Travel As a Political Act
I observe a predictable set of rituals when preparing for any big vacation, most of which involve overdosing on library books, DVDs, and websites to make sure I don’t miss any potentially life-changing experiences along the way. As Mrs. Bookmarking and I are about to embark on an intercontinental voyage, my collection of prep materials has maxed out my library card, filled up my DVR’s memory, and stacked up all around the coffee table like the turrets of a medieval castle.
The collected works of Rick Steves are almost unavoidable in any bookstore or library travel section, and I’ve usually considered him a reliable-if-slightly-nerdy resource for basic travel preparations. When I picked up his newest book after a glance at its arresting title, the mild-mannered, gigantic 80’s-glasses-frame-wearing PBS icon became my new personal hero by the middle of the first chapter.
Travel As a Political Act is only one of five travel books Steves has already published in 2009, but it is a particularly thoughtful collection of essays illustrating the interconnectedness of world cultures and the fundamental value of travel. Steves makes a powerful argument about how travel can change the way we think about the world, and his book suggests interesting ways travelers can broaden their personal, cultural, and political perspectives.
Steves turns out to be way more of a radical hippie than I ever would have imagined, and throughout the book he tells fascinating tales of his own travel experiences to non-traditional vacation spots like the Balkans, El Salvador, and Iran. He is a passionate advocate for the value of travel as a humanizing force, and the book illustrates the mind-expanding virtues of experiencing Muslim cultures, third world villages, and other locales that challenge Americans’ cultural norms.
An especially valuable section addresses the importance of overcoming fear in order to gain an understanding of alien societies. Steves advocates a ”refusal to be terrorized by terrorists” in a passage that aptly summarizes his book’s theme:
“Every time I’m stuck in a long security line at the airport, I reflect on one of the most disconcerting results of terrorism: The very people who would benefit most from international travel–those who needlessly fear people and places they don’t understand–decide to stay home. I believe the most powerful things an individual American can do to fight terrorism are to travel a lot, learn about the world, come home with a new perspective, and then work to help our country fit more comfortably and less fearfully into this planet.”
Steves also reflects on lessons that can be learned from visting countries like Denmark, routinely listed as the happiest nation on earth while operating with a rather different “formula for societal success” than our own. He also visits the still smoldering nations of the former Yugoslavia to observe the after-effects of a ruinous war, and he considers alternative approaches to social problems like drug abuse offered by Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Steves’s travelogues and observations are like the lectures of an engaging professor, enlightening without being preachy, and his book is a thoughtful challenge to Americans to engage with the outside world for our own good as well as the benefit of the planet. After reading Travel As a Political Act, my personal pantheon of literary heroes was re-shuffled to make room for the dude with the squeaky voice, goofy grin, and greatly inspiring message.
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