Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 6: Why Go?

In this concluding post on travel tips for serious communicators, I refer to previous posts in WORDS ON THE LINE throughout the past 13 years. I have often returned here to the benefits of traveling for writers.

In 2012, I wrote about getting bitten by the writing bug by traveling. I mentioned my penchant for visiting writers' houses, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's in Cambridge, Massachusetts; William Shakespeare's in Stratford-upon-Avon, England; Nikos Kazantzakis's in Myrtia, Crete; John Keats's in Rome, Italy; and Carl Sandburg's in Flat Rock, North Carolina. I have since visited Ernest Hemingway's in Key West, Florida; Eugene O'Neill's in Danville, California; August Wilson's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; August Strindberg's in Stockholm, Sweden; and Henrik Ibsen's in Oslo Norway. You can get a lot of inspiration and ideas in these places.

In 2017, I mentioned that travel is something writers do. Travel could mean just heading out to a different part of your immediate environment with a conscious effort to experience differences, to observe.

In 2024, I described the value of travel for the workplace writer, explaining that these tips apply not only to so-called creative writers, but to business and technical writers as well.

Earlier this year, I noted the tools of the traveling writer. Find the ways and means to facilitate your writing and do it.

So these posts are the who, what, when, where, and how of travel, and this post is the why. Safe and meaningful travels to you.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 5: Where to See

The answer to the question, "Where to see?" is "Everywhere," of course. But if you walk nearly 200 miles through city streets over 22 days to get to various destinations and experience them, you must use your blinders sometimes. Nevertheless, you should see some places with your eyes and other senses wide open.

Toilets

Biological necessity determines our need to go to a restroom. Wherever I went during my trip to Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Oslo, the toilets and sinks and floors were immaculate. The quality of a restroom says a lot about a culture. For instance, you'd better bring your own toilet paper to Cuba because it is in short supply, which underscores the neediness of its people, clearly due to United States-imposed sanctions. I am ashamed that so many restrooms in my native city, New York, are filthy. How can this fact not tell you that New Yorkers don't really care about your hygienic safety? You can say all you want that a city of more than 8 million people is far more difficult to manage than Scandinavian cities. That's like saying you shouldn't play tennis or golf because you can't play as well as Scottie Scheffler or Janik Sinner. 

If you think that toilets are not worth mentioning, go to the Bryant Park restroom, abutting the main branch of the New York Public Library in Manhattan. That restroom is so famous that it has a Wikipedia page. The line to get in it is often very long, and I doubt people feel it's worth the wait for its Beaux Arts design. It's because they know they can relieve themselves in a sanitary spot.

Airports

Airports also speak volumes about a culture. If a terminal has few phone charging stations, we assume they are antiquated. If intercom announcements or arrival and departure boards are unclear, you can assume you'll have a chaotic experience. If you see croissants, cinnamon buns, and bread freshly baked on the airport premises, then you know people pride themselves on their food. If you accidentally walk into a restricted area, as I did, and see that the enforcer treats you respectfully, then you will see people in that country value you as a human being. Oh, and what I already said about restrooms applies to airport restrooms too. I found them spotless and well supplied throughout the Nordic regions

Central Stations

I stayed within a short walk from five central stations to my hotel. I am proud of Grand Central Station, as all my visiting relatives ask me to take them there during their trips to the United States. Someone is always available to help orient travelers at Grand Central, which underscores Metro-North Railroad's and Long Island Rail Road's commitment to customer service. I can say the same for some, but not all, of the central stations I visited in Northern Europe. All of them expect customers to use their phones, get the apps, read timetables, and identify track numbers, proving that these cities expect customers to be tech savvy. 

Prices

The cost of items also says a lot about where you are. Compared to major American cities, I saw a consistent trend throughout all these cities: quality hotels are less expensive, entertainment is on par or a bit less expensive, and food is more expensive. What does this say? That hotels are competitive and a lot of food is imported from faraway regions. And while entertainment, such as museums, sporting events, and concerts, by their nature attract fewer people than do their American counterparts, which should drive prices higher but do not, they are better subsidized by the government.

Gardens

Yes. I mean it. Flowers look the same as America's in these countries, but they are infinitely more abundant wherever you go in Scandinavian cities. In front of restaurants, along walkways, across waterfronts, outside apartment windows. You can assume from this fact that the aesthetic of the people  and pride in their appearance surpasses America's. Exceptions may apply. For instance, the last time I saw Atlanta, it was a veritable garden city. And there may be abundant reasons why America's cities do not invest in beauty. But I must concede: It is what it is.

So many other places to see in what being in a foreign place tells you. The way people dress, how young people address elders, the food that's served, the number of benches in a public park, the efficiency of countdown clocks at bus stops, the historically preserved sections of town, and much more. You can learn so much about others and yourself without ever saying a word. Just see.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 4: How to Listen

The value of dialogue

At the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the city that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, an exhibit captured my attention. It concerned the value of dialogue and listening. Throughout my travels, work career, and conversations with family and friends, I have met many people who were artful speakers but few who are polished listeners. Yet one of the greatest barriers to peaceful relationships is our ability to listen without an agenda, without presuming, without judging, without advising.

Through true listening as described at the Nobel Peace Center, we can achieve harmony, empathy, and real progress. I'm not talking about the progress that advantages some and disadvanatages others, that further enriches the wealthy and disenfranchises the working class.

I won't offer tips in this post because the illustrations from the Center do just that with sufficient clarity and concision. I will say, however, that the world needs a lot of help in learning how to listen, that I am striving to be a better listener, that we learn more from listening than from speaking, and that listening is a critical component to human survival. Listening is especially useful when you are a visitor in a foreign country, a guest in someone's home, a student in someone's class, a congregant in a house of worship, an audience member during a presentation, or most important, a friend to someone needing to be heard. 

Listening in dialogue

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 3: When to Bend

Knowing the difference between kronos time (measurable) and kairos time (qualitative) can be beneficial in understanding dialogue and flow invaluable theories in gaining insights into how we can live an optimal life. Building on kronos and kairos, my friend and mentor Barrett Mandel taught me there are two types of time management: creative planning, arranging your life activities for when you would like them to happen; and reactive scheduling, dealing with things as they pop up. While creative planning demands a structured approach to life, reactive scheduling demands a strong capacity for bending. Managing both of these types of situations can be life-changing.

For an example, on June 19, 1974, as a 20-year-old American university student from New York City, I was in Malmö, Sweden, on Day 9 of a 10-nation, 80-day tour as planned. I went to the Bohemian Jazz Club, as planned. I got there by midday to get tickets in advance of that evening's show. The door was wide open. Inside I found no one but a tall, white Swedish woman cleaning the bar and a black man sweeping the floor. The place looked hip with a small bandstand in the corner of the room and couches and tables scattered throughout. 

The woman asked, "May I help you?" 

"Yeah, I wanna see the show tonight," I answered.

"Sorry, there is no show tonight," she said.

"Oh," I said, clearly disappointed. So much for creative planning; I had to reactively schedule that evening.  

The black man stopped sweeping the floor and asked, "Yo, you from the Bronx?" Not only did he peg by nationality but pinpointed my residence.

"Yeah," I said.

"So am I," he said, extending his hand, which I grasped. He could tell what I was thinking: What was he doing there? Pointing to the woman, he said, "I visited here a few years back, met her, and never went back. This is our club." He introduced me to his woman and to his massive collection of jazz records. The three of us talked for a good half hour about jazz, education, and differences in racial, cultural, social, economic, and jurisprudence perspectives between the United States and Sweden. My disappointment quickly faded. Most memorably, Clarence recommended I go to the Montreux Jazz Festival. 

Thanks to this serendipitous meeting, I dropped from my perfectly planned schedule cities like Zurich and Vienna, which I'm sure would have been great, and went to this picturesque Swiss village from June 30 to July 7 to attend more than a dozen concerts, featuring artists like Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, Earl Hines, Jay McShann, Roland Hanna, Randy Weston, Didi Bridgewater, Lew Soloff, Charles Earland, Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Milton Nascimento, Jon Faddis, Billy Cobham, and many others. These experiences led me over the next 50 years to discovering more about the jazz world and enjoying arguably America's greatest cultural gift to the world.  

I've said somewhere else in this blog, more than 20 years in the running, that we need to plan as if we were going to live forever but live like we have only the next moment. That requires bending, especially when traveling to places where every moment is a new experience.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 2: Who to Ask

A trip to another country will help you understand why people who don't live in your country feel as they do about yours. Their opinion of your country might not necessarily be entirely opposite yours, but in some areas, such as education, justice, and quality of life, they may be. 

Why should what outsiders think of your country matter? For innumerable reasons. Those "outsiders" are, in truth, insiders. Technology keeps them abreast of everything going on in a country as influential as the United States. During my trips abroad just this year, people have shown their vast knowledge of the USA, so much so that they would put Americans to shame. Here are some people I asked in casual conversations as a customer or passerby.  A landscape gardener in Oslo, Norway, asserted with clarity and precision his humble opinion of the New York mayoral race in which Zohran Momdani appears to be the frontrunner. A university student in Helsinki explained in depth the historical tension between Finland and Sweden as analogous in certain respects to the United States complicated relationship with its neighbors both north and south. A bartender in Stockholm, with maternal roots in the Bronx, New York, listed reasons that, having visited the United States numerous times, the social services system in Sweden keeps him from immigrating to the United States. A retired Australian police officer visiting Malta told me with the authority of a respected historian why the current global surge toward nationalism is not just a fad. You can argue with these people's viewpoints, but you'd better come with your A game without spewing nonsensical statements like "My country right or wrong," or uniformed, misguided ones like "America is the greatest country in the world." There's a lot to learn here.

Who should you ask about the state of the world in general and of yours in particular? Virtually anyone. An intelligent and concerned world is watching us. Food, no, oxygen, for thought.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 1: What to Bring

I'm off on a 22-day Northern European trip to Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Oslo, trying to get maximum daylight time. Since I will have plenty of waiting and traveling time between destinations, I have long used my knowledge from an accumulated four years of experience of life away from my home to realize that a book is an essential travel item. In this first of a six-part series on travel tips for serious communicators, I focus on books to bring along on a trip. As a form of communication, reading deserves a place in this series. Of course, you will bring a book you'd like to read, but there's more to it than that.

1. Free yourself from your electronic devices. I will be tethered to my phone throughout Scandinavia to get tips on nearby restaurants and entertainment, and to use GPS to get me to these places. For this reason alone, I recommend bringing an old-fashioned book, to break away from staring at the screen. I know you might well argue that a book is an extra item to carry, but are you sure you need everything in your suitcase?

2. Bring a hardcover. I know you're thinking that I've added a lot of carrying weight with the first suggestion. And now a hardcover? Is this guy crazy? Here's my reasoning. Books get beaten up on trips no matter how carefully you treat them. I handle my books as if I were a surgeon using a scalpel, and still my books get bumps and bruises on the road. Hardcovers can take a greater beating. Or take a softcover if you expect to discard the book at the end of your trip.

3. Bring a book based on your travel theme. If you're heading to Cuba, maybe bring along a fiction book with Cuba at least as a backdrop or a nonfiction book about the Cuban history or culture. Although I'll be among the Nordic people on this trip, I admittedly am breaking my own rule in favor of a hardcover of Alice Munro's Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014 for three reasons. First, I have been itching to read more fiction, which I have not done much of lately. Second, nearly every Norde speaks English and understands Americans even better than Americans do. Seriously. Third, the Nordes are masters of telling stories in my language through conversations and their museums, churches, and other points of interest.

4. Bring a book based on your packing space. I would love to take books from my collections of poetry, like The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, or drama, like The Collected Plays of Tennessee Williams, but they're just too heavy and space consuming. On the other hand, I wouldn't take terribly slim volumes either because I'll get through them too fast. Bring a book you can get through during your vacation.

5. Bring a book based on your downtime. Using my current trip as an example, I'll be on six flights and one overnight ferry. That's a lot of reading time, once I pass security and hit the air. That's why 600 pages of Alice Munro seem perfect for this trip. Later next month, I will be on a two-week trip to California, so I'll slim down on my reading. In August, I will be on a three-day trip only a hundred miles from home with the luxury of my car, so no book is too big, yet I will choose a book I can easily finish in three nights of reading.  

A huge, pleasurable part of my trips is planning for it back home months in advance. The book is a critical item on my reading list, and I often need a lot of time to deliberate on what's best for the journey. If you do the same, your vacation will be better. 

AI As a Writing Assistant, Part 1

Artificial Intelligence does not concern me about losing my job. In fact, AI serves as an excellent assistant. But as I write in "Using AI to Improve Creativity, Productivity, and Quality," we must remember we're the boss. In this and coming posts, I will show you what I mean. 

The content below, in Arial font, emerged from a two-word prompt that I wrote in Google: "writing tips." For decades, I have taught writing in the corporate, government, and academic worlds using precisely the tips that follow. But it's one thing to recite them; it's another to adapt them to the specific audience I am teaching, whether they be college students, junior staffers, or executives. Tone shifts based on who's writing to whom. It's yet another thing to understand the organizational culture in which I am working. Salespeople write differently from engineers, who write differently from accountants, who write differently from scientists, who write differently from IT specialists. And it's far more to see someone's writing on the spot and explain what works and what needs improvement.

Throughout this series, I will refer to AI help and explain some caveats. Here is the 471-word AI response to "writing tips."