Tour Planning

The reason they are called “interesting times” is because they are often a mix of exciting and terrifying. That’s where I’ve been at, so far, for much of my quarantine.

On the one hand, a stranger in line at Gelson’s might cough on me and I might get sick and die.

On the other hand, the first itineraries I’ve received from companies in the UK have come in and they look BRILLIANT! It is beyond exciting to have several UK based, highly knowledgeable, professional organizations bidding to manage the Forty-Two Places Tours in 2021.

Fun, but not easy. The holes in my experience are showing up like sofas floating across a cricket pitch. If I didn’t do a good job sharing the ways travel in my head is organized, the itineraries have some crazy tour stops! (What the heck is in Exeter?)

Where I have not effectively communicated where I want to go, and when, and why, the operators who have to interpret my draft itinerary have gotten jumbled up in interesting ways. It’s exciting to see the flaws, have a good laugh, and clarify, clarify, clarify!

Work on projects for the future is keeping me focused and positive. It’s exciting to see my ideas go out and come back to me as something I might find online and purchase without a second thought.

At the same time, it is terrifying to think that there is a chance–I’d say not a good chance, but a chance–that the world will be so different in 9 months that travel, vacations, and tourism will look completely and utterly different.

So how do I press on? Why am I still working on putting together a tour of the UK that takes Douglas Adams fans and friends to amazing places? Why do I still want fans and friends to experience the astonishing joy of literary tourism?

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Two reasons:

1) I believe in travel. I believe that seeing and experiencing things outside your norm, beyond your personal experience, brings you growth as a human being. Travel shifts your perception gradually in a way that allows more room for compassion, open-mindedness, and kindness.

I want to share that opportunity with others. I want to make those small shifts, in supported ways, available and possible. I didn’t travel until I was 42 years old, and I wish I’d left my comfort zone MUCH earlier!

2) The second reason is that I’m the only one who *can* share this message. As my partner in crime, Heather, of Melvin’s Nerdventures said to me on a call, “You literally wrote the book.” She is so right. I did…well, I will have written the book, in the timeline where I do not get coughed on and die.

And the theme of my book is that literary tourism is about connection. It is about readers connecting to the author, to the work, to the place, and most importantly, to the other people who share the same fandom.

In my journal today, I asked myself questions about the possible timeline to come:

At the end of quarantine, when we’ve all figured out how to get everything we need online; When we manage our supply chain of toilet paper; When local farm-fresh vegetables are delivered to our door; When corporate offices shut down and everyone works from home; When there are fewer cars because we don’t need them; When boutiques offer products and gyms offer classes on their YouTube channels; When Amazon is the only megacorp left moving goods and services from place to place and warehouse to person; When we all receive our Universal Basic Income and we all do work we love, get paid, and file our taxes digitally; Let’s say that future, the one where we don’t really NEED to leave, is the new reality.
Why will people leave their houses?
Why will they expose themselves to the world, endanger their loved ones, and voluntarily seek vulnerability out in a hostile environment?

Humans are curious.
Humans are social.
Humans are visual.
Humans are resilient.

We will go out, we will travel, we will connect with others because denying ourselves the pleasure of those things would make us feel inhuman.

I imagine that sheltering in place is making many of us feel like Arthur Dent, traveling in a post-Earth-destruction universe where there is no other choice.

The antidote to that feeling is the most important message Douglas Adams gave us (aside from laugh a whole lot): Take Nothing For Granted. Not a house. Not a relationship. Not a world.

I don’t ever want to forget that. Travel drives that message home. Travel tells us what “home” is. Being away from the norm, outside the routine, without your usual safety net–all of that snaps our human hearts and minds awake.

I am looking for the people who have no interest in putting a bag over their heads and lying down behind the bar when the Vogons arrive. I want to find the froods who know where their towels are, and who are ready to jump into the new post-pandemic world–whatever it looks like–with me.