Road Tripping

Road tripping. A few decades ago travel was different.

First was the availability and use of paper maps. Maps were free at many gas stations and state-sponsored welcome stations. Maps today are on your cell phone with turn-by-turn directions. The GPS on your phone is your map wherever you go.

Little Miss Phillips and her tribe just took a trip to a place where whatever language they speak is not what they speak at home. Still they got along just fine.

So what if you don't speak the local language. Some cell phones have a feature (an “app” for application) that will translate whatever you just said into the local language.

You just say a few words in one language and the phone spits out the same thing in another.

It is advisable to use care in making private remarks about the local food or someone's wife because the app doesn't know when you want the translation to stop.

In the old days you knew family members had reached their destination when you got the picture post card. The image of the hotel was popular and the card was free at the desk; free advertising. The post card sometimes beat the sender back home.

Folks didn't want to know everything then and assumed that if you plotted a course to a destination, you'd get there.

A college friend was married to a gal who talked with her mother on the phone every day. When they went to the Caribbean, she kept it up and the hotel phone bill cost more than the rest of their trip.

It has always been horribly expensive to make an international telephone call, but most hotels today have WIFI and you can connect to the local network rather a cellular service.

For short notes, people send texts back home with pictures. That takes the place of the post card.

I can send to the King of England a picture of the raccoon that stays fat off the back door cat food, and he might get it instantly. Or maybe not.

The card issued by your local Credit Union or bank can be used at nearly any ATM to draw down some running around money. I found a couple of American Express Traveler's Checks last month in a place I didn't know existed. I guess they are still good, but I've had them since 1979.

Years ago you might be able to grab some cash by cashing a personal check at your hotel, but elsewhere they were prone to notice “you aren't from around here.”

I knew a guy who got sick while traveling international, and it was a mess to get him medical care. I don't mean to diminish international medical care since it works well for their own folks, but Americans are used to something else.

For a few bucks you can buy medical insurance that guarantees you an English speaking doctor and even get you air lifted back home if that is what you need.

Still it is probably more convenient to stay home if you plan to get sick.

joenphillips@yahoo.com