“How People Really Travel” was originally published in the April 1971 issue of Vogue.
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LAUREN HUTTON: "Lots of people I have asked if I dreamed about being an actress or a model when I was a child. I don t remember these fantasies, but I knew at the age of six I d go to the Amazon…but I didn t know I d go with Robert…I never I travel alone, always with my mate.
"We went up the Amazon in Peru from Iquitos—a week on a riverboat, getting off at night to sleep in stilt houses in villages—I slept in a long T-shirt in a hammock. (If I m uncertain, I sleep in my clothes to I make a quick exit.) It was around Christmas and I thought it was such a funny thing to have Christmas in the Amazonian jungles that I brought along plum pudding in a tin and pheasant in a bottle. Actually the jungle is extremely hospitable. We took Fli-Backs, paddles with red halls on elastic, to give to some kids of the Yagua tribe. The older kids took them away, then the big guys took them over and the last thing we saw, they were running through the jungle snapping these red balls…"
"Our favourite hotel room costs I seventy-four cents…"
"We never go first-class…never anywhere. If you stay in first-class hotels, you might just as well never have left home. Our favourite hotel costs seventy-four cents a night for a double army cot; that s all there is in this room, in a Mexican fishing village, and no window blinds so the sun blazes in at dawn and you wake up to see fishing boats on the beach. We loved another hotel—Outspan—in the highlands of Kenya…just fine old English with a trout stream and gardens.
"I travel with a couple of soft duffle bags that I found in Nairobi, strong canvas and lightweight. We travel light. I take two pairs of jeans, two safari split skirts, two khaki shirts, and a bunch of T-shirts. I always wear sneakers, Sperry Topsiders with super-thick soles, the queen of sneakers. I pack in Halston jersey pants for fancy deals and one straight suit for getting off planes. They give you the hippie riff if you wear jeans in Asian airports.
"For makeup, I use coconut oil on my skin, good in the heat and sun, and take bottles of salt tablets. I have Estée Lauder lip gloss, blush, and mascara. A first-aid kit is important in the places we go. We always take a butterfly net, binoculars, and a compass called Kumbak with a whistle at one end and a middle compartment for matches to light to guide you in the dark; it blows people to you, too. I always blow the whistle when I say something dumb.
"Robert and I never have problems travelling together…only once in India when the Customs guy saw that Robert carried all the money and began asking Are you staying in the same room? Where? and pulled Naked Lunch out of my knapsack. I told him it was a restaurant guide.
"Our roughest time was in southern Tanzania. Robert was driving the Volks and we came over a hill and I saw about forty Masai "morans" warriors—young, very beautiful, tall with red robes and spears. They jumped out of the grass all yelling simba, simba …and a whole lot of guys began sticking their heads and their hands full of knives in the car. Then they brought over this raked-up boy, trickling blood. Simba means lion and a lion had gotten him. They stuck him in the backseat and two Masai got in, holding him up while I put a tourniquet on his arm; he was bleeding to death. Robert raced the car seventy miles an hour over those bumpy roads—not one cry of pain from the kid and the others really enjoyed it; they d never been in a car before. An hour and a half later we left them at a hospital.
"The wildest thing happened in Ethiopia. Robert was showing some kids how to adjust the binoculars when an old guy came up and looked through them. He threw up his arms, screaming. He fell on the ground, screaming. He wanted to look again and saw the mountain coming at him…and it started all over again."
"Travel grows me…"
Travel is to change your head…to show you something you ve never seen, pleasurable, sensual, adventurous. Africa, I find something very very magic about Africa. And I feel that the desert will be important to me. Travel grows me more than anything. Our first trip was to Morocco, three years ago. It was so sensual, courteous, I felt I was just one small tiny life. We had a guide, Mustafa, and people would ask us to have mint tea at their houses. Once they insisted we stay the night. I got to hang out with Robert and the men and then go into the kitchen with the women and the kids.
"Our trips have been scouting trips. Two or three months checking out countries to see if we d like to go back. We ve seen marvellous places to buy—everywhere—and we say, Why are we hassling around New York, why don t we stay here? But then we have so many more places to go..."
INGE MORATH, crack photographer on the move, tells how to travel with cameras:
"You re going on your first photographic safari? What films, equipment, clothes should you take? My first advice: Get a short haircut," said Inge Morath on an Argentine movie set. "There may not be many hairdressers along the way and wigs take up space. If you travel to take pictures, you ll have to think of lens openings along with clothes. Sounds silly, but it makes sense—for shooting in long dresses at night, for instance, you ll need a faster lens than for photographing in khaki shorts under the desert sun. Don t worry, I treasure femininity, but just try to imbue it with the necessary efficiency.
**"I spread everything out on a big bed to organize my packing. **
On the wall, I pin my schedule, checking it for stops in cold climates on the way, say, to Java via Tokyo. Wet weather—the monsoons—demands silica gel for my lenses. First, I assemble my photographic equipment: the various lenses, light meters, films of different emulsions. For each type of film I choose a different coloured soft bag—red for Kodachrome, yellow for Tri-X, et cetera. For the exposed films I take along extra bags. I list my equipment for Customs before putting everything into my favourite big enormous bag. It is of fibre, light, with two handles, easy to carry because I am often the porter. Between my different equipment bags I stick in soft things: scarfs, camera wraps, dust masks. Belts somehow also fit around lenses. I pack at least a day before I leave; missing equipment, I find, is almost irreplaceable during a trip.
**"I dont take jewellery on working trips. **
I hate losing it and it gives me a chance to pick up something great in a bazaar in Tunis or Teheran. I limit the ruffles as I often have cameras lashed over my shoulder, and I forget bulky clothes, even special ones. Underwear and stockings wash easily, so I don t take piles. Slacks are wonderful, but in many places a skirt, I find, is more polite. I suggest taking along one madly flattering thing: long, short, whatever looks best on you. You may have to charm people whose picture you have to take. Makeup can be stuck into the yet-unused pigeonholes in that same bag. An extra beauty case can be a bother at stops without porters, or in tiny taxis or pedicabs made for small people, or on such trains as those in Japan, where most people s luggage seems to consist of two folded kimonos and an attache case. For sleeping I take two nightgowns that can double as dressing gowns, in case of having to rise for odd knocks at hotel-room doors at midnight to receive a telegram, or if the bathroom is down the hall, or if the clerk must be fetched to fight off an invasion of lizards.
**"I never really have to unpack. **
My marvellous big suitcase opens and hangs on any door, has detachable bags for underwear, stockings, blouses, and room for shoes at the bottom. Walking shoes are essential. Take a pair with which you have a long-standing relationship; know that you can walk in them for hours, that they dry quickly, and are of the neutral and expensive breed that look good when worn and dirty. My dresses I can pull out on hangers on two metal rods, so my clothes unwrinkle overnight. On long trips to Russia and the Orient, I manage only witii this suitcase and my camera carrier.
**"Equipment always weighs too much. **
Once all packed and zipped, I weigh my luggage on the bathroom scale and usually have to count on some overweight. As a photographer, you ll probably have a camera case packed as tightly as possible slung over one shoulder, balanced by another shoulder bag. Try them on a few times and practise walking in front of a full-length mirror without looking lopsided. Sling your trenchcoat over your shoulders. Wear your boots.
Only once, in an airport on the Persian Gulf, was I put onto the scales along with my shoulder luggage and the Customs man, not being used to ladies strapped with so many pounds of equipment, nearly fainted when he read my weight."
MADAME GENEVIEVE FRANÇOIS-PONCET
**"The limit is live snails" **
For Madame François-Poncet travel is both a special art and high adventure—anything from banana boats to Afghanistan. Always inclined to taste local specialité, except for those snails. Two years ago went with a friend by plane and the Trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Iran. On the train there were four in each wagon-lit, mixed sexes—"we camped in our bunks, slept, ate, played Scrabble, all in bed with a rather dirty blanket and pillow provided for each of us…As there is no wagon restaurant, the train stops at meal times in various villages where old women have trestle tables set up selling repugnant black bread, salted herring, and pickles. The great concessions to foreign visitors were biscuits and the permanent samovar going at the end of each coach with tea drunk out of glasses." When they arrived at Ulan Bator, they set out at once for the Gobi desert where they lived in yurts (tents of animal skin), rode camels or small Mongolian ponies, and travelled with Mongolian nomads—"the mosquitoes were the size of butterflies." . . . Before any trip Madame François-Poncet bones up on Nagel guidebooks, maps, takes courses at the Louvre—she speaks four languages fluently, is now in the third year of Chinese language and civilization studies at Les Langues Orientales in Paris…Eminently practical on the road, she is known by her companions for "the magic suitcase." Some of its contents: Nescafé, lump sugar, a small water heater which works with chunks of compressed fuel (Meta) and permits her to make an early cup of tea in her hotel, in a yurt, or on a lurching bus. Jam to cover the taste of yak butter. Towelettes. For extreme conditions, a portable bidet. A bag-like sheet made by Prisunic to go inside a sleeping bag—comfortable and a great joy when the sheets in train or hotel are of dubious colour. A thin travelling rug. Bathtub plugs—indispensable and regarded with great sus- picion by the Mongolian customs. Insect spray for walls, floor, bed. Two plastic cups and a very good thermos bottle.
MRS. RICHARD PISTELL
**Small blond hunter **
Carol Pistell can and does play it either way—travelling luxe or sleeping on top of a mountain in a sleeping bag. One suitcase takes all essentials—if she s travelling around the world she adds a smaller bag with boutique dresses and evening things to be left in Paris, picked up later; on safari, her gun case, camera, a shoulderbag for incidentals. Always knows what she wants to see, what she wants to shoot, and how to pursue it. But…"I have never shot unless it was for camp meat or for a museum." In high altitudes—Afghanistan, for instance, where she shot a rare Marco Polo sheep at 17,000 feet—she uses the same down-insulated sleeping bag the Everest team used, purchased from Eddie Bauer in Seattle…In cities, and especially in museums, her great talent is drawing a bead on the best: "There s no way to absorb an entire museum—certainly like the Hermitage—so you might as well see their one masterpiece, the centre jewel in the tiara, and have an indelible impression for a long time to come." Favourite hotels: London s Connaught, Hong Kong s Mandarin.
MRS. NICHOLAS GOULANDRIS
**The miracle part **
At a small shop in London Mrs. Goulandris discovered a minor miracle-suitcase liners made to fit the bottom of each suitcase exactly, with four flaps that fold over when the bag is filled, and flat liners within to separate layers of clothes so that each layer can be instantly transferred to a bureau drawer…On planes she carries a tote bag, stuffing it with handbag, books, chewing gum, and her sable coat rolled into a ball.
PATRICK LICHFIELD
**Do not disturb **
That s what the sign says, and he wears it on planes when he wants to sleep, which is usually since, as a working photographer, he prefers to fly on unpopular, uncrowded night flights, tourist…Thinks valets and laundry people should get the fattest tips "as they can cause the greatest anguish." … His feeling for good restaurants runs from the Baumanière at Les Baux to P. J. Clarke s in New York. Museums: British Railways, the V. and A., the whale department of London s natural history museum.
CONTESSA SUSANNA RATTAZZI
**"I always have to see things for myself." **
A woman who likes the feeling of being always ready to fly off to any place that interests her, "Suni" Rattazzi is a first-rate journalist whose toughest assignments have taken her to the war zones of Viet Nam and Biafra, armed only with her compassionate intelligence—"my prevailing interest is people, my passion is the injustice in the world"—her notebooks, a supply of Faber pencils, a yet unused vial of quinine* and war-zone wardrobe—shirts, trousers, jodhpur boots, and espadrilles—in a single canvas Gucci valise. "I travel quite a lot," she says, "more now than I used to when I first got married and seemed forever to be expecting a child…six children in ten years. Last year I went to Kenya for Christmas, then back to Italy, then to New York for a month, then Italy—with some time in Switzerland, London, Argentina—then New York again and from here to Santo Domingo and Nassau. Much of this is really travelling between my homes, my houses in Milan and Porto Santo Stefano, my apartment in New York and my farm in the Argentine. I like to have a sort of base place at home and from there to go on side trips…I like to go somewhere I know and if I can manage to travel without a suitcase I do, and that is what I prefer…I always carry dollars with me when travelling. They are accepted anywhere. There are some places like the Argentine where traveller s cheques are not…I prefer to stay in the uncomfortable home of someone I know than in a hotel. Hotels give a sensation of sadness—a sort of uncosy feeling . . . though there are two I like, the Cumelen Country Club, a private house they ve made into a hotel on the San Carlos Lake, one of those big lakes in Patagonia where you go fishing, and the Sporting Club in Porto Rotondo. There the food and service are excellent and I always know other people staying there so there is not an alone feeling…I adore to travel alone, though, on a plane or in a car, because I know it is the one moment when nobody can catch up with me. I love the feeling that nobody can possibly ring you up, find you, or disturb you, and if you have a thought, nobody is going to interrupt it until it s finished. On planes I sometimes have the sensation—I don t know if it s just the altitude—that something clicks in my brain and suddenly I have a clear view of things, much clearer than on the ground…I always wear trousers —usually blue jeans—a shirt, a sweater, with an extra pair of socks so I can take my shoes off…On a plane I usually eat to help the time pass and though generally I drink almost not at all, when they ask if I d like a drink I take a martini or a daiquiri and get quite relaxed and sleepy…I take very few toilet items because I don t use many and no makeup, and I like, when I arrive at a place, to go out to buy two or three things—a foam bath, a sun cream, or perhaps some eye drops…I eat and drink whatever happens. I mean I really always drink the water straight from the spigot wherever I am, even in Viet Nam and Biafra, and nothing terrible seems to happen…My idea is that you ought not to tip often when travelling, but when you do, you ought to overtip lavishly. I ve seen that if you come off a plane and are really in a hurry, and give a porter $10, your luggage will come out immediately. But I am very against mean little tipping. I think it is useless and bad for everybody."
HANAE MORI
"She collects continents"
Slender and impeccably turned out, Hanae Mori, a Japanese fashion designer, is at ease with both East and West…On the threshold of a Tokyo restaurant, she struggles to pull off her Italian boots, but inside she sits with unruffled grace on her folded legs as if she didn t need blood circulation…In less than two years she has been several times to the United States and to Europe, Australia, India…"I sleep my flights off. All I need is slippers and my black silk eye-masque…I am a superstitious traveller. I travel only if I have a special amulet—my husband."
CARLOTTA GRENIER
**On elephant back in India **
Blond, beautiful, and Bavarian, Carlotta found her elephant "fantastic…I felt like a Maharanee. I had no concept of time, just of riding high under trees with a slow steady roll and the sure feeling that my elephant would get me there." Where elephant safaris get adventurers now is deep into India s game parks to watch and photograph some of the most dangerous and endangered wildlife in the world.
**"Great cats with green-blinked eyes…" **
Golden tigers, sinewy, savage, lurk in the teak forests of Corbett National Park, north of Delhi in the Himalayan foothills. There, guests have a choice of the new Forest Rest House or the pankha-fanned 1899 Lodge. Game runs on elephant-back spring a surprise of strange birds and the great cats gazing with green-blinked eyes. When elephants heave with belly-rumbling growls at the scent of stalking tigers, the mahouts prod their flapping trunks out of danger scent, allowing passengers with cameras to shoot across broad unflappable duffs. The wary may see "beats" from tree platforms when rangers push tigers into a clearing. In Delhi, the White Tigers of Rewa, spectacular, almost supernatural, with their silvery coats and glacier-blue eyes, play in the trees and grass of the Zoological Park. These graceful, gigantic cats, rarest of the species, have been joined by the only Kashmiri snow leopard in captivity.
"Great Indian one-horned rhinoceros…"
At Kaziranga, in Assam State in northern India, elephants leave at dawn, convoyed by rangers on game runs. No howdahs here, but Nichols Saddles, each peaked platform padded, with a wooden "running board." Riders sit astride, behind the mahout straddled in back of the elephant s ears. Three-hour cruises deep into elephant grasslands usually flush herds of Wild Asiatic Buffalo and of the fierce, immense, one-horned rhinos, ghost-grey from wallowing in the swampy mud. Guests put up at Kaziranga Lodge, a tall-ceilinged Colonial legacy with rapid, gentle Indian service. The five rooms have private baths with hot-water geysers and beds framed in mosquito netting. Not to worry about bugs. During the December-to-April safari season, Kaziranga nights are cold.
"Painted storks and blue bulls…"
Ringed around Jaipur and Agra two protectorates pulsate with wildlife. To the south, Ghana Bird Sanctuary whirs with feathered tribes—painted storks, plume-flaring egrets, and a fantasy of flyers stocked by the Maharajas of Bharatpur who once claimed this preserve for shooting. To the north, at Sariska, herds of blue bulls (antelope with bluish hides) and barking deer that yap like dogs romp ahead of elephants on morning runs. At dusk, watchers spot tigers from towers or race along jungle roads in Jeeps, catching predatory night-prowlers in the flash of spotlights. Spartan and sporting, Sariska Rest House is a concrete block of rooms; the food, a spice of curries, cashews, and fruits.
"Leopards, lake-mirrored marble…"
Jai Samand, a lake-puddled wilderness halfway between Jaipur and Bombay, springs with leopard and wild boar. In country too rocky for elephants, Land-Rovers make the game runs, returning rovers to the world s most pleasurable dome, the Udaipur Palace, where guests stay in the super splendour of lake-mirrored marble.
Les raj, but game rich, Kanha National Park, a flight east from Bomby in the undulating central highlands, holds herds of uniquely Indian black buck and shy bolting barasingh, branch-antlered swamp deer. In addition to wildlife, India explodes with temples and palaces, a super shot of pleasures explored in thiry-six days on the tour "Beyond the Tag," flying Air-India starts its new 747 Taj-in-the-sky, a gala of colour, with murals of the love god Krishna and windows stencilled in Mehrab fretwork. On three weekly flights from New York, by way of London, to Bombay, lotus-eyed girls in tie-dyed saris serve dishes both Occidental and Oriental. For very special travellers, heads of state and such, the flight-deck bar, all gold-lighted tables and batik hangings, splits into a double bedroom and private bath, as opulent as a Mogul s alcove.
JEAN LIEDLOFF
**Four times down the Orinoco **
Jean Liedloff, writer on anthropology and ecology and an intrepid traveller in the best British tradition, has spent months at a time with the Indians in the Venezuelan jungle where the life is strictly Stone Age; hazards ditto. Heavy-duty jeans, shirts with firm snap closings, and Wellingtons act as a shield against mosquitoes. Tins of lentils, rice, meat, and masses of vitamins, especially E, supplement the native cuisine, which is mainly a pancake of roots beaten and thrown on a roof to dry, plus occasional game, bananas, crocodile soup. Medicine kit includes Dioquin, Lomotil, and appropriate antibiotics; has never had dysentery. Would tackle the Orinoco again tomorrow.
PRINCESS CORA CAETANI
**Avoid disasters at sea **
Princess Cora Caetani last summer was a guest on a yacht, won so much at gin rummy she suspects she might not be asked again…Still fascinating at seventy-odd years, she has travelled the world—at one time to collect treasures for the Jansen Boutique in Paris. Always carries two address books covered in black linen—one for business, one for friends. Advises drinking only tea or beer in the Far East unless there s a sealed cap on the mineral water. Prefers to others the Guide Enter (an antiques guide). Thinks the best way to travel is to be invited and travel with different and knowledgeable people. Likes the gloriously Victorian Oriental Hotel, riverside in Bangkok; in Ireland, a small hotel in Adare, the Dunraven Arms; the Hyde Park in London.
VICOMTESSE JACQUELINE DE RIBES
"I really don
t worry about overweight"
"…although I pay more attention when I travel with my husband!" confessed Jacqueline de Ribes. But flying from Paris to Barcelona to Ibiza, where she is building a house, she travels light. ("For lingerie I have a wonderful system based on a perfumed silk bag from Lubin with separate pockets for stockings, nightdresses, and so on. It rolls up to pack, but you can hang it up when you unpack.") All depends on where she s going— "if I go to St. Anton to ski, I always send suitcases ahead by train because everything is so bulky and heavy."
MARISA BERENSON
**Order in-flight meals in advance **
Marisa pursues a strict fruit-and-vegetable diet, advises airlines in advance, and finds the meals delicious. Carries on board her baby pillow, books of poetry and metaphysics, plus trivia—all in a Vuitton tote; tries to meditate and relax…"I find myself packing for all seasons and taking more and more." Each category of accessories is packed in a small bag—jewellery, belts, scarfs, stockings, makeup; these go into her large Vuitton bags. Dresses and pants go into suitcases with plenty of tissue paper—"no matter how careful I am, wrinkles show up and I have to turn them over to the hotel s pressing service." First thing on arrival, she sets up a gallery of photographs (family, friends, beau), turns on her cassette for classics, rock, or folk…"What I really would like when I travel is a constant companion to organize me, keep me company."
MRS. LEO d
ERLANGER
**"If necessary, I wash my teeth in tea or Coca Cola" **
Mrs. d Erlanger last year toured the periphery countries of Tibet, believes in luxury where there are grand hotels; otherwise, "when you travel rough, you take anything you can get—even if you have to sleep on a table top…I strongly recommend taking surgical masks where one may encounter dust." Carries as little as possible but always includes a small sheet for her exercises, envelopes marked for each city containing notes on tilings she really wants to see.
MRS. WYATT EMORY COOPER
**Soft luggage never says no **
"I just keep adding things," explained Mrs. Cooper. "My weakness is to take far more than necessary, and I like to travel light. I don t believe in buying new clothes for trips; I feel happier in the clothes I love…The best dresses I have for packing are tie-dye Indian silk; just roll them up."
MRS. CUTHBERT ORDE
**"My tours are package tours" **
"But special packages. My tours have all been organized by and restricted to members of bodies like The National Trust, The National Art Collections Fund, The Georgian Society, etc. and as I am a joiner and a member of about 20 societies (all the art, museum, bird, and stage societies), I get the notices. They are restricted in number, perhaps forty—very popular— and you must pay your deposit within hours of receiving the notice. They are expensive as tours go and attract delightful people. tour to Uzbekistan, the Soviet state where Samarkand and Bokhara are situated: The weeks preparing the mind are very exciting. I read everything I could find on the district, modern and historical. I had also spent many hours for many months trying to learn Russian, and in this I mostly failed. But I advise all travellers to become familiar with the Russian alphabet, which can t take them more than a few evenings, for it was fun to be able to spell out the signs over shops, and the headlines. Having done so, you could very often guess the meaning.
As it is today: In Tashkent, there is the modern block behind the market of which they are enormously proud. (You have to train yourself to exclaim in wonder.) But Tashkent had a savage earthquake quite recently and the rebuilding is astonishing. So much so quickly. Very desolate and beautiful desert around Samarkand, which of course is an oasis. The blue-domed mosques, and the mosaic medressehs (religious colleges) and minarets are the great tourist attractions. Under the Soviets they fell to ruin, but they have been furiously repairing them for the past ten years as they are such a tourist attraction.
Historical Uzbekistan: The traveller s reading will touch on the elder Polos three years in Bokhara (thirteenth century); Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror who made Samarkand his capital (fourteenth century). But I was most excited by the nineteenth-century English travellers who made the journey for love of adventure and desire to convert the Emir. (See Fitzroy Maclean s A Person from England.) They were tortured, killed, or, very occasionally, as in the case of the remarkable Rev. Joseph Wolff, D.D., amused the Emir and got back to England.
Practical matters: Take one medium-sized case at most as you may have to move it short distances yourself, and you are continually packing and unpacking. A basic suit with thin and thick jumpers. The basic crease-proof, perhaps jersey, dress for night that you can make look different with beads, scarfs, et cetera. You must learn to husband your energies. Although I am fit enough for regular eighteen-hole golf games, I only just survive these tours. The hours are long, and the food strange. You can always take an afternoon off, but you don t want to miss anything. Re: getting on with thirty-nine strangers. At each meal and on each coach run, at least at first, I contrive to sit by a new member of the party so that I do not get too involved with any one person who might bore me, or whom I might bore. Everyone is interesting for a short time. I went on this trip alone, and I think this is a good idea unless the ideal travel companion is available.
Climate: An oasis surrounded by desert has terrific extremes of climate so trips are planned for spring and autumn.
Hotels: All new, very new. Every room has its bath, though plumbing is unpredictable. I remember once having only cold water, but I was luckier than those who had only near-boiling water.
Food: Interesting. In October lots of tomatoes, grapes, watermelon, yoghurt. I enjoyed this, some did not.
Illness: Get out of Russia if you sicken. To be caught in a provincial hospital without understanding the language could be frightening.