Are you fretting over the difficulties of international travel? Longing for advice from a cosmopolitan traveler? Take it from a tourist: it’s absurdly easy. Half of it is showing up; the rest is a willingness to look ridiculous.
HOW TO BE SUPER-COOL IN AUTOMATED AIRPORTS. Where have all the people gone? In the last few years, everything has become automated. Now you check your own luggage and scan your own passport. But don’t panic. If you have difficulty with tech, they wave you through a special line where you interact with humans. (That, in my opinion, is super-cool.) You soon learn by osmosis to do the tech stuff. You’re proud of your unpaid airport-processing skills, but wonder what happened to the workers.
TOO MUCH CANNOT BE SAID ABOUT WHAT TO WEAR ON PLANES. That’s because you love travel fashion “do’s” and “don’t’s.” You pore over the charming articles in magazines, but you probably won’t wear the darling $500 pajama-style outfits recommended (possibly facetiously) by Vogue or the $450 leggings in Travel and Leisure which look exactly like all other leggings—one only hopes they have superpowers.
FASHION “DON’T’S” CAUSE PANIC ATTACKS. How do the fashion experts know the “don’ts” in your wardrobe? Actually, you just learned they are “don’t’s.” But do not heed the columnist who insists that jeans are worn only by the ugly American. Relax. People of all different nationalities wear jeans on planes. All casual clothes are appropriate for airports, in case you find yourself jogging across a terminal late for a flight because you were frisked during a random security check. Note: it will be the last gate.
HOW TO PLAN YOUR ITINERARY. What you do depends on who you are. You do not have to follow an itinerary in a guidebook. My advice: Make a list of 20 things you want see. If you check off all the items (which is unlikely), make another list. There are so many must-sees I hope never to see. I will never ride the Eye in London, a giant ferris wheel from which you can see the whole city (or something). It would make me sick. Nor do I feel the urge to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. If you love dizzying heights, you’ll want to do all these things and possibly some rappelling.
And that’s why our itineraries are so different.
There is no room for our bodies in the chairs, much less any outfits. Yes there is no one to help you do anything any more. You are even expected to put the label on your checked baggage – if you don’t do it correctly, you are even more likely to experience several days without your baggage after you land. I am not super-cool while TSA is spot-checking me – now there they do provide human beings or people who like to pass for some.
This has all changed very quickly–maybe in the last five years? Yes, security is tight but they need more workers. The joys of automation! There are usually employees to help you out, but there is lots of confusion. Not everybody is used to flying.
On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 11:31 PM Thornfield Hall: A Book Blog wrote:
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Will automation mean that one day we will do our own security checks, load the baggage on the plane and serve ourselves snacks and drinks on board???
God only knows! I do wonder about the baggage check, too. Gotta say they need people working these jobs.
On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 5:15 PM Thornfield Hall: A Book Blog wrote:
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