Summer Vacation Travel Tips

I honestly don't have any.

Let me begin with a cautionary tale.

Last summer I was vacationing in Vienna, Austria, with my wife, Michelle, my wife's cousin Sonia, and her husband Ron. One afternoon we visited a colorful tourist-attraction market with a typical Austrian name like "Herumlaufenunddingekaufenundsiedannaufdemmarkt" (Austrian keyboards do not have spacebars).

At some point Ron and I separated from our wives, who were off shopping for something, most likely soap. Soap is widely available in the United States, but whenever my wife and I travel abroad, we always return with several pounds of it in the form of fragrant little soap units, which of course we never actually use because it's souvenir soap, which God forbid should get wet.

So Ron and I were wandering through the market, and we came upon a man selling cheese. He had a lot of cheese on hand, I would estimate 60 percent of the total Austrian cheese supply, in the form of slabs. He also was the most outgoing human being on the planet. He flagged us down in an extremely assertive manner — this man could stop a runaway cement truck — and basically demanded that we try little samples of his cheese. So we did, indicating our appreciation, as sophisticated gastronomes, by going, quote, "yum."

The next thing we knew — it all happened very fast — the man was asking us to specify how many fingers of cheese we wanted to buy. Really. Apparently under the metric system, the standard unit of measurement for cheese is the "finger." Feeling pressured, and not wanting to look like some kind of American hick who is unfamiliar with the basics of international cheese transactions, I said I would take three fingers. Ron said he would also take three fingers. We both figured this would be a small amount of cheese that we could enjoy as a snack.

Guess how much three fingers of Austrian cheese costs in American money. Never mind, I will tell you: Eighty dollars.

Yes. Using a knife large enough to confer knighthood, the cheese man cut major hunks of cheese for Ron and me, while making it clear that once he started cutting he was strictly prohibited, under the terms of the Geneva Convention, from in any way reducing the size of our cheese purchases. The result was that Ron and I each ended up with enough cheese to cause a lifetime of severe intestinal stoppage, or as the Austrians say "eingroßesstückkäsedasvielmehrkostetalssieausgebenwollten." Our wives of course thought this was hilarious. They mocked us for the rest of the day, with their little soaps.

What lesson does this cautionary tale teach us about travel? It teaches us that when you leave your home, your IQ immediately starts to drop, and the longer you stay away, the stupider you become. This is a proven scientific fact. This is why Columbus was absolutely certain he'd found a new route to India despite the giant sign on the beach that said WELCOME TO THE BAHAMAS. This is why people will pay thousands of dollars for their families to travel to Central Florida ("The Muggiest Place On Earth") in August so they can stand in a sweltering line for hours for the opportunity to be trapped on a boat surrounded by hordes of dolls singing an endless-loop brainworm song in the key of shriek. This is why when the Apollo astronauts finally made it to the Moon, pretty much the only thing they could think of to say about it was "Roger."

The point is, wherever you decide to go on your summer vacation trip, your brain will not be firing on all cylinders, so you should avoid situations that might require using it. With that cautionary thought in mind, let's get to our Summer Vacation Travel Tips:

TRAVELING BY AIR

Air travel is an excellent way to reach your destination faster and with way less money. But flying in summer can be an unpleasant experience because of crowding, delays, cancellations and being seated next to people emitting the same aroma as a Porta-Potty on the third day of a chili festival. That's why experts recommend that, if you want to enjoy a relaxed, pleasant and civilized airline experience, you do what the "pros" do: travel backward in time to 1958, when planes had only one seat.

Note that, whenever you travel, you may be able to save money by paying for your flight using your frequent-flyer miles. And when I say "you may be able," I of course mean "you will not be able." All airlines have a firm policy explicitly stating in tiny print that you may not redeem your frequent-flyer miles for any flight that you might actually want to take. "We didn't get into the airline business so we could fly you around for free," states the policy. "We got into it so we could charge you a lot of money for a comically small seat, then charge you extra for your luggage, and another $25 for a Wi-Fi connection that depends on a defective kerosene-powered router in Belize."

TRAVELING ABROAD

Traveling abroad can be fun and educational, as long as you remember that foreign countries are by definition largely populated by foreigners, which means they hate you, although they will expect you, as an American, to leave a tip. But by all means you should visit foreign lands such as Europe, where you can visit historic old musty buildings with primitive restroom facilities and see ruins that were constructed by the Romans thousands of years ago, yet are still ruined today. Other popular foreign travel destinations include South America, Africa, Australia and Asia, although a recent advisory from the U.S. State Department recommends that Americans traveling to any of these places "wear some kind of disguise."

SHOPPING ABROAD

Many foreign countries offer shopping, often with local craftspersons selling distinctive traditional handcrafted wares in the form of soap. Also Austria is famous for its cheese. If you’re unable to go there personally, I'll sell you some of mine.

TRAVEL GUIDEBOOKS

Travel guides can be helpful, but before you buy one, you should make sure it was written by reputable professionals, and not some idiot like me. I say this because a few years ago, I was involved in a travel-guide-writing scheme with two writer friends of mine, Adam Mansbach and Alan Zweibel. The three of us had previously co-authored two books about Judaism — a Passover Haggadah titled For This We Left Egypt? and another book titled A Field Guide to the Jewish People.

Our qualifications for writing these books are that Alan and Adam are Jewish, whereas I am circumcised. Here's a picture of the three of us, taken when we spoke at a Jewish Community Center where, before the event started, we discovered a room full of costumes backstage:

That's Adam on the left and Alan in the center. Believe it or not, we're even better-looking in person.

So anyway, several years ago we had this idea to write a parody of a travel guidebook. We made up a fictional country, which we called "New Mirhan." The plan was, we'd each write chapters about different aspects of traveling to this nonexistent place, and then we'd get some gullible publisher to publish it as a book.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Adam and Alan are — I say this with the deepest love and respect — useless slugs. They did not produce any chapters. Whereas I produced several. And since these chapters will never be published in a book, I'm going to include one of them here. It's not really a useful Summer Vacation Travel Tip, but then neither is anything else in this Substack. So here's my chapter on:

ELECTRICITY IN NEW MIRHAN

New Mirhan is a modern technological nation that has electricity much of the time. The main exception is during Foombah (see “Festival of Foombah”) when services such as electricity, water, food and law enforcement may be unavailable for a period of up to three weeks, depending on the supply of plasma. But other than that, visitors will find that electricity is generally available in almost all of the better hotels, at least on the lower floors.

However, if you are planning to use your own electronic devices such as laptop computers, cell phones, hair dryers, etc. while in New Mirhan, you should be aware that the electrical system has some unique characteristics. Whereas most nations provide a constant voltage of either 110 or 220, in New Mirhan, because of typographical errors in the engineering specifications for the power grid drawn up in 1967 at the New Mirhan Institute of Technology and Radiator Repair (see “Education in New Mirhan”) the voltage, depending on what kind of fuel is being supplied to the generator on a given day, can fluctuate anywhere from 50 to 2,700 volts.

In practical terms, what this means for you, the visitor, is that sometimes when you plug in your electronic device, it will not have enough power to function properly, while at other times it will explode in a violent burst of flaming white-hot shrapnel. So it is important to always check first. Also you should give a wide berth to open electrical outlets, as they tend to spontaneously emit miniature lightning bolts that can shoot out as far as ten feet.

Speaking of the outlets: They do not accept the standard two- or three-pronged plugs used in the United States, so you will need to purchase special adapters, as shown in the illustration below. You can buy these at any Radio Shack, although sometimes there are also some for sale at the newsstand just past the men's restroom at the New Mirhan airport (see “General Beppo Schwartz International Airport”) next to the Sudoku magazines.

                                                     New Mirhan Plug Adapter

This concludes my report on Summer Vacation Travel. It's time now for you thoughtful and generous paying subscribers to express your views in the comments and in our scientific poll: