Research

Is there ever such a thing as “enough” research?
When I prepared for my first solo overseas travel, I did some research.

I re-read all of Douglas Adams’s novels. I skimmed a non-fiction book that claimed to be about Hitchhikers. I struggled to remain awake through a dense biography, gave up, and packed it.

My theory was that if I took it with me on the journey, perhaps in-situ the biological happenstances would somehow feel more interesting. Nope.

In addition to the research on Adams, there was a barrage of material I’d collected about accommodations, railway passes, and maps of Europe. There were fan clubs full of people I had yet to meet in person. Lectures I had tickets to attend were tucked in blue accordion folders, labeled with each day and place on my trip. In pencil.

The relevant sections of Rick Steves’ travel books had been ripped from their covers and added to the research stash.

(Before you freak out, as I did, a veteran traveler told me that’s what you’re supposed to do. Rick Steves’ books are actually MEANT to be torn apart so that you can bring only the pertinent parts with you; travel “light” as it were. If this is not the case, please, no one disarm me of the notion. I don’t want to feel guilty for ruining those books.)

Rick Steves’ England and Austria were filled with non-Douglas attractions that were nevertheless attractive to me, as an anglophile lit major architecture and history buff. All of this information, whole worlds of travel options, were overwhelming and indicative of decisions that I would have to make eventually. The possibilities were like being locked inside a Magrathean planet catalog.

I startled awake, tailbone complaining about the hard thump of landing.
One decision I didn’t have to make: It was now time to get off the plane. 

My pull-on hiking boots (for ease through security!), with deep, as-yet-un-scuffed tread (wear your heaviest shoes, don’t pack them!), dragged me up the jetway. It was the shoes shuffling me forward. They were ready for adventure. They urged movement from legs rubbery after eight dozing hours in an upright and locked position. I wasn’t so sure.

At the transition from jetway to airport, a blast of over-conditioned air turned my sweat-soaked “Don’t Panic!” t-shirt icy. I was cold. I was tired. And I doubted I’d be any good at what I’d set out to do: travel alone for my 42nd birthday for 42 days, visiting 42 locations in Douglas Adams books.

I was here and I was the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
The time to bail out had passed. It was time to make the most of it.