Traveling: What's Changed?

Nearly 40 years ago Mary and I took our first trip to Europe. We were young, recently married (we started saving before our wedding and worked for three years to afford the trip), and had never been outside North America before. We wanted an overview of Europe, so we signed up for a bus tour -- nine countries in 28 days, or some such. It was a big motor coach with 40 or 50 people on board. We had a great time.

The tour was a whirlwind, of course, and we were in no one place very long. We hit London for a few days, then Amsterdam. I think we went to Copenhagen, then Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. We were in Paris, then down to Nice and Monaco (probably for a few hours). I recall being in Geneva, Rome, Venice and Salzburg. Did we make it to Vienna? It's a bit of a fog. Forty years is a long time ago.

I do remember quite vividly, however, that there were two cities we came away from saying that we would never bother visiting again. We hated Paris, and we weren't fond of Rome. Both cities, we thought, were very dirty. Parisians impressed us as being rude and anti-American. Rome, we felt, was all about ripping off tourists.

In the past several weeks we've been back to both cities; Rome in February, and we've just recently returned from Paris. This time, we loved them both! So I've been reflecting on what changed. Was it Rome ("The Eternal City") and Paris that changed? Or was it the travelers? I suspect both.

Over the years we've been privileged to travel to a great many places in the world. We went to Israel/Palestine a few years after that European trip. I've been to China four times. Mary accompanied me on two of those, and she got to spend three weeks in Japan. I've attended academic conferences in a number of places around Europe. We've had adventures together in Egypt, South and Central America, Tanzania, Southeast Asia, and India. We got to live a year in the UK, with side trips to Iceland, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark. Now we are living in Malta for half a year, and recently finished a side trip to Morocco.

I think it's fair to say we've seen more of the world than most people (though we are still lagging way behind some others who have really been around). We've become pretty confident about getting around in places, even when we don't speak the language. Surely, we have changed as travelers in ways I can't begin to count.

But I think the world has changed, as well. In the Paris we visited 40 years ago we faced an enormous communication barrier. I still only know a few basic words in French (my rule of thumb is to learn the local equivalents to Hello, Please, Thank you, I'm sorry, Beer, and Toilet). But it seems now that almost everyone in France not only has a bit more English than I have French, but they are much more willing to use it. It's true everywhere, English is the lingua franca.

Another difference is clothing. Four decades ago it seemed that everyone could spot us as Americans on the first glance. Now, everyone in the world wears the same blue jeans! In recent weeks, people have addressed me in Maltese, French, Spanish, German, and Italian -- as well as English -- because I was taken for a local or a European tourist. Perhaps it's because I've learned to travel in my oldest, most worn-out clothes (so that I can leave them behind, if necessary), but I don't stand out in the crowd as The American.

Another factor is terrorism. The terrorists want to tear the world apart, but after 9/11 and the Paris attacks of last fall, it seems Westerners have a sense of "we're all in it together." Israeli soldiers walking the streets with large weapons gave me the chills 35 years ago. French soldiers doing the same last week were a comforting sight. Soldiers smile at us, and we smile back. People are glad to see others traveling, and all are determined not to let the bad guys win by keeping everyone home.

So yes, the travelers have changed -- a lot. But the world is smaller and more welcoming, too. And all in all, it's easier to travel now than it used to be.