In my earliest memory of traveling, I was 5 and my mom and dad drove us from Edmonton, where we lived, all the way south in our 1956 Chevy station wagon to Calgary. The station wagon’s main job was to deliver flowers for Walter Ramsay Florist, my dad’s flower shop.
Then we drove west to Banff on what’s now the Old Banff Highway. Along the way, we pulled over at an ‘Indian’ souvenir shop. I proudly wore my iconic Davy Crockett ‘coonskin cap’ with leather chaps.
It was thrilling. I’d never seen a mountain before, and the connection between Davy Crockett and the ‘Indians’ and me, between doing a thing and being a thing, turned me into an intrepid lifelong traveller.
This past week, 72 years later, I kayaked down the Thames River from Henley into London with Jean and our friends from Denver. As we turned east from Boulter’s Lock 8 km west of Windsor, there stood Windsor Castle, silent and vast on the horizon ahead. The tourist sites hadn’t exaggerated. It really is the largest inhabited castle in the world.
Even better, tracking us all day on the water were bevies of swans and rowing crews, practising for the Henley Regatta next month, plus the rowers from Eton College, the private school founded in 1440 by King Henry VI that still only admits boys and remains the largest boarding school in England.
Jean and I have kayaked a lot over the years, so we know that seeing the world from on the water offers a perspective that even seeing it standing up rarely does. Its most lasting lesson I learned 25 years ago when we were kayaking close to a glacier on the Inside Passage to Alaska. The captain of our tiny 10-passenger ship who let us use the ship’s kayaks simply warned: “Don’t get too close.” Then a huge chunk of ice broke off and hit the water, creating a deep wave in front of us. We were lucky. Our kayaks hit it head on. At any other angle we’d be swamped. The wave picked us waaaaaaay up, then threw us waaaaaaaay down. Then again, and by the time his tiny ship had chugged in to rescue us, we felt lucky to be alive. The captain looked at us askance. “It was big enough to thrill you, but not big enough to kill you.”
We’d learned the first lesson of adventure travel.
These random memories rattled in my head while on the Thames as I realized this would be one of our final kayak expeditions. We have too many aching bones to risk them much more in a Georgian Bay storm. Certainly it was too risky to go out on Lake Ontario in the spring when the water’s frigid and no other kayakers, let alone any other boats, are in sight.
I asked myself: why are people so addicted to travel? Why do so many of us get up and go so that travel has now become one of the largest industries in the world?
Curiosity, of course. People everywhere want to see how the world looks somewhere else. We want to see Komodo Dragons instead of Golden Retrievers and a Windsor Castle instead of a Windsor Arms. We also want to see people who do things differently from us.
Indeed, we are raised to believe that travel broadens the mind, creates tolerance among different people, religions and political systems and turns strangers into friends. Sadly, the effect of travel on bettering human relations seems to have been wildly overstated. And still, we paddle on.
The other great myth is that the key to happiness is to collect memories and not things. The better your memories, the happier your life. So don’t buy that suit, but go to Quebec City for the weekend instead.
This philosophy is particularly in vogue today. But even if you travel ‘everywhere’, I don’t think you often sit down in the rocking chair on the porch and ponder in detail the joys and perils of an especially memorable holiday. It’s a belief that drives us and nourishes us, but like the one about thrilling us and killing us, isn’t overfilled with truth.
No, what travel has taught me is how much people the world over are alike.
The 8 billion of us alive today, and the 109 billion who came before us, are all part of the same old story: the fight for love and glory. Because the fundamental things apply as time goes by.
Just ask Davy Crockett.
Meanwhile…
1. Goooooooooal! The World Cup rarely runneth over when it comes to ripping at your heart. Here’s what some teams are doing to ensure that: Norway went Full Viking in its team photo…and snowbound in its fan reel. Plus U S A, Ireland, France, England, (okay, maybe the Burberry part), Canada, And of course, Nike. Finally (for this week), why Brazil will win the World Cup – again.
2. How to board a plane faster. It’s not what you think. Plus how to get people addicted to AI. Plus how real things (like pencils) really work. Plus how to reduce your daily fart rate.
3. The most colourful stories on earth…are the stories of the most colourful colours, from Alabaster to Uranium Red.
4. It’s all about the branding. Hilton has opened 34 hotels near U.S. and UK college campuses called Graduate by Hilton. Like this one in Princeton.
Plus the latest from Gucci. Really? Plus the first smart toothbrush for women. And finally, Starbucks is opening “EV lounges” for you and your electric car.
5. Mayor repeals kid’s bedtimes. New York’s Zohran Mamdani did that so the city’s kids would watch the Knick’s finals run.
6. Still not booked to go somewhere glorious this summer? Join us at The Canada Summit, the fabulous four-day heli-hiking trip from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3, where four leading Canadians (Steve Paikin, Dr. Heather Ross, Ron Deibert, and Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux) will discuss where we’re headed around politics, healthcare, cyber and Indigenous relations. If you can walk around your kitchen table, you can heli-hike. Details here and register here.
7. I’m sure nothing will go wrong. The American electronic trading platform, Robinhood, just entered Canada last week. It’s launched a product where your AI agent invests your funds for you and manages your credit card purchases.
8. Health-check. Is another bad disease — Atherosclerosis – on the run? Plus, a new way to predict your driving risk from medications.
9. Mourning is out of the shadows. Grief tourism is on the rise, and it doesn’t just embrace death. One of the top grief retreats specializes in healing hearts broken in love. Also Miraval offers one of the top grief retreats in the Berkshires.
10. One more week to put your best prompt forward. From last Saturday’s OG blog “… I’m now asking you to write an AI prompt in 100 words or less. A prompt is the instruction you give Claude or NotebookLM or whatever AI platform you use to find, sort and generate the content you want.
This should be your magic prompt, and could be your secret one that you’re willing to share with our readers. Like how to write a speech, or how to sue your neighbour for cutting down their tree which shaded your porch.
The first rule of prompt engineering is “Persona” + “Task” + “Constraints” + “Format”, and the basics of prompt writing are here.
So…here’s an example:
1. Persona: You are a travel agent with 30 years experience in Southeast Asia.
2. Task: Create a “foodie tour of Japan and China.”
3. Constraints: Two weeks door-to-door. Budget of $15,000 for my wife and me.
4. Format: Include a detailed day-to-day itinerary with recommended restaurants and menus.
For this Prompt Writing Contest, please submit your entry here.
Deadline is Saturday, June 20, 11:59:59 p.m. ET.
The committee will choose three winners: Bronze, Silver and Gold, and publish them in an upcoming issue of the Omnium-Gatherum. Other Honourable Mentions may also be published. In terms of prizes, we found that saying the winners would get their reward in Heaven limited the number of entries. So in this contest, prizes include your name in lights, the envy and respect of your peers, and the feeling that you’ve done something useful and good for humankind.”
Publication Notice: The Omnium-Gatherum is taking a short break and will not publish on June 20. We’ll be back in your InBox on June 27.