Adventure Traveler Stories

My love for travel author Bill Bryson is well-documented. I don't know why I'm so attached to funny travel books, but I am -- maybe because I mentally compose my own culturally-relevant vignettes when I travel (or more specifically, when I'm trying to form an orderly line in an Italian airport and everyone around me is inching closer and closer, closing in on my personal space like sharks in seal season). I'm reading a new one now by Pete McCarthy, aptly called McCarthy's Bar. So far I've read, oh, approximately a sixth of the back cover, but I do know that the author, while traversing Western Ireland, faithfully follows this rule: "Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name on It." This seems like a good rule to me, except for the fact that, according to Google, there is only one bar with my last name, located in Canada. That's not much of a pub crawl. However, and I hope I'm not spoiling things for myself, I have a hunch that these bars are going to lead him on a path of discovery as he uncovers the charm and character of the land of his descendants.

Oftentimes we get so wrapped up in wanting to find new, exotic places that we forget the comforts of the old or more familiar (I hope at least some of you are thinking of the episode of 30 Rock in which Jerry Seinfeld talks about being on vacation with his family in a European country only rich people know about). This applies on both the micro- and macro-scale. I always discount my hometown of Monterey until I'm running along the shores of Asilomar or the winding path of the recreational trail. Or, being in Mexico a few years ago in my father's hometown, I really wished I'd paid more attention in Spanish class so I could better communicate with my cousins as they took me from clubs to cafes. This Thanksgiving week, as most of you travel home for the holidays, I urge everyone to consider your own homes as destination spotlights.