Rediscovering the Lost Art of Travel in 2019

Posted: 5/16/2019 | May 16th, 2019

Seth Kugel is the former Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times and author of the new Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, from which this is adapted. I’ve known him for years and our travel philosophy dovetails a lot. I read his book last year and thought “If I were ever to write a book on the state of the travel industry, this is the book I would write!” It’s a great book and today, Seth excerpted part of the book for us!

Stenciled in white block letters on a dreary cement wall in Mezöberény, a tidy but fraying town of twelve thousand in the hyperbolically named Great Hungarian Plain, appeared the word:

SZESZFÖZDE

Hours earlier, in the overcast predawn hours of a nippy January day, I had stumbled off the Bucharest-to-Budapest train to see what it would be like to spend the weekend in the opposite of a tourist destination. Mezöberény was not just absent from guidebooks — it did not have a single restaurant, hotel, or activity listed on TripAdvisor, something that cannot be said for Mbabara, Uganda, or Dalanzadgad, Mongolia. I did have some info on the town, though, thanks to its municipal website: resident József Halász had recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday.

Or that’s what Google Translate told me. Hungarian is a Uralic language, more closely related to the output you might get falling asleep on a keyboard than to English or German or French. That makes even basic comprehension a challenge, as I found as soon as I rushed from the train to the station’s restrooms and faced the urgent need to choose between two doors: FÉRFI and NÖI. The authorities had apparently saved a few forints by not splurging on stick-figure signs.

The day had been born cold and gray and stayed that way as I walked through the town, slowly getting my bearings, intrigued by the pre-war, pre-Communist homes and the more than occasional bike rider — there were almost more bikes than cars — who waved hello. But then a winter drizzle took up, causing an abrupt decline in the number of cyclists even as the number of wandering American visitors held steady at one. To me, a travel day that turns rainy is like a piece of chocolate I’ve dropped on the floor: it’s significantly less appealing, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw it away.

It was in the first minutes of rain that I came across that stenciled sign on an otherwise residential street. Beyond the wall, down a cracking, now puddle-pocked driveway, were a dozen or so plastic barrels lined up like nuclear-waste drums. Beyond them, maybe a hundred feet from where I stood, was a one-story L-shaped building. What was this place? Well, SZESZFÖZDE, apparently. But what was that?

In the old days (say, 2009), I would have pulled out an English-Hungarian phrase book or pocket dictionary, but instead, I activated international roaming on my phone, carefully spelled out S-Z-E-S- Z-F-O-Z-D-E, and tapped Go.

The less-than-lightning speed of Great Hungarian Plain mobile service provided a dramatic pause. And then came my answer:

DISTILLERY.

You don’t say.

I would have guessed PRIVATE PROPERTY maybe, or DANGER—STAY OUT, or MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, YOU MEDDLING FOREIGNER! But a distillery? A wave of adrenaline washed down my torso as my lips curled into a dumb-luck smile.

Two rather gruff-looking men emerged from the door, the older one smoking a cigarette and wearing a sweater and work-stained trousers that suggested Warsaw Pact 1986 more than modern-day European Union. I waved to them, pointed to the bulky Canon 7D hanging from my neck, and then to the building. Old-school Google Translate.

They waved me in and gave me a tour.

Inside the ancient but fully functioning distillery, the men let me take pictures as they gave me a vaguely intelligible lesson via pointing, expressive looks, and smartphone-translated Hungarian, on how pálinka — Hungarian fruit brandy — was made.

Those barrels I had seen outside, it turned out, were full of fermenting pear and grape and apple juices. Inside, it was distilled somehow through a looping and tangled system of pipes running out of tin tanks up and along the walls. It looked like the laboratory of a mad scientist with a penchant for tacky linoleum flooring.

As they led me around, I engaged in that most intrinsic of travel activities: trying to see the world from the vantage point of someone utterly different from me. What was their life like? Had they traveled? Who were their parents and grandparents? The language barrier that did not allow them to answer did not stop me from wondering.

After soaking in every rusty detail and every glint of pride in the men’s tired eyes, I typed, “Come visit me in New York” into Google Translate — laughs all around — then headed back onto the drizzly streets of Mezöberény, utterly elated.

What was so great about this moment? Sure, the szeszfözde was a neat little story for friends, and in my case, worth a few paragraphs in the newspaper. But wasn’t it just a grimy business making local hooch in a town that even most Hungarians would classify as the middle of nowhere?

It was a great moment because I discovered it. Not an earth-shattering discovery in the sense of a cure for AIDS or a previously unknown species of poison-spitting neon frog the size of a pinky nail. But it was 100 percent unexpected, 100 percent real, and 100 percent mine.

Discovery used to be the lifeblood of travel, at least for those of us who shun tour-bus groups and all-inclusive resorts. We used to leave home knowing relatively little about our destination — perhaps with some highlighted guidebook pages denoting major attractions and local tipping etiquette, a list of tips culled from well-traveled friends, or articles copied and pasted into a Word document. For the ambitious, maybe a notional feel for the local history or culture gleaned pre-trip from a historical novel.

Beyond that, we were on our own.

Paper guidebooks frozen in time helped us along, as did pamphlets and paper maps from tourist information booths and tips from a hotel concierge. Earlier this century, Google searches in internet cafés also lent a hand. But otherwise, there was no choice: You decided what to do with your own eyes and ears, by wandering, by initiating human-to-human contact. Tips came from hearing fellow travelers’ stories over hostel or (non-Air) B&B breakfasts, entering a shop to ask directions and ending up in a conversation with the owner, or catching a whiff of fresh bread or sizzling chilies and following your nose.

Of course, all that still happens today — but only if you really go out of your way to make it happen. Not only is nearly every place in the world documented to within an inch of its life but that documentation — which comes dressed as both fact and opinion — is overwhelmingly and immediately available, thanks to pervasive technology. That’s great for many things in life — medical information, how-to videos, shorter commutes. But don’t we travel to break our routine? To experience the unexpected? To let the world delight us?

If we do, we have a funny way of showing it. We pore over online reviews for weeks, plan days down to the half hour, and then let GPS and the collected wisdom of the unwise lead us blindly. We mean well — no one wants to have a romantic dinner go wrong or to get lost and miss out on a “must-see attraction” or to risk chaos by failing to keep the kids entertained for three minutes.

But isn’t that just a digital version of the old-fashioned group tour? Well, almost, except that on the bus tour, you actually get to meet the person whose advice you’re taking.

One of my most ironclad rules of travel is this: the number of visitors a place receives is inversely related to how nice locals are to those visitors. Mezöberény, as far as I knew, had received precisely no foreign tourists ever. It was the anti-Paris, and this distillery the anti-Louvre.

People who inhabit the still-plentiful tourist-free swaths of the planet tend to be not only just nicer but more curious. They say a bear in the wild is just as scared of you as you are of it. I say people in places where outsiders rarely go are just as curious about visitors as visitors are about them. The question is not why the distillery workers invited me — a camera-toting, gibberish-talking stranger — in for a tour, it’s why wouldn’t they? If it were me, I’d be thinking: “What is this odd foreigner doing outside our szeszfözde with a camera? Wait till I tell the kids! And by the way, isn’t it about time we took a break?”

More importantly, is it possible that stumbling upon a dank distillery might be just as thrilling as a tour of one of the world’s great monuments? Did the surge of emotion I felt when the word distillery popped onto my screen match what I felt when I first glanced up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Probably not, although I remember the distillery moment quite precisely and barely recall what I felt at the Sistine Chapel. Why? Because although Michelangelo’s prophets and sibyls and biblical re-creations are several trillion times lovelier than rusty pipes in a concrete building reeking of fermented fruit, I had seen them before in photos, heard professors talk about them, and read other travelers’ accounts as I sought the best times to avoid crowds.

That’s why I believe it is time we rediscover travel and recognize the value of what an overdocumented world has taken away: the delight of making things happen on your own.

***

Seth is the former Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times and author of the new Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, from which this is adapted.

In this book, Kugel challenges the modern travel industry with a determination to reignite humanity’s age-old sense of adventure that has virtually been vanquished in this spontaneity-obliterating digital age. You can purchase the book at Amazon and give it a read.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• World Nomads (for everyone below 70)
• Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

Searching for the Perfect Dram on Islay

Whisky and I got off to a rocky start. The first time I tried it was in college. It tasted like rocket fuel. I only drank it when I had no other options — and drowned what little I poured into my glass under a ton of Coke.

Then I met my friend Dan, whose home collection of various Scotches and whiskies rivaled any bar I knew. He and Choun, the manager of Rye House in NYC, slowly walked me through the world of whisky. From sweet to smoky to heavy to peaty, I got to taste everything.

I went from whisky hater to whisky lover, and soon I learned that there was nothing I liked more than the smoky, peaty whiskies that come from the Scottish island of Islay. I came to love their campfire smell and strong bite at the end.

Last month, I finally had the chance to visit Islay with Sean, my other whiskyphile friend. Located off the west coast of Scotland, Islay is a large island battered by the sea, wind, and rain. (The weather is so bad that planes can’t land often enough that the island’s carrier FlyBe’s nickname is “FlyMaybe.”)

As my whisky-loving friend Sean and I flew onto the island, I gazed out my window in glee. I was finally in the whisky drinker’s promised land and it looked beautiful. Through the cloud cover, I could see a vast green island with rocky shores, endless farms, grazing sheep, and rolling hills dotted with diminutive stone houses. The land looked pastoral and untamed. It’s hard to imagine that so much of the world’s whisky originates here.

Whisky has a long history on Islay. It’s been made there since the 16th century — first in backyards and then, starting in the 19th century, in big distilleries. Over the years, whisky from the island came to be considered a specialty and was used to flavor a lot of other blends on the mainland. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that Islay whisky became world famous. The island produces mostly single malt Scotch, which means they only use one type of grain (barley).

Sean and I visited seven of the eight distilleries on the island (sorry, Coal Ila, see you next time!). We began our first day at Bowmore (Sean’s favorite), famous for its mildly peaty whiskies. Bowmore was founded in 1779 and is one of the oldest and largest distilleries on the island, producing 1.5 million liters per year. Located on the shores of Loch Indaal in the town that bears it name, the white painted buildings behind the walls of Bowmore made it seem less a factory and more like a housing complex. (All but one of the distilleries are located near the water because it was easier to get supplies in and out of the bays rather than overland.)

During our tour, we focused a lot on the production of whisky, learning the ins and outs of how it is made. It’s a simple process: first, you take barley, soak it for 2-3 days in warm water, and then spread it on the floor of the malting house, turning it regularly to maintain a constant temperature. These days, only Bowmore and Laphroaig do their own maltings, though they produce only a fraction of what they need (used to make the tourists happy, I suspect); most of the malt and smoking process — for all the distilleries on the island — is done at a big plant in Port Ellen or on the mainland.

After the malting, the barley is then smoked in peat, an earthy fuel from the bogs that cover the island. It is this process that gives the whisky the flavor that has made Islay famous. After that it is fermented, distilled, and then put in casks, where it ages.

In Scotland, most distilleries reuse American bourbon or Spanish sherry casks (some use French oak, but that’s very rare). By law, Scotch whisky has to be made in non-virgin oak — they can’t make their own barrels. It’s not Scotch if it’s made any other way! It’s in these casks that the flavors of the whisky mix with the wood to become what they are. The longer the alcohol stays in, the smoother and mellower it becomes. (So if you like a real smoky, peaty whisky, get a young one!) Unlike wine, which continues to change with age, once the whisky is out of the barrel, it’s done maturing.

The highlight of our trip to Bowmore was when the attendant let us bottle our own whisky right from the cask! Let me introduce you to the Nomadic Rebel:

After Bowmore (and a quick walk around town), we went to Bunnahabhain. Located at the very far end of the island, its remote location provided the opportunity for the most scenic drive of the trip: across the island and then down a tiny road, with the sea and mountains of the nearby island of Jura to your right and farmland to your left.

Looking like an old industrial factory with long warehouses on a rocky shore, Bunnahabhain does most of its production off the island. After a short, very underwhelming tour, our guide took us for a tasting, where he leapt out of his shell and gave us an animated history of the whiskies we were trying. (Overall, this was my least favorite distillery I visited, although I loved their products.)

Our second day, we visited the three most famous distilleries on the island: Laphroaig, Ardbeg, and Lagavulin.

Laphroaig sits on a beautiful, wide, and rocky inlet that opens up to the sea. The smell of salt and sea fills the air, fighting for control over the peat smell of the distillery. Laphroaig’s distillery is considered one of the most beautiful, with its small historic buildings, its name in giant letters placed on the outside wall that faces the bay, and a number of viewing points of the bay, where you can sit out and enjoy a dram or three. The highlight here was seeing the malting process in progress, as well as the peat fire and smoke as it filled the kiln.

At Ardbeg, we had lunch before joining our tour guide, Paul. “You’ve probably seen a bunch of these now, huh? I’ll just show you what makes Ardbeg different and we’ll just drink,” he said as he grabbed two bottles for the tour. “In case you get thirsty!” he added slyly. (We got thirsty!)

Paul gave us a quick tour of the facilities, highlighting their old mash tanks and distilling process, which produces alcohol at 62-75% alcohol by volume (ABV). Afterward, we toured the grounds, marveling at the old casks and original buildings still in use, before setting back to the main house. Ardbeg is set back from the road and seems to take up a city block with its large white warehouses. Back at the tasting room, Paul let us sample many of Ardbeg’s famous brands, as well as some special distillery-only blends found nowhere else, never seeming to care that we kept slipping in requests for the harder-to-find good stuff.

We talked with Paul for a long time. Like most people we met, he had grown up on the island, moved away, and come back. “City life was too busy for me,” he said. Like most of his friends, he got a job at a distillery. Unlike most of his friends, though, he actually liked whisky. A surprisingly large number of the young people we talked to weren’t really keen on Scotch (“it’s what my grandfather drinks”), but Paul was a big fan and knew his way around the spirit.

After wishing Paul goodbye, we stumbled out of Ardbeg and strolled toward our final stop of the day, Lagavulin. With plenty of time before our tour, we walked slowly down the path between the distilleries, awed at all the cows and sheep on the rocky verdant hills that rolled across the island, then caught a few minutes’ snooze on one of the benches that line the way. Walking this path from distillery to distillery is something I can’t recommend enough.

On our final day, Sean and I visited Bruichladdich and Kilchoman. Starting early at Bruichladdich (which had been shut for decades before two private investors reopened in 2000), our guide Jenn gave us the grand tour and history of the place. The grounds are mostly white industrial buildings in a small compound, though upon arriving we were struck by the cobblestone courtyard (parking lot). It was a beautiful entranceway that harked back to days of old. She set seven different types of whisky in front of us, though I had to drink most of Sean’s too because he was driving.

At Kilchoman, the visit becomes a blur, after having drunk so much at Bruichladdich. Our tour moved quickly through the distillery, then we tried a few of the brands. I don’t remember which ones, as I mostly turned them down since I didn’t want to be too drunk too early!

After a quick lunch and final dram before I hugged Sean goodbye, I boarded the ferry back to Glasgow and promptly fell asleep in a happy, whisky-induced haze with a giant smile on my face. From the friendly people with their small-town charm to the beautiful landscape, distilleries, and sea air, Islay was an island of dreams. I had been to my alcoholic promised land and it was everything I had imagined it to be.

(Though next time I’ll spend more time outdoors appreciating the scenery and hiking off all that whisky!)

Logistics

If you’re going to go to Islay, you can get there by a twice-daily plane from Glasgow with FlyBe or via the ferry/bus combo from Glasgow.

For meals, I liked Yan’s Kitchen, Lochindaal (best seafood on the island), the café at Ardbeg, Bridgend Hotel, and The Harbour Inn.

Accommodations consist mostly of cute little farmhouses turned B&Bs. They are super cool and old fashioned. There’s also an HI hostel on the island (which is gong to be the cheapest option).

Recommended Whiskies

• Bowmore 13 – Nice, smoky taste with a strong finish. One of my favorites.
• Bowmore 18 (sherry cask) – Smooth, fruity flavor.
• Bowmore 25 (wine cask) – Smooth, with a peaty finish.
• Laphroaig 21 – Smooth, light on the palette.
• Laphroaig Cask Strength 16 Year – Really strong, very flavorful. Packs a punch.
• Ardbeg Supernova – Very strong with good, peaty finish.
• Lagavulin Double Matured Distiller’s Edition – Delicious!
• Lagavulin 8 – Very strong smoky and peaty flavor. Tastes like a campfire. One of my favorites.
• Lagavulin 18 – Smooth, with a more subtle flavoring.
• Bruichladdich 1989 – Smooth, with a subtle sweet flavor.
• Bruichladdich 2003 – Really strong, powerful flavor.
• Kilchoman Machir Bay – Great smooth Scotch, with a subtle peaty finish.

Note: Visit Islay provided the car and accommodation (Rosemary and Don from Persabus were incredible hosts. Don cooks a mean breakfast!) for Sean and I, and they also connected me to distilleries so I could get the behind-the-scenes tours for this article. Meals, flights, and transportation to and from the island — as well as all that whisky I bought — were at my own expense. 

Here’s a link to Sean’s article about our trip too!</>