So there’s nothing like three weeks of work to turn my mind to travel. 101 weeks until I can go on my trip, whew. I’ve got my limited allotment of vacation, which I’ll definitely use to full effect. It’s a bit strange that American companies are so similar in their vacation policies, isn’t it? It seems like the gain to, say, an accounting firm when recruiting from having a lower salary/longer vacation package would be attractive, doesn’t it?

In any case, I was trying to remember what my favorite travel experiences had in common. That’s not to say that I’ve had bad times traveling - I can only think of one time I was miserable traveling. After traveling in Yunnan, a province in South China, with six friends (2 Chinese and four Americans), I left them at a bus stop in Lijiang. They were headed to Zhongdian, a town near the Tibet border, but I decided I wanted four or five days of travel alone, so I decided to make my way back to Beijing. I took an overnight bus (never again!) where I had the middle bed in the back row. There were five people side-by-side in that row, most of whom liked to smoke and loudly clear their throats throughout the night. From there, I took a train to Nanning, Guangxi province, where an English-teacher Dad and his daughter practiced language with me. In Nanning, though, I was caught in an awful rain/mudstorm, harassed by a gay prostitute and booked at the dingiest fleabag hotel I’ve ever stayed at. After waiting two days for a train ticket to Beijing to open up, I maanged a seat in the lowest class; the passenger next to me let his naked baby crap on the floor next to me the whole ride. It was twelve hours. That brought me to Wuhan, halfway back to Beijing, where tickets were also sold out. A policeman took pity on me and dug up a “wuzuo” ticket, meaning “no seat”, meaning exactly what it sounds like. It’s another 12 hours from Wuhan to Beijing. Luckily, two girls my age from near Hong Kong had the same ticket, and they showed me how to “bupiao”, or upgrade, once on the train. The only seat available was first-class, with individual LCD TVs and silk curtains. They also brought me fried bananas, and kung pao chicken, and more of a neverending feast. So the moral is that your luck can turn at any moment, right?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I remember clearly my walks through cities. I heartily recommend setting aside a full day - 8, 10, 12 hours - when you arrive somewhere simply to walk aimlessly; bike only if you want to cover 20 miles or more, and drive the back roads should you have no other option. Mix main roads with back roads with scrambles through the park. Walk through untouristed areas. Sitting here today, I can clearly remember London, Boston, Beijing, Singapore, Sandakan, Dali, Kunming, Butha-Buthe, Nanning. It’s easy to meet real people if you just sit down for a drink. A number of people I studied with in Boston don’t even know the real city after four years there. They know the city made for tourists, transits and transients. They don’t have any feel for Rozzie or Uphams Corner or Hyde Park or the parts of the city where people actually grow up.

A corollary: no city can be great that can’t be walked. How inorganic, how unconnected.