Travel Destination Ignorance
This short article takes a look at a phenomenon
I have called travel article ignorance. It is a particular bee in my bonnet
because I think that people who suffer from this total lack of interest in
distant places are missing out on something that provides me with an enormous
amount of pleasure
Madeira cake from France
and Tenerife in Bulgaria
The other day, I was sitting at my favourite restaurant when
I overheard a conversation that went something like this:
First Person: "I think I am going to have a slice of Madeira
cake"
Her Friend: "That's a good idea, I ll join you. Not that Ive
got a clue why they call it Madeira cake, have you?"
First Person: "I think its named after some place in France."
I am not sure why that sort of ignorance about places makes
me feel so frustrated. After all, why should everyone be as fascinated by
travel and far away places as I am? Whatever the reason, I just could not help
myself interrupting the two women as soon as they had ordered their cake to
inform them that Madeira is a Portuguese island about four hundred miles off of
the north African coast in the Atlantic ocean. I added that it makes a fabulous
holiday destination but did bother to tell them that it is actually not one
island but an archipelago and actually an autonomous region of Portugal.
Just as well – their expressions told me that I had already said
more than they were interested in knowing.
This attitude of having little or no interest in travel
destinations is actually very common and it is not confined to people who are
generally under educated. Frequent examples can be seen on television quiz
shows when contestants who are obviously well educated stumble on simple
questions like; Which of the following is not a Caribbean
island (A) Jamaica (B)Cuba (C) Majorca (D) Barbados
Even more incredible are the people you sometimes overhear
in a travel agent, booking holidays to resorts without having any interest as their
location as long as its warm and sunny with cheap booze available.
Travel destination ignorance is not just a British thing. An
air stewardess once told me a story about an American couple visiting their
parents country of origin, Bulgaria,
one February. They had used a travel agent in New York
to plan their journey and book the two flights that were involved. The first
flight took them to London where
they boarded the ongoing flight to complete their journey. When this flight
landed at Reina Sofia airport the couple looked a little flustered and
hesitated at the top of the flight steps, turning to the stewardess to ask why
everywhere looked so sub tropical and sunny, and adding that their parents had
always told them that Bulgaria
was cold in February. At first, the stewardess was at a loss to think of
anything that could possibly explain how someone trying to get to Bulgaria
in Eastern Europe could end up on a flight to Tenerife
in the Canary Islands.
Then she realized that the name of Bulgarias
capital city is Sofia. She asked
the couple whether they thought they had boarded a flight to Sofia,
Bulgaria. The answer was
yes and it turned out that their travel agent had probably just typed Sofia
Flights into her computer and accepted the results that the query gave without
questioning any further!
Best travel tips and holiday destination information
Travel destination ignorance rubs me up the wrong way
because I am so passionate about travel and that is also the reason that I
started up a website dedicated to providing travel tips, articles and
information about holiday or vacation destinations worldwide. As well as
wanting to help people to make the right decisions when planning their
vacations, I hope the travel articles will fire peoples imaginations so that
they can enjoy dreaming about places they have never been to, even if they
never get around to visiting them.
About the Author
Wendy is a travel article
writer and co-owner the best-travel-tip website, which aims to provide travel
tips and information about possible holiday vacation destinations worldwide.
