For World Tourism Day, we’ve asked the Open Jaw team to talk about some of their most treasured travel experiences from over the years. Here’s a look at what they came up with.
NINA SLAWEK: PUBLISHER
ONCE UPON A SOUK
It was a different time. It was a different place. But those otherworldly travel memories don’t fade. They stay with us, like a special present we hold within our being.
We all have them. Moments, experiences, connections, which transcend daily life. Remind us why we do what we do. And, most importantly, unite us.
It was 1988 and I’d won El Al tickets at the KLM Christmas party. That summer my colleague and I planned our trip to Israel. On my way to meet him, I decided to detour to Cairo. I’d dreamt of the pyramids since I was a child and I was going.
El Al security had other ideas. They apparently were not fans of a single young woman stopping in Egypt on her way to Tel Aviv. Go figure.
At Mirabel, the aircraft was held for over an hour while my luggage was searched and I was questioned in a room, by myself, by a series of security officers – one fiercer than the next. And those were just the women.
Ok, that wasn’t the fun part.
I did make it Cairo, and to this day I can smell the spices of the souk, feel the dry sandy air near Giza, hear the incessant honking of congested roads where traffic lights are mere decoration. I was in love.
It was the most exotic place on earth. And everyone smiled and laughed and joked with me. (Perhaps because I walked around with an idiotic grin and they felt sorry for the gently touched girl.)
This was before the attacks on September 11th. Before the world changed. Before we questioned if a destination was safe. And combined with that, there was the sense of freedom only the young can inhabit.
At the Egyptian Museum, there were no lineups to see Tutenhkamen’s sarcophagus and all the treasures we associate with the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. I could take my time inhaling this stuff of Hollywood movies. Here it was.
The excursion down the Nile, despite not being comparable to the luxury of today’s river cruises, felt like stepping into an Agatha Christie novel. (I took careful notes about the dodgy looking Brit in a wide-brimmed hat.)
At Giza I rode a camel and climbed part of the Great Pyramid, feeling every part the Canadian Cleopatra. I bought exotic scents. Black kohl. Silver jewelry. I was an empress
These past moments can’t be recreated, but the beauty of travel is we make new ones every time we step out the door. Despite the continuing changes, it is a privilege to work in the most exciting industry on earth.
JIM BYERS: SENIOR WRITER
I’m sometimes asked to speak at conferences about travel writing, and I almost always make the point that it’s the people we meet who make our trips truly memorable. Yes, we enjoy great hikes and fabulous food and amazing hotels when we travel, but I think it’s the people stories we remember most, and often like to talk about with our friends. I mean, I’ve never come back from a trip and tried to describe a sunset to someone. “Oh, man, you should’ve seen the sun go down in the Azores. It was orange, and then the sky turned pink and red and purple.” But I’ve come back and talked about the enthusiastic tour guide I had in City X, or the smile I got from the salesperson I met in destination Y. Here are a few faces and experiences I remember from my travel days.
NEWFOUNDLAND SEA TUNES AND COD TONGUES
In September of 2017, my wife and I had a fabulous trip to Newfoundland and Labrador. Actually, ALL of my trips to Newfoundland have been fabulous. Anyhow, we just outside St. John’s and took in a “lobster adventure” with Colette Kavanagh at a tremendous B & B called A Schooner Inn. We were given slick yellow sou’wester hats and ugly sticks to bang on the floor. (An ugly stick is a Newfoundland instrument usually fashioned from a broom stick decorated with bottle caps, a boot or shoe and some sort of wig.)
We chose our sticks and paraded into her kitchen, shouting out words to a sea shanty tune. Then it was time for our cod tongue cooking lesson, where Kavanagh showed us how to dip the tongues in flour and salt and pepper and how long to fry them (about seven minutes). I’d rather eat a bowl of mussels with white wine but they’re pretty good.
After that it was lobster time. Kavanagh rubbed her finger on the top of their heads, something she claimed calms their frayed nerves, then dropped them into a pot of water for our dinner.
Seven years later I don’t remember the taste of the lobster. But I’ll never forget Kavanagh. Sadly, like Unterberger, she passed away a few years ago. I hope she’s in a place today where she can eat cod tongues all day long and dance around any table she likes.
MY MOLOKAI BUDDY
It was a lovely, warm day on Molokai’s Kalauapapa peninsula a few years back. and I was getting a tour of the area from local resident Rick Schonely.
Schonely, a musician and high school sports coach, is one of several Molokai residents who, prior to COVID when the public could still visit, gave tours of the peninsula, an infamous spot where leprosy victims were exiled for decades.
It’s a very sad place, where people lived far from their families (people were sent here not just from other Hawaiian islands but from around the world) and suffered much misery. But it’s also a place of hope, of tremendous courage from victims who refused to give in and of volunteers such as Father Damien and Sister Marian Cope.
Schonely likes to bring his ukulele when he does his tours, and often stops to perform a Hawaiian song or two. We paused at a small church on the peninsula and he sang one of my favourite tunes, Wahine Ilikea, which talks about a woman on Molokai. We also stopped in a lovely picnic area on the east side of the peninsula, where the original colony was built before being (thankfully) moved to the sunnier, drier west side.
As we were finishing our box lunch, Schonely wandered out into a grassy area near the ocean and sang a Hawaiian song. As he was finishing, a gentleman of a certain age with white hair and a drawl thick enough to pour onto a stack of pancakes wandered up. I had been chatting with he and his wife, but I can’t remember his name. I think they were from Florida, but it might have been Georgia, and I seem to recall he was a music teacher or perhaps a professor. He said something about enjoying music and asked Schonely if they could sing a song together. “Can you play ‘You Are My Sunshine?’”
Schonely, naturally, agreed and began plinking the ukulele. What happened next was simply magic; a melding of voices and an achingly beautiful harmony that wafted through the moist, tropical air and weaved through the off-shore winds. These two men had only met an hour or so prior to this, and here they were, singing a stunning duet about sunshine and love in this terrible and painful but hopeful and inspiring place.
If you watch the video, Schonely finishes his last note, pauses for a second, and yells out, “How beautiful was that?”
“Pretty damned beautiful,” I said.
It gave me goosebumps the size of the towering, green, sea cliffs that flank the north side of Molokai, said to be the highest in the world.
Schonely and I became Facebook friends. When my wife and I and my Dad and his ladyfriend and my sister and her fiancé visited Molokai last year, Schonely, who lives in the condo development where we were staying, wandered over one evening and serenaded us with seven or eight songs. My Dad, who loves to sing and adores old-time Hawaiian music, sang along and looked as happy as I’ve ever seen him. Mahalo once again, my friend.
THE MASTER YODELLER OF KIMBERLEY B.C.
Seven or eight years back, I wandered into the central square (called a “Platzl”) in Kimberley, British Columbia and put a toonie (I think) into a tall cuckoo clock.
Out from behind the little doors came a little guy playing the accordion and yodelling. I loved it. My tour guide for the day from Kootenay Rockies Tourism, Heidi Korven, told me the fellow who played and yodelled was a master woodcarver. Better still, she said he worked in the shop a few feet away.
“I don’t know what you had planned next, but I’m heading to that shop,” I told her.
Minutes later I was standing in front of Adi Unterberger, the legendary accordion player, woodcarver and yodeller. He was Austria originally from Austria, as I remember the story, but moved to Canada and set up shop in Kimberley, which has a bit of a German architectural thing going. We chatted for a bit, and he proudly showed off some cassette tapes of his music.
Knowing he had done the “soundtrack” to the cuckoo clock outside, I asked if he could play for me. He quickly dashed into the back room of his shop and came out with his accordion and one of those “Sound of Music” hats with long, showy white feathers popping out of the top.
He played. He yodelled. It was brilliant. (Here’s a video I posted to You Tube). He was beaming from ear to ear, and I snapped what I consider to be the best photo I’ve ever taken. Oh, sure, I’ve had pictures of sunsets and mountains and famous buildings. But I got lucky on this one and captured the unmitigated joy of a man doing what he loves in front of a (very small) audience.
Adi died a few years ago, but I’ll never forget that radiant smile and that pride he showed in his craft.
LAST MANGO IN DOMINICA
On the island of Dominica early last year, I met a pair of sisters, Irma and Jacqueline Douglas, who run an outstanding beach bar and restaurant at beautiful Batibou Bay. Irma was telling me about the delicious mangoes they have at the restaurant, so I teased her a little.
“I hope you get the really good ones from Guadeloupe,” I said.
She paused, seemingly speechless. Then let loose.
“Guadeloupe? Why would I get mangoes from Guadeloupe? What, are you crazy?”
By now I was smiling and probably giggling a little. She gave me a bit of a stare, as if to scold me with her eyes, then burst into laughter.
NATASHA MCKENTY, WRITER
Fresh seafood and margaritas, serenaded by a mariachi band.
The moon’s reflection dances on the sea as the warm waters call to us from the oceanfront patio.
Heaven must feel like this.
My partner and I recently rented a private residence in the Dominican Republic.
Surrounded by the buzz of nearby resorts, swaying palm trees, and a front-row seat to the solar system’s nightly performance, our rental’s rooftop patio became a sanctuary where he and I engaged in conversations that often stretched into the dawn.
Afternoon siestas, trips to the market, and feeding stray animals filled our inspired afternoons with a reinforced awareness that those who have the luxury to wander are not lost.
Renting a scooter from a local company, we explored areas our feet couldn’t take us.
Despite a language barrier (and broken attempts at speaking Spanish), we were met with the warmth Canadian tourists often speak of, a reputation that preceded us.
We adjust to this temporary new norm, and the routines of daily life seem almost foreign. Our loosely structured days revolve around meaningful conversations, savouring meals, and having nowhere else to be.
As the final hours of our vacation approach, talk of the next adventure sedates the solemnity of its ending.
Travel adds page-turning chapters to our narratives
The protagonist in our own “choose your own adventure,” we roam freely, savour, indulge and reflect, memorizing scenery and events in hopes that we never forget.
We inherit a repertoire of creativity, empathy, opinions, thoughts, and ideologies—a first-hand education not found in textbooks.
Exploring new places gives us perspective; we begin to appreciate time over things.
Travel is more than sightseeing
It’s where we truly see ourselves (and our partners) – a prescription for wellness that can’t be found in a package.
Here, we converse thoughtfully, laugh wholeheartedly, overthink less frequently, reflect heavily, consume sunrises and sunsets, and embrace spontaneity – an inner reinvention we can’t comprehend until the wheels hit the tarmac back home.
As a travel writer, I have had the luxury of meeting the people behind the curtain.
As an aviation writer, I learned that long before our flight crews escorted us to the heavens on earth, they dedicated years to their education and often overcame obstacles during extensive flight training to attain a career in the clouds.
Tourism is an industry where you can walk into a room as strangers and depart as friends…where people define luxury as leaving the world a little better than you found it.
Through industry events, symposiums, inaugural flights, destination tours, and working at the news desk, I have accumulated credits towards a travel “Degree” that awaits all of us when we step out of the comfort zone we call home and explore.
On World Tourism Day, we celebrate the experiences and memories that have become etched in the stories of our lives through exploration and connection.
The world is smaller than we think and more beautiful than we imagined.
Cue the mariachi band…
