Foreign Travel and Me
Story and photos by Hilary Kaiser
I think foreign travel must be in my DNA.
Growing up in multi-cultural San Francisco, I was the daughter of a travel agent who was born in Bordeaux of American parents. Dad traveled frequently for his job, and he would buy dolls for me during his trips abroad. As a little girl, I loved their colorful costumes and would dream of visiting the places from which they came.
Most of the dolls he brought me were from European countries — French peasant women, Spanish flamenco dancers, an Austrian couple in Tyrolian costumes, an English Beefeater, to name a few. Dad and I had a rule — no plastic — so they were usually hand-crafted. Later on as an adult, I added to the collection with dolls from Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
When I was 15, Dad got a job in Paris with the U.S. Travel Service, and my dream of visiting different countries came true. During vacations from the American School of Paris, I traveled with my family all over Europe and added to my doll collection.
Living in France as a teenager, I acquired my thirst for traveling abroad. I returned to the U.S. for college but visited my parents when Dad was later assigned to Amsterdam and Toronto. I was also lucky enough to spend a year at Trinity College, Dublin. It was the first time I lived in a foreign country on my own, and I fell in love with Ireland and the Irish. Then, following my return to California to finish my studies, I met a French engineering student, with whom I traveled to Mexico during Christmas vacation. At the end of that year, he had to return to France to do his military service, and I accompanied him. We got married a year later in Paris and spent our honeymoon on Ibiza. My permanent home has been in Paris ever since.
As a young couple, my husband and I traveled throughout Europe and took tours to Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. After our kids were born, we would spend family holidays in different parts of France, as well as in Spain, Italy, and the U.S. One of our favorite trips to the States as a family was “doing” the national parks in Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico in a rented mobile home.
Now that my sons are grown and having gotten a divorce some 25 years ago, I continue to travel, either on organized tours, with friends of both sexes, or solo. Following my retirement at 60, I went around the world by myself on a shoestring for six months. Then, a year later, a French NGO sent me to Shanghai to teach for a semester. All told, I believe I have visited about 60 countries on six continents, most of my trips being after the age of 50.
I find that organized tours have the advantage of taking away the stress of reserving hotel rooms and transportation; they also permit seeing a maximum number of places in a limited amount of time. Tours I have taken to foreign countries include Thailand, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Costa Rica. I’ve also joined hiking tours in England’s Lake District, as well as to the Cinque Terra and the Dolomites in Italy and in Guatemala and Cuba. One disadvantage about joining a tour or group, however, is that the person traveling alone usually has to pay an expensive supplement for a single room or share a room with a person who snores, keeping you up all night! In addition, I sometimes find I don’t have much in common with my fellow travelers.
Similarly, traveling with a friend or companion has its positives and negatives. On the plus side, there is someone to share expenses and experiences with, and meals in restaurants are not as lonely as they can sometimes be when I’m on my own. It can also be safer, particularly in Muslim countries, when my travel companion is male.
However, in addition to the “snoring issue” related to sharing a room, I’ve found that when traveling with someone else, we tend to stick together and to converse either just with each other or, if we are on a tour, with other travelers. Likewise, when we stay in hotels or rented apartments, we don’t always meet the locals or get introduced to cultural differences and habits.
There can also be other issues. For example, towards the end of our marriage, my ex-husband and I would bicker on almost every trip. Some of my female friends have different time constraints than mine or don’t have to travel on as tight a budget as I do. A former boyfriend always wanted us to use my car on holidays so that he wouldn’t put mileage on his. A girlfriend and I had a huge spat while navigating the Dordogne River in a rowboat and didn’t talk to each other for several days afterwards.
Other incidents come to mind. The Frenchman who took me to the Colombe d’Or restaurant in St. Paul de Vence became furious after I noticed celebrities Bernard-Henri Lévy and Arielle Dombasle in the dining room and stopped looking at him. When I was living in California with my American boyfriend, I made the mistake of booking a trip to Morocco for us with a small French-speaking group and spent my time translating for him or apologizing to the others for the wait while he made purchases in every souk and shop we visited. This same boyfriend suggested we go on a budget safari to Botswana. During our two weeks there, we had to pitch a tent every night and strike it down the next morning. It was during the rainy season, so the tent was often wet and damp, and I slept badly. My boyfriend loved the whole experience. I must admit that for once instead of “roughing it,” I would have much preferred to stay in a comfortable lodge!
Over the years I have visited many countries as an “independent traveler,” although now that I’m over 70, I’m not quite as intrepid as I used to be. To organize my trips, I consult the Lonely Planet, use the internet to make reservations, stay in inexpensive hotels, hostels or with local inhabitants, take public transportation, and go on local day tours.
I love seeing new places, hiking in mountains with fabulous views, swimming in tropical oceans and seas, hearing different languages, tasting local cuisine, attending exotic festivals and ceremonies, and doing all the other activities associated with foreign travel. But, the advantage of traveling “solo” is that I can get off the beaten path whenever I like and mingle with the local population. Because I used to teach intercultural communication, being able to interact with people of different cultures and to observe and try to understand cultural differences is very important to me.
Nowadays, I’m enjoying traveling with my current companion, an Englishman living in Edinburgh, who likes to travel “in style” and has been very generous in treating me to lovely trips to Scotland, England, Prague, the Canadian Rockies and Barbados. To be sure, we have our minor differences. I like to get up early in the morning and head out for a day of sightseeing. He, on the other hand, cannot go anywhere until he’s read The Times online. In the afternoon he likes to go back to our room and lie down after lunch. Troubled by noise, he cannot concentrate when I listen to music, and he often asks waiters to “please turn it down” in restaurants. Still, I imagine some of the things I do probably bother him, too. Fortunately, despite our little disparities, we both are interested in talking to local people and observing cultural differences, so on the whole we travel well together.
Looking back on my life, I realize how much foreign travel has meant to me, beginning with the dolls Dad brought home. In fact, I still have that doll collection (which now includes puppets) displayed in my home as reminders of my varied adventures over the years!
(Adapted from an article appearing in the May/June 2022 issue of AAWE News)
