What a difference a week makes.
Last Monday morning, over biscotti, coffee and papers—e-papers, that is—my business partner suggested we go to New York. Attend a big Travel & Adventure Show happening. Maybe we should show our colors, she said.
I quickly checked the Knicks and Rangers game schedules. Okay, I’m in, I said.
Niche professional conferences (think: celebrity impersonators conference), conventions (world clown convention), and trade shows (witchcraft & world toilet expos) are an American tradition. More than a quarter of a million occur each year. Tax write-off boondoggles all. America’s Infidelity Index rises, literally, at each event. The intoxicating mix of being away from home freedom, hotel rooms, deep conversation with impassioned fellow colleagues, excessive alcohol consumption, and strange temptations. It all adds up. As do heart palpitations.
But they are good for business. We have yet to attend a travel show we haven’t bamboozled, err, I mean nurtured, a new person into joining our little annual around-the-world travel adventure event The Global Scavenger Hunt. We’re full for 2023, but what the heck. Besides, the Rangers are playing the Golden Knights.
I've been known to attend a convention or two in previous incarnations. Political conventions were always fun and passionate affairs. No pun intended. I remember the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, which offered up Walter Mondale as the nation’s sacrificial lamb. The 1990 version in LA was amusing—the nexus of vacuous Hollywood celebrity and haughty Washington power. Can you say interspecies breeding? There were always plenty of high-brow backroom political shenanigans at the attorney symposia I attended in Maui, Las Vegas, and Lake Tahoe. Lawyers always seem to pick great meeting destinations! I vividly recall wearing bulky goggles that streamed video across my eyes at the 1992 Virtual Reality Conference in San Jose. Seems not too much has changed in 30+ years! And then there was the 10th annual Video Dealers Association Convention in Vegas—and no, not the Traci Lord kind of video either. Gawd, remember videos? Me neither; it was their last convention.
So, off to New York City we flew, leaving the high school senior alone with an finicky aging black Labrador. What could go wrong?
In the not-so-distant pre-Covid pandemic era, I have been an invited speaker at numerous Travel & Adventure Shows. So, I, a C-list transient, got to rub elbows with prominent A-List travel speakers: Rick Steves, Samantha Brown, Patricia Schultz of “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” fame, Pauline Frommer—Whom my wife oddly thinks has an unrequited crush on me?—Brat Pack-actor-cum-travel writer Andrew McCarthy, and Dora the Explorer. Just kidding with that last one, but the former are all excellent travel promoters. Well, the good folks who organize these travel events nationwide thought I might know a thing or two about international travel due to my position as Event Director (aka The Ringmaster) of the globetrotting travel world championship event. Sure, I said…even after I told them that we were not The Amazing Race.
Of course, they were right. I am a passionate travel evangelist, and I have more than a few thoughts on various travel topics. Just ask my wife. Poor woman; the patience of a saint—a sinner-saint, but a saint, nonetheless. We’ve attended the whole circuit since: London, Boston, Vancouver, Chicago, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and even Sacramento. Though not too many would-be adventurers live in Sacramento, it seems, as the show was a bust. I even not so fondly remember signing 200 of my books before a talk I gave in Beverly Hills. I’m still a tad confused, though, because everyone kept asking me afterward whose signature it was?
Honestly, these “talks” are all about self-promotion—selling tickets to the shows, travel books, celebrity tours, media expertise, and upping one’s brand Q Scores. They have the feel of well-attended vacation slideshows, really. This is me eating pizza in Naples. So, I recommend you run far away. Buy some scalped tickets to the Rangers game, like me.
But about seven or eight years ago, the calculating marketing entity that runs these shows pivoted their business model to pay-to-play. And we don’t, so I stopped speaking. One way to shut me up, make me pay per word! But we still enjoy going to a show occasionally because what really gets my juices flowing is interacting with fellow travelers attending these weekend shindigs. No, really! This past weekend, it seemed readily apparent that discerning would-be travelers have a serious pent-up appetite for glorious travel adventures (aka revenge travel) that go beyond the norm. They have a thirst to do something unique. A deep hunger to add meaning to whatever they do wherever they go.
My colleague, fellow Canadian, and über adventurer, Robert Young Pelton, offered a rather insightful observation that rings true: “The more civilized a society is, the more outrageous their adventures.” Indeed.
So, there we were, like the State of Florida, Dollywood, and overly optimistic Balochistan Tourism Bureau folks, my business partner and I manning our corner booth/stall/exhibit promoting our annual event.
Like high school dating, you learn to take rejection well at these events. Thousands walk by us with little interest. You notice a few turn their heads back as they contemplate the crazy idea of a global scavenger hunt. Some even circle back to ask probing questions.
Both my kids—indentured servants—have worked the booths over the last dozen years. They know the whole pitch routine. As panda parents, we think it makes them have some skin in the family game and be more outgoing. A confidence builder. They learned how to address all manner of queries from perplexed wannabes like learning the right way to calm a dog whose head is tilted not fully understanding things. They smile, listen attentively and hand out mints—they make everyone’s lives better…ours and theirs. They learned to answer questions as efficiently as possible—because you must do it a hundred times an afternoon at these shows.
Q) So, what in the hell is The Global Scavenger Hunt?
A) Well, I’m glad you asked, ma’am. The Global Scavenger Hunt is a travel adventure that takes teams around the world (wave hand over our inflated globe for effect) on a Blind Date with the World over three weeks. It’s a blind date because we don’t tell our travelers what ten secret countries they will visit while circumnavigating the globe (wave hand over the inflated globe for dramatic effect again). It is the annual world travel championship. A competition with teams completing incredibly authentic, challenging, and participatory cultural-oriented challenges in each mystery destination.
Breathe…and await additional questions. And there always are.
Most will quickly meander away with dazed looks of confusion. Escaping our orbit as fast as possible heading for the Dollywood or Florida exhibits. And no, the cheap inflated globe prop is not a parting gift, or for sale! Some will say, “Oh, that sounds like that TV show…The Amazing Race.” It does? We retort in utter shock. Most stop asking after they realize they must take three weeks off work (Americans don’t like taking time off work.) or have to pony up $14,000 to enter (Americans are notoriously cheap vacation bargain hunters.). But a few will get it. Nod knowingly, mumbling, Fun, great idea. But it’s not me. I’m a type-A planner, as they oddly migrate towards the cruise and prepackaged guided tour booths. We only see the lights go on in a select, intelligent, cultivated few. Brightly, the light bulb flashes over their spectacular auras like the travel saints they are. They desperately want in, badly. Ahh, the sweet smell of success…and breath mints.
We know our travel adventure is only for some, we never intend it to be for everyone. It’s only for a brave, curious gifted few. Kindred spirits. We suspect there are but a dozen in attendance here (thousands attended the NY show) who get it (and us). Wanderers who have the O-Factor—psychologically open to not only using their creative imaginations, but open to surprise, serendipity and novel experiences. And that our Blind Date with the World™ is. See, we even trademarked that slogan. It is a giant leap of faith for even O-factor people taking a trip around-the-world over 23 days and not knowing where in the hell they are going! I think The Beatles would have called it a Magical Mystery Tour. Maybe not?
Oh, by the way, the Rangers beat the Knights and my wife/business partner says the musical Kimberly Akimbo was excellent. A must-see! But when did bagels and coffee for two cost $50 bucks! Ahh, New York.
Thanks for reading Op-Ed Haiku by William Chalmers ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thanks for the privilege of your time, it is the most precious thing we have, and I appreciate it. Be well.
William D. Chalmers © 2023 GreatEscape Adventures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.