Flightster

Grounded Travel Freedom

I like flying.

I like sitting by the window and watching the wings do their thing. Complicated servos and flaps shift in and out, up and down. They adjust wind-resistance and make use of science I understand only on the most fundamental level.

I like pulling inward and listening to music. Jotting down notes and deep-diving into memories from the places I’ve been. Knowing that I have nowhere else to be; that I have a certain amount of time to spend nice and snug in my seat, traveling at 30,000 feet and 600 miles per hour.

Zoom.

But as much as I like flying — and I do, very, very much — I generally prefer overland travel when I have the option. It may not be as fast, and it may not be as scientifically impressive, but what it lacks in flair, it makes up for in experiences.

As I write this, I’m a week away from undertaking my second road trip around the US; the last one was back in 2010, and there hasn’t been a day since then that the great open highways of the United States haven’t called to me, begging me to come back and see the world’s largest acorn, and to admire the multi-hued sunsets and just as multi-hued accents that are scattered across the horizons and towns along the way.

The biggest downside to flying is that you get amazing views, but can’t get any closer to them. You can take photos sometimes, but only from awkward angles, and if you don’t manage to snag a window seat, you’re out of luck (unless there’s a really interesting-looking person across the aisle from you, the transit-photography portion of your trip is a wasted ticket).

It’s also quite nice to be able to see towns and cities that you pass through at the ground level; the same level that the locals see it from. I love stopping for a bathroom break or a quick meal someplace I’ve never heard of and being able to take note of the local customs and jargon and issues of importance. The paper is talking about such-and-such. The lady behind the counter is wearing so-and-so. The food is heavily/not at all/strangely seasoned. The prices are high/low/average. These tidbits of knowledge are important, if you want to flesh out your mental map of the world and its people. And I very much do.

There’s something to be said, too, for being able to dodge the over-enthusiastic security measures that have popped up all over the world, and especially in the United States. It says something that many people would much rather sit in a bus for 12 hours and not be forced to go through that gauntlet rather than taking a 2 hour flight, tandem with a hit to their dignity, luggage-allotment and stress-level.

I like the spacious leg-room. I like the colorful characters you come across along the way. I like the rumbling of the engine and the feel of rubber on pavement beneath my seat. I like organizing my trip from my mobile phone and being able to call all the people I never call, because really, what else am I doing?

I like the billboards and the desolate wilderness and the traffic and the roadkill and the roadside trucker diners, filled with tattooed, bandana’d, opinionated, denim-clad-denizens of the concrete rivers that flow through this country.

Most of all, though, I like that traveling at ground-level stretches out my travel time by a large degree. The feeling that — even while sitting quietly, achieving nothing on a personal level other than the barest, spaciest thoughts — I am traveling at great speeds across long distances. I am covering greater distances in an hour than my recent ancestors might have traveled in their entire lives. I am a road warrior. A priest of propellant. A master of the motorcar.

I am — for the small cost of a bus ticket or a tank of gas — free. Free to go where I want, when I want, and with whatever and whomever I want.

And after growing up in a society where most people are trapped by their social status, employment or fear of the unknown, that kind of freedom is not something I take lightly.

When Things Go Wrong

I’m sitting in my second taxi cab of the day, doing my best not to hit my head on the lower-than-usual interior and trying (with much futility) to unfurrow my brow.

The only thing keeping my head up is a heap of frustration, a dash of anger and a dose of Red Bull. I’ve just been kicked off a train with two friends who are visiting me from overseas, and our travel plans have been abruptly cancelled, leaving us with a double-handful of phone call rain checks to take and about 12,000 rupees less in our pockets.

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How They Get Around

In the United States, we place a great deal of significance in the cars we drive. Our sense of independence and focus on standing out as individuals pushes us toward having the freedom and prestige that comes with owning a car, and owning one that says something about the person driving it. Even those who don’t own cars tend to do so in a way that expresses something about them: “I’m riding this bike because I’m such-and-such,” or “I’m walking because I’m a so-and-so.”

This yardstick translates well from country to country.

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Don’t Mess with Kolkata

Litter in Kolkata, India

I had never seen unabashed littering until I moved to Argentina.

Sure, I had seen people throw candy bar wrappers on the ground. Maybe they’d leave their styrofoam cup on the park bench when they left. And smokers, well, smokers just toss their spent butts wherever they like.

But until I landed in Buenos Aires, all the litterers I had seen at least had the conscience to look ashamed for what they were doing. A quick glance around to see if they were being judged by other pedestrians. A slight grimace as they committed their crime, as they got a little pat on on the head from their shoulder devil (while the shoulder angel gently wept over their actions).

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Photos with Locals

You’re walking around your new digs — a relatively-clean hotel, or maybe a flat you’re renting for a few weeks near the center of town — and you see it.

The perfect photo opportunity.

You run up to the group of locals who make up the composition and lean in next to them, stretch out your arm to its full length and snap a photo with them. Or you hand off the camera to a friend or bystander and have them take the photo for you. Either way, you may have just stolen someone’s soul.

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The Staycation: A Mental Break, Sans “Breaking the Budget”

Folks, winter is approaching, and we know exactly what that means. It’s vacation time.

With Thanksgiving, the holidays and the New Year all a stone’s throw away, the winter season is a great opportunity to take a vacation, to escape work and the incremental stress of quotidian affairs to someplace calmer, more relaxing and possibly exotic.

For the lucky few, it’s jetting off to an exotic country, a week-long ocean cruise or an amazing attraction like the Grand Canyon. It’s the beach, the mountains, or if you live in a place like California, both.

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Airline Profile: American Airlines

Recently I flew American Airlines as a paid passenger for the very first time. You would have figured that at some point over the past nine years of me traveling bi-coastally that the airline, which not too long ago was the country’s largest, would have had the cheapest fare and had me booking a ticket.

Luckily on this particular trip I had the ability to fly AA both domestically and internationally as I made my way from Los Angeles through Miami and onto Aruba to stay with the new IGATA member the Aruba Marriott.

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An Exploration of 4 of the Most Inspiring Quotes for Travelers

We all know that when we’re traveling it can be hard to put everything it is that we see and do and experience into words. And so, with the help of some people like Robert Louis Stevenson, Lin Yutang, and a few others, I’ve captured all that travel is in their words and then expanded upon them in my own.

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My 8 Tips for Better Road Trips

Colin Wright on a road trip

It’s been a little while since I talked about road trips, but seeing as how I just returned from a small one around Missouri, it seems like a good time to touch on some things that one should keep in mind before, during and after trekking around those long, unforgiving highways.

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A Dilemma: People Who Haven’t Traveled but Talk Like They Have

A few days ago I had a conversation with some friends of mine that turned into an exchange of ideas about culture, international relations, government, being proud to be where you’re from, and opinions and beliefs about why things are the way they are in this world.

I have to admit that as the conversation carried on I respected everything that they had to say but the only thing holding me back from truly appreciating it was the fact that neither of them had ever crossed the border of the country from which we were sitting in and having this conversation from.

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