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 four-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.
