Travel is both a noun, and a verb. But for the most part I think we use it as a verb: to travel, to explore, to see, to escape...to lose yourself, to find yourself. I think of it so much as a very busy doing-word, so perhaps that’s why travel has a connotation of leaving home for another place, another country, another city, upstate...wherever. Even when the New Yorker has a smart very well argued ‘why not to travel’ piece this week that I disagreed with. I am also the biggest fan of traveling in my own city: maybe that’s travel for me as a noun, the concept of travel, more than the doing of it.
As a New Yorker, I have slept in roughly 100 hotels in Manhattan, oh yes and a few in the other boroughs too, as staycations. Because when you live somewhere it’s so easy to forget all the beauty and excitement of the actual place, and why you choose to live there - especially in a city like New York, because locals have the joys of standing in line as a day trip at the DMV somewhere in the Bronx to get their driver’s license, or having to do an insane zigzag at Trader Joe’s in Chelsea for an entire afternoon, or fending off yet another person accosting me to sign up for dog knows what...
Oh New York, THE THINGS YOU MAKE ME DO.
But I have a serious love for a staycation - let’s call that the noun of travel. And yes, staycation is a silly, silly word, let’s rename it. Suggestions anyone? I am taking them to my email address please.
This desire for staying in hotels in my hometown, and for experiencing home almost as a tourist actually started for me from a young age, right in London, maybe the greatest city on earth. I mean you’ve heard the saying, “if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of Life.” Well apparently I heard that loud and clear, and jumped right to it, making sure the traveling without traveling darling London was as exciting as possible. This was my method at age eight and I haven’t quit yet. As an eight year old my needs were centered around Zone 1, which is truly the center of London, by the time I was that teenager I was heading far east in the city, which in the early 2000s was a place for Sunday afternoon rave parties that spilled onto the streets by Monday morning as the city was heading to their respectable offices. Now that I am an adult, all of London feels like a staycation to me. But almost as if I can’t help it, I have always given all my lovin’ to old London town, celebrating it like it’s my greatest journey yet. Top of the morning to YOU.
Those Sunday afternoons of my teenage years were spent with Fat Boy Slim and Daft Punk. But at age eight my obsessions were more along the lines of Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde and the original Vampire story teller, Bram Stoker. Ahh, the writers of my early youth, and in fact, writers all with a love for the classic Brown’s Hotel in London. Discreet, understated, and tipping into an Edwardian past, the hotel is for the literary-minded lover of old England. A forgotten England some may say, ready to take reservations for locals like us to come, and sojourn.
With no great big staircase to dazzle, or giant ballrooms with crystal chandeliers - this property is just a couple of London townhouses cozying up to form an intimate hotel. And so as a young lad, the bookworm as they called me, I easily found my nook right at the fireplace in the front room. For the next twenty plus years, the room’s décor changed every few years, but the fireplace stayed, and my nook remained mine.
Mother appreciated a staycation, and where better than a hotel where writers came, spent nights and even wrote their overtures. As an English major, she approved. In the early years I was so overwhelmed by the Jungle Book, and would stay awake many a night just imagining myself as Mowgli in the forests of India, embarking on these tree swinging adventures. All the while staying in the, what they now call, Kipling suite named after yours truly. Because this is exactly where Mr. Kipling was when he was letting his mind travel to magical lands. Like I did.
But it really was Agatha Christie’s characters Miss Marple (who in my mind was more Bette Davis than scowling Margaret Rutherford), and also bothersome Hercule Poirot, who taught me about crafting a really interesting story. I was mesmerized, and followed these two characters in the worlds Dame Agatha Christie created to solve a whodunit. I was, and still am, the proverbial amateur sleuth - it’s annoying to most of my friends when we travel because I am always Nancy Drew-ing or being a Hardy Boy and trying to uncover something that may or may not be something of interest. I’ll side track you for a minute to tell you a funny little tale. Just the other day we were staying at a giant fancy hotel at Disney in Florida - worshiping all things local Orlando of course, like that blazing sun - when it became clear to us all that something was amiss deep in the night.
A woman was sitting at a little little desk with an iPad. She was dressed in nothing memorable, and she was handling the iPad in a normal iPaddion way. What was odd was that she was sitting outside one of the hotel rooms, right in the hallway. We walked by a number of times, you know that “Ohh I am just pretending to not look type of walking by”, all the while mumbling your room number over and over. We’ve all done that, right?
“Sex trafficking!” said one friend. Another, “Drugs! Definitely Drugs! I know Drugs when I see Drugs.” I felt more Nancy Drew-ish at this point so I was going with something wilder, like she was checking people in for a gambling ring - like Molly Bloom. Of course this was hours of speculation, and fun for everyone. Well, my friends found out what was really going on the next morning. And it was good - even Miss Marple would have never suspected this! A royal family from Africa was staying in a villa nearby - the staff happened to be staying at our hotel. Of course, what would royal families from African countries do when in Florida? They would shop. So our lady behind her desk was cataloging all their many many purchases. Miss Marple would have been flummoxed.
But back to London (forgive me if I’ve told you this little ditty) and Agatha Christie, who in her novel, ‘At Bertram's Hotel’ (which is said to take place at Brown’s Hotel), has Miss Marple calling it “the perfect mix of Edwardian and Victorian atmosphere,” - ha, ponder about that for a moment if you’re even a slight Anglophile, she was commenting on the prim staff and elderly guests and I am sure, so many other things. And here I am, in my nook, uttering similar sentiments.
From my nook, I transported myself to Bertram’s and I played the part of Miss Marple, thinking I could solve this murder mystery in the very hotel in which I was staying. The creaky staircase, the gorgeous hallways and secret passages between the townhouses, even the back entrances became movie sets in my mind. All this fun without really going anywhere - see, travel is whatever you decide it should be.
And to this day, this is still my tradition as I return to the hotel every year. I stealthily watch every guest who enters the tea room, I pay careful attention to how they stir their cups of tea. I even lean in to overhear their conversations. At night I peek through the curtains and look down on the abandoned London street, wondering who’s coming in and leaving through the doors of this grand old hotel.
Over twenty years it is here that I developed a taste for murder mystery, and for meticulously using clues to solve my puzzle. I was taught just how to observe human behavior. Why is it that the lady with the oversized handbag keeps looking at her watch? Was that bellhop pocketing something he received from a guest who left the hotel in such a rush, or are my eyes deceiving me?
Maybe life is but all just a murder mystery.
But there are other ways to worship all things local too. Like traveling to a place and making it your mission to find something so niche, and appropriately of the place that you become a little mini expert in it. Like going to Japan and learning everything you possibly can about their matcha tea culture, or incredible denim. Or what if you go to Argentina and become a tango expert - different styles, different outfits, different drinks to go with your dancing. You’re getting my drift right? Well I chose something I knew nothing about - that’s usually how I chose my niche activity. Not something obvious or something I’ve been interested in before - rather something totally off my usual course of interest. And so I hopped south to Madeira, Portugal’s southern island, where the tradition of embroidery is not only continuing for centuries but is constantly improving. Who would have thought the home of Cristiano Ronaldo would open up embroidery to me.
During my quest for embroidery, linen and all things lacy I also found a place quite like no other. The world has fewer and fewer Grand Dame Hotels left, but here on the cliffs of Madeira’s capital, Funchal, I found Reid’s Palace. A hotel that withstood two wars, and the crush of social media, offered a geek like me an entire collection of all things embroidery.
So picture this. A whole room, with glass cabinets filled with special embroidery the hotel did for visiting dignitaries, every possible Royal Family member from Europe, Hollywood starlets and scary politicians. I had just settled in at a little table, with my handy magnifying glass, when I noticed an elegant lady dressed in all navy, and a little heel, walking over to a notice board near me. She seemed to pin something on, and off she marched - with a gleaming smile thrown my way. Of course, within seconds I was up and scrutinizing that notice board.
Seeking Card Player of Excellent Skill. Willing to play Bridge, Canasta and Rummy. Games Room, 17.00 sharp. Sincerely, Ms. Edith Ainsley. (I changed her name out of deference)
I cleared my busy embroidery schedule immediately.
At moments to 5pm I rolled up to the games room, dressed in a blazer at least. The softly lit, carpeted room was overly quiet, and a cool breeze came shimmering off the sea. The balcony doors were flung open and there was my mystery woman seated at a four seater card table outside facing the ocean. “I’m Ms. Edith Ainsley and I hope you’re coming to play cards with me this evening,” she said. She rang a small buzzer on the table, and informed me that someone will be by shortly to offer me provisions. Her advice, a pink gin, of course, and no cell phones please she adds - oh, and now since we’re card companions, she offered that I may call her, Edith. She no longer placed any orders, every staff member knows exactly what she’ll have and when precisely to deliver it to her. Part of the furniture, as you can only wish.
Her hands rolled like she worked casinos her whole life. Please, grace me with your presence, she smiled. I sat down and didn’t get up for three hours. We worked our way through the most serious canasta of my life - and she killed me every round. I was a mere Jack in her game of Aces baby. She had been a guest of Reid’s since 1920 - and this was not her first rodeo with some young one on the cards. At nearly 100 she spends the majority of her year at Reid’s, as she says when the English weather turns miserable I swoop down to the island.
Her mind was filled with the past. Yes, of course I appreciate embroidery, she said. In fact I have my very own set of linen here at the hotel - they hand embroidered it for me, not too much, just in simple patterns that I can tolerate. She told me about her childhood, and her husband who passed away many years ago, her love for little dogs and gin...and then she told me how many years ago, Sir Winston Churchill arrived at the hotel, slightly unannounced if you could believe that. Well, she said “I offered him my suite - after all this feels like my home - and it’s all for Queen and Country, isn’t it. And so we quickly had special linen hand-embroidered for him here in town - of course, it was the talk of Funchal.” Even Edith was worshiping all things local, in every possible way. As I said this to her she said - why, yes! That is what you do when you travel - you smoke local cigarettes, drink local wine (even if they both are terrible) and never hobnob with other tourists!
I invited Edith to join me for dinner, a lavish affair under a cloudy frescoed ceiling sky. Can you say the word, “snazzy.” A dinner jacket, a divine dress, and an appetite for twirling is only proper. Edith was still the gem on the shiny sea of twirling - and my dream hotel guest. As we waltzed, we romanced all things from the past in our simple movement. We could trip the light fantastic, as I worshiped the local herself...
As Edith told me, “I dress for both myself and the atmosphere.” And with that, Edith’s cup overfloweth offering just a peep into the bygones. The ocean was her company, with simply the quiet lull of afternoon teas served on the veranda. And the mountains, silently covered with mist, was the entertainment. Days were unnamed and unnumbered, evenings all wobbling into one. Smoking wasn’t bad for anyone yet, and drinking before noon wasn’t even beheld. Problems were Atlantic Oceans away and attention spans stretched into eternal summers of loving.
Meeting someone like Edith is the very reason anyone should travel. There is an Edith at every old world hotel. She’s to be found on the dance floor at the dinner dance, or at the card table in the games room. And it is exactly there over a chop-chop game of bridge, where you’ll be in the moment without having to think about it too much. She’ll talk and you’ll actually want to listen, not wait to speak. She’ll remind you to make time for beauty, and laughter. She’s the original hostess to a good time — her wit will ensure it in every single hand.
Madeira, the hidden middle sister of Portugal, is home to many an Edith. This is where a literati British delightfulness came to elude Europe’s glitzy sets, and London’s pell-mell pace after all. Today Madeira holds exactly the same charm, beyond the afternoon tea and fancy silverware. Leave your technology, behave like a local, dress like you care, and come waltz through the past so fair…