin bamboo chashaku scoop on the lip of the tea caddy, the swish of the bamboo chasen whisking the green powder into a frothy tea, and the guest’s final satisfied slurping of this treat. I’ve been trying to apply that kind of attentiveness to my everyday acts—absorbing the warmth and aroma of a steaming cup of tea, slicing a rainbow of red, green, yellow, and orange peppers for last night’s shrimp stir fry, listening to the soft patter of a morning rain-shower and inhaling the rich wet- earth scent afterward. On my daily backyard expeditions, I’ve seen last week’s lone freesia joined by a half dozen others, watched white and purple cyclamen open to the sun, spied tiny crimson rosebuds emerge, and picked plump glistening lemons. And I’ve relearned that the closer you look, the more the world bestows. For music, I’m still letting Sadao Watanabe sweep me away to Japan and beyond with his luscious, lilting rhythms. I’ve also found delight in Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, whose notes always somehow purifyingly immerse me in nature. I’ve been losing myself to Monet’s painting Les Coquelicots , which embodies eternally youthful innocence and optimism for me. From the bookshelf, I’ve been rereading a favorite anthology of travelers’ tales called The Kindness of Strangers . This collection (which, I must blushingly admit, I edited) presents 24 true stories of unexpected kindness around the world; it’s a wonderfully uplifting antidote to the isolation of self-quarantine and the awkward emotional choreography of the social distance dance. Next on my reading list is Peter Matthiessen’s masterful, moving The Snow Leopard , a book that changed my life four decades ago, which I’m hoping will again provide guidance and inspiration. I’ve also been checking in with friends around the globe to say hello and compare our sheltering situations; these e-threads weave a vibrant worldly shawl that shows just how intimately

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our individual isolations connect us all. I’ve been buying gift cards for some of my favorite restaurants and bookstores—a small gesture of support and solidarity in these challenging times. And I’ve been learning how many good people and organizations are working overtime to help people; just one among many of these is Feeding America, which has expanded its efforts to feed the growing ranks of people in need. How about you? What have you been doing to keep your wanderlust alive? And how best can we help you thrive? One of the most inspiring outcomes of our global predicament has been how people have started coming together, on all kinds of levels, in all kinds of ways. Last week’s outpouring of responses from GeoEx travelers was a wonderful example of such coming together, and I warmly urge you to continue to share your recommendations and reflections. You can send them to me or share them with our wanderlust-loving community by posting your comments here. As I wrote last week, together we can turn this imposed isolation into a community celebration. We look forward to hearing from you! Finally, a note about sowing and reaping: Two weeks ago, shortly before the shelter in place directive was announced, a dear friend gave us some beautiful purple tulips. Their blooms brightened our days until the last petals fell. Yesterday I planted this gift in a corner of our little garden because, as every wanderluster knows, there is a time to reap and a time to sow—and when those tulips bloom again next spring, they will remind me of this surreal scene and of the importance of seeding, and tending, every dream. With that in mind, we at GeoEx will be sending some seeds your way in the days and weeks to come. This weekend we’ll spotlight a wonderful story by GeoEx staffer Jess Silber about her epiphanic trip to see gorillas in the Congo. And soon thereafter we’ll take you on an epic adventure to Antarctica through the photos of GeoEx’s Kate Doty.

We hope you’ll enjoy these seeds, and we hope they’ll sow some of your own travel dreams. Is there any special content you’d like to see from us as we prepare our virtual adventures? Please let us know! Thank you for your attention, and for sharing this journey— our journey—together!

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April 7, 2020

TIME, GRATITUDE & THE IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS

L ast week’s letter describing what a number of GeoEx staffers are doing to keep their wanderlust alive struck a chord with many of you. Thank you for your enthusiastic responses. Our precious relationship with you—our passionate travelers—is the core of what we do and why we do it, and it was immensely gratifying to see this outpouring of concern, support, and solidarity from you. Thank you! In the past week, as I’ve settled into this new (and temporary, as I keep assuring myself) normal, I’ve been reflecting that in life, as in travel, unanticipated disruptions can be viewed as a disaster, an inconvenience, or an opportunity. In travel, I’ve always chosen to view these as opportunities, and so I am choosing to do with this life-disruption, too. I’ve been thinking about the unexpected gifts that working from home has bestowed, and one of the greatest gifts of all has been simply time. With no commute and minimal distractions, every day seems both longer and somehow gentler. I know this isn’t true for everyone—if my children were young enough to be home and needing home-schooling, for example, I don’t think I’d be writing these same words. But for my empty-nesting wife and

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me, the rhythm of the day is evenly paced. After breakfast, I go to my study, and all my activities—writing, reading, business meetings—take place right there. At the end of the workday, there’s no rush hour traffic to contend with and no events or gatherings to race off to; we suddenly have time to cook, and to have leisurely meals and conversations. And of course, I have time for my daily backyard expeditions. Time slows and stretches, and when that happens, I’m able to see more clearly, breathe more deeply, live more keenly. It’s one of the gifts I normally prize when I travel and am lifted out of my daily routine, but in this upside-down shelter-in-place world, the gift is being immersed in this new, non-traveling daily routine. Another gift of this disruption has been the amplitude of my gratitude. Every day, with every article I read and newscast I see, I feel a new surge of almost inexpressible gratitude for all the heroes on the front lines—the medical personnel especially, but also the grocery store clerks, pharmacists, sanitation workers, public transportation drivers, police and firefighters, scientists and medical researchers, all of the people in essential jobs who are out there every day putting their health at risk to do the work that has to be done. I’m also grateful for my family and a supportive circle of close friends. We have regular Skype check-ins with our children and I maintain regular email exchanges with friends. While I have mixed feelings about social media, judicious doses of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have proven good ways to keep enlivening and expanding my world from the isolation of my study. And I’m grateful to my cherished colleagues, who are finding creative ways to keep their—and our—spirits up and who are working as hard as, or harder than, ever. I have renewed gratitude for this wide network of support, which is both grounding and buoying in these unsettled and unsettling times.

I’m also grateful to the goddess Serendipity, who as always places unexpected gifts in my path. One of these this past weekend was the opportunity to host an online conversation with the wonderful author Isabel Allende as part of Book Passage bookstore’s newly launched Conversations with Authors series. During the course of our conversation, Isabel and I talked about the new stay-at-home world. We talked about how it is as if a global Pause button has been pushed, and how this pause represents an opportunity for us all to reflect on our lives before and after: Do we want to keep living the way we’ve been living? Is there anything we want to change going forward? We can ask these questions on every level, from the personal to the national to the international. Thinking this way, Isabel memorably concluded, we can see that this moment offers us the rare chance to enact an evolutionary quantum leap. The opportunity is ours to seize. [You can view the conversation in its entirety here.] I have been thinking along these lines, too. Watching the astonishing global effort to find a cure to COVID-19, I have been thinking, what if we could marshal the same global resources, will, and sense of urgency to eradicate the other viruses—poverty, ignorance, pollution, and more—that plague our planet? Think of what we could accomplish! In recent years, “disruption” has become the It notion in the tech world; disruption gives birth to business-transforming, society- realigning change. Now we are living disruption on a global scale. As Isabel said, this is an unprecedented opportunity for us as a planetary species, as the one tribe we truly are, to reassess where we have been and where we are going, and to ponder what really matters, inside ourselves and outside, in the world we make. Are we on the brink of an evolutionary quantum leap? Wouldn’t that be wonderful!

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My conversation with Isabel reinforced for me the importance of tending our dreams, especially in our current situation. And as I inevitably do, I returned in my mind to the world of travel. One gift of this sheltering at home, as I wrote in an earlier letter, has been to make me realize anew just how fundamentally important travel is to my life. And especially in this state of suspension, travel-dreaming gives an essential sense of direction and purpose. A corollary gift, I’ve realized since my talk with Isabel, is a new sense of urgency about my travel dreams. If COVID-19 had not pressed the planetary Pause button, right now I would be in Japan on a GeoEx journey, exclaiming at evanescent cherry blossoms and soaking in soul-soothing onsens . This has made me think—and I know it has made many others like me think as well—that when we are able to travel the world again, I’m not going to postpone the really important trips for an uncertain tomorrow: I’m going to do them ASAP! This urgency inspired me to spend a heavenly hour yesterday trekking through the exquisite GeoEx catalog, truly a book of dreams. Where do I want to go ASAP? There are so many places I want to go, so many trips I want to take, but at the top of my list is an expedition to see gorillas, in Uganda, Rwanda, or the Congo, as Jess Silber so vividly described in her wonderful story. Somehow the notion of a close encounter with these ancient, intimate relatives is irresistible. I’m thinking too of Antarctica; once upon a time, I thought this was just a vast white wasteland, but everyone I know who has gone there has called it a life-changing experience, and I think now’s a good time for a mind-cleansing, soul-soaring adventure. Where else? The purity of Bhutan deeply appeals, especially this enticing trip to little-visited Eastern Bhutan. And one natural phenomenon I want very much to see is the Northern Lights, so I’ve got Iceland in my sights.

How about you? What’s on your ASAP list? We want to hear your dreams! Please share them with our community of wanderlusters in the Leave a Reply field below, or if you prefer, send them in an email to me. And whenever you’re ready to start making that ASAP plan, please give us a call. We’d love to work with you to make your travel dreams come true!

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April 16, 2020

WHEN CAN WE TRAVEL AGAIN?

I n last week’s letter, I wrote that one of the unexpected gifts of sheltering in place is that it has imparted a new urgency to my travel dreams and has inspired me to create an ASAP List: the places I’m going to explore as soon as we’re able to wander the world again. I said that Antarctica, Bhutan, and Iceland are on that shortlist, and that viewing gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda, or the Congo is at the top of the list. Many readers responded with their ASAP Lists. Gorilla- trekking was a prime dream for a number of travelers, as was journeying to Antarctica and Iceland. Others shared my desire to go to Bhutan. Many other readers wrote enthusiastically to say that they have already been to one or more of these places and that they would urge me to go there ASAP! Other destinations that featured high on readers’ ASAP Lists were the Galápagos, South Africa, Japan, Vietnam, Patagonia, and Botswana. Sheltering-in-Place and Planning a Grand Opus One note especially inspired me. Doc Robinson wrote, “I have been taking advantage of my new-found free moments to create my own travel itinerary which will begin as the current

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Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

When Can We Travel Again?

conditions improve. For several years now I have had the desire to complete an around-the-world journey in one fell swoop. I am creating my Grand Opus which will take the better part of a year to accomplish.” Mr. Robinson offered more details about his Grand Opus: “I have found from my own experience that my most memorable moments have been from the connections made with local people as well as with other travelers along the way. My journey will be in general from east to west. My timetable is to include the following items: “1. A stopover in the capital of each country I pass through, spending three to four days in each to get the lay of the land. “2. Once outside of the capital, visit various historical locations, which contributed to the development and growth of the national character. “3. Seek out sacred sites from temples to megaliths that have shaped the pulse and soul of the cultural psyche. “4. Find places to pause, rest, and recharge my mind and body. This I anticipate being my personal favorite. “At this juncture my route, although not cut in stone, includes 32 countries outside the United States. I will begin in Iceland and finish in Japan. As a student of life, my underlying mission is to work on becoming a true Citizen of the World.” In the media world last week, one question that seemed to gain momentum was “When are we going to be able to travel again?” Pundits and prognosticators began to weigh in on this, offering analyses and opinions that stretched from “sometime this summer” to “2021.” Of course, the truth is that no one knows right now. The best we can do as travelers is keep as informed as possible and refine our ASAP Lists so that we’re Thank you, Doc Robinson! I applaud your mission—and I’d like to take this tour too!

ready to go as soon as we can. However, as I was talking about this in virtual-office meetings with GeoEx colleagues, one truth emerged that was a great surprise: We may want to book our trips now too, because some parts of the globe are already practically sold out for 2021. Sitting in the quiet isolation of your home, with no prospect of immediate travel anywhere, you may find this difficult to believe, as I did. But my colleagues explained that with so many travelers transferring their plans from spring and summer 2020 to 2021, adding to those travelers who had already booked trips for 2021, some exclusive properties and limited-season destinations are already nearing capacity for next year. GeoEx Travel Designers’ Findings on 2021 Scarcity Kate Doty, longtime world traveler and private trip designer extraordinaire, said that Africa, in particular, has already been widely reserved. Many of the exclusive safari lodges and resort properties she regularly books are reporting that they have little or no vacancies for the peak travel times—June through September, and the Festive Season from December–January 2022. Counter-intuitive as this may seem, this means that if Africa is on your dream list for next year, especially a summer or end-of-year trip, you really should book your trip ASAP. I asked some of GeoEx’s other expert travel designers about 2021, and here’s what they told me: Natalie Crow, Managing Director of Global Sales, said, “Patagonia is already selling quickly. Timing matters a lot here. With some of the top properties already sold out for the high season—January–February—we’re trying later in 2021, such as October. On the other hand, we do have a few spaces left on our February 2021 group trip, and if someone absolutely wants to go in January, we’ll do everything we can to find room!” Other areas that are filling up fast are Costa Rica, the

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Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

When Can We Travel Again?

Galápagos, and Peru. “You should book now,” Natalie advised, “especially if you want to go to Costa Rica in the spring, or the Galápagos or Peru in the summer. Believe it or not, space is getting scarce.” Bhutan is another destination where availability may be tight, Natalie noted. “The top properties here are quite small, and this limited supply means that the best places fill up quickly. The good news is that most of GeoEx’s Bhutan group trips for spring 2021—and for fall 2020—still have space.” Managing Director of Global Sales Linda de la Torre added, “Antarctica also is becoming limited for certain peak dates in 2021. And Cuba should be booked soon, since the season there is very short, only running from December–April.” Tina Liadis, Director of Global Sales, provided an Asia round-up: “Japan is booking up fast, especially the always popular spring cherry blossom season. Mongolia is challenging for the prime festival season in July, and Borneo is difficult because of the limited availability of the best wilderness lodges. Otherwise, we are keeping in close contact with our in-country partners and so far have been able to make bookings for our most popular destinations, including Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. For our Southern Pakistan trips, the December 2020 departure is full and the January 2021 departure has just 2 spaces left; our other Pakistan departures, including our three Hunza Valley group trips, still have secured space.” Edwin d’Haens, Managing Director of Group Departures, added, “We’re also finding that Botswana, Morocco, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia are all drawing considerable interest for 2021 travel.” Finally, Sabrina Middleton, GeoEx’s Director of Client Services and expert on the polar regions, broke down the availabilities on our Arctic and Antarctic expeditions: “The Arctic is proving very popular,” she said. “The June North Pole

trip is sold out for Premium and Suite categories but does have some availability in standard cabins. The April Svalbard and August Greenland and the Canadian High Arctic trips both still have some cabins available. For Antarctica, there’s space available on January–March and November–December cruises. And the popular fly-over-the-Drake trips have very limited availability in January–February and December.” She paused and then added, with a wistful wonder in her voice, “Late December is when the baby penguin chicks begin to hatch! It’s unforgettable!” Already Dreaming of Japan In 2021, I know that I’ll be back in Japan in the spring leading three GeoEx trips to Kyoto and Shikoku. Just thinking about this makes my pulse quicken and my soul soar. The cherry trees will blossom again, the steaming onsens will still warm my bones, and the mountain mists will still transform the Iya Valley into sumi-e ink-and-brush scenes. The vast world in all its wonder awaits! And I think we will explore it with even more reverence, appreciation, attentiveness, and gratitude when we are able to wander widely again. I love being able to communicate with you this way—but I love even more the prospect of meeting you on the road! Let’s keep dreaming and planning! GeoEx’s experts are ready to connect with you—and to make your wanderlust dreams come true!

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Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

April 23, 2020

EARTH DAY: THREE EPIPHANIES UNDERNEATH A CHERRY TREE

I n the past few weeks, I have written about making my ASAP List of places I want to go as soon as we’re able to wander the world again, without waiting for an uncertain Someday. I have also written about the surprising truth that some places are getting booked up for 2021, so you may even want to book your ASAP travels now. This week I want to share a much more personal tale, but one that I hope will resonate with you, too. Over the last few days, I had been thinking how easy it is to have our visions narrowed and our dreams dulled, how easy it is to feel stuck, lose energy, bemoan the state of the world, and mourn the losses all around. It is easy and of course, sometimes it is appropriate, too. It is honest and healthy to acknowledge and embrace the daily difficulties we face. But it is not healthy to lose hope or to let our dreams perpetually deflate. I learned this all over again on Earth Day, in a most unexpected way. The day was beautiful, temperature in the 70s, with a deep blue sky and white, puffy, cotton-ball clouds. In a normal year, I wrote in my journal, I would be exultant about all this. I’d be exclaiming at the blossoms, writing poems to the petals, drinking toasts to the budding boughs. But of course, this is not a normal year. I

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Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

Earth Day: Three Epiphanies Underneath a Cherry Tree

Japanese rites. When the blossoms bloom, Japanese society comes to a stop, and all the citizenry take to the parks. They spread great squares of blue tarps under the trees, arrange their shoes in neat rows on the grass, bring out bento boxes bearing special treats, like sushi, rice balls, tempura’d eggs, and chicken karaage , and then, of course, big bottles of beer and sake. They feast and drink, talk and laugh, dance and sing under the boughs—presidents and plumbers, students and salesclerks, housewives and models and grandmas. When the cherry trees bloom, the Japanese do too. So I had to have an ohanami . I jogged home, carefully backpacked a bottle of sake that I had been saving for a special occasion, and a beautiful blue and white ceramic sake cup from Arita that had been given to us as a wedding present. I returned to the park, positioned myself under a petaled branch, discreetly opened the bottle, and filled my cup with the sacred brew. I raised a toast to the boughs above and suddenly it struck me: This patch of pink-and-white blooms against the deep blue sky looked exactly the same as the patch I’d seen a year before on a bridge overlooking the canal that runs by the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto. Exactly. I remembered the precise spot where I had been standing, in the middle of the bridge with the sunlight glinting off the canal. I remembered the blossoming branches that had arced over the water on both sides, the breeze that had stirred the boughs, and the faint perfume of the petals that had descended from the sky. A young woman in a white blouse and pink vest smiled behind a street cart selling cherry blossom gelato, and a path- side coffeeshop advertised cherry blossom cheesecake. A trio of schoolgirls in pink and blue kimonos giggled by. And all along the path, dozens of walkers from at least a dozen countries oohed and aahed at the blooms, and Instagram addicts preened as they waited in a queue.

spend most of my hours inside. I scrupulously wipe off every package that arrives at my doorstep. I wash my hands 20 times a day. And when I do go outside, I put on a mask, and meet passersby with a wary eye. I put down my pen and looked at the calendar: Earth Day. Suddenly our earthly home seemed so intimately interconnected and so fragile, so vulnerable, at the same time. I pictured our great green and blue sphere in my mind. Last year, I wrote, I was in Japan at this time —and then a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I miss Japan, I realized, staring at the white walls in my room. I especially miss spring in Japan, when the cherry blossoms bloom. In that moment, a mini-quest was born: to find a cherry- blossom view. I began by exploring my neighborhood. Neighbors’ gardens abounded with orange poppies and red geraniums, white saxifrage and yellow daffodils, golden freesia and purple waterfalls of wisteria. But no cherry blooms. I ventured to the nearby cemetery, where a line of cherry trees ascends to the top of a rise. But these trees had already shed their blooms; there were no pink-and-white petals to spy. I remembered two glorious trees on a nearby hillside. I found the hill and the trees, but they were ablaze with burgundy leaves. No cherry blossoms for me this spring, I thought with a sigh. Then, I’m still not sure why, something prompted me to walk to the town park, about fifteen minutes away. When I crested the hill that leads to the park, I could hardly believe my eyes: There, right at the edge of the green, were two cherry trees still in brilliant bloom! As I approached, I could see that they were someiyoshino , the beloved trees that burst into fragile, fleecy clouds throughout Japan every spring. And then I thought: This calls for an ohanami . The ohanami is a cherry-blossom-viewing party, and it’s one of my favorite

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Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

Earth Day: Three Epiphanies Underneath a Cherry Tree

Teenage boys in black and white school uniforms sped by on bikes, past a trio of tourists in shiny rental kimonos laughing as they awkwardly clip-clopped on geta clogs. An artist sat before an easel on the bridge to my right, intent on capturing the play of blue-gray-pink light. The plangent notes of a shamisen wafted from behind a shoji screen, and a gusty breeze conjured a scene of twirling, caressing pink flakes. I drained my cup and once again, the pink flakes gentled my face, and I considered why the Japanese prize such a poignant place. Ethereal and sensual at the same time, these blossoms bring delight to everyone’s hearts and minds. They bloom for a week, or two, and in that short space, bestow a lasting and transforming grace. Then a wind rises, and they soar off their boughs, twirl and twirl and twirl to the ground. The flowers are feted for their beauty and brevity, which symbolize the impermanence of everything. Their exquisite beauty is fleeting, and this gives their efflorescence an evanescent, eternal meaning. Two pedestrians approached, breaking my reverie, and I sighed, remembering that I wasn’t in Japan this time—but then my mother came into my mind. I scooped up two dozen petals and took them away as a reminder of three lessons I had learned that day: Like every blossom, every day holds a beauty that is ours to see and to seize. There’s a precious potential in every moment: You just have to sit under the tree. Yet I wouldn’t have found that beauty without my quest: Even sheltering in place, we can do our best. We can transform each day with energy, intention, and dream; we can make our own reality. And then there’s what my mother said. Though she left this realm three summers before, she is never far away, and in that moment under the boughs, this is what I heard her say. It was a line she always used when the world upset her stride. She never

let depression reign or fear deter her path. She said to me, with a knowing smile, “My son, this too shall pass.” I arrayed the petals on my desk and wrote these simple words: You can stay at home, feeling stuck and dull, and surrender to despair. But if you look at life in a different way, adventure is everywhere. The time will come when we’ll travel again; we’ll wander near and far. I’ll get to my Japan again; you’ll get to Zanzibar. The time will come, I know it will–this too shall pass, for sure. The global pandemic will end, and spring will bloom once more. And until then, remember this: Earth’s wide wonders still abound, inside and outside too. You hold the key within you now: You just have to open the door.

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