Contributing writer Cathy Healy reports from snowbound Washington, DC, where the snowfall has broken all previous records. How to stay warm in such weather? She reveals a tip from a friend who’s just back from Patagonia.

The snow stormed down on us like an emptied sack of flour and we slogged back under the canopy of my condo building. My pal, Richard Boyum, pulled a soft, tubular gator over his head, turned it inside out, tied a knot in one end, flipped it right-side out again and pulled it over his head like a stocking cap. I took pictures with my cell phone.

“This is what everyone is wearing in Punta Arenas,” he said. “I bought it at an outfitter’s shop on Main Street.” Full Story.
 

The question, occasionally, in “sustainable travel,” is how you can sustain a spirit of adventure when things go bad. This has been on my mind ever since I flunked India.

Despite precautions, I got terribly sick right away. After that, I was paranoid, which meant every fork, every bottle of water, every everything was suspect. Noise assaulted me like an army of jackhammers and of course, there was the poverty, the multitudes, the dirt…. Full Story.

I admit I had a terrible visit on my last trip to India. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn something from the process.

 The question, occasionally, in “sustainable travel,” is how you can sustain a spirit of adventure when things go bad. This has been on my mind ever since I flunked India.

Despite precautions, I got terribly sick right away. After that, I was paranoid, which meant every fork, every bottle of water, every everything was suspect. Noise assaulted me like an army of jackhammers and of course, there was the poverty, the multitudes, the dirt. I was attending a conference during part of my trip, and I had to spend a good part of my trip in a car, listening to my driver’s constant shouting. I hate to say it, but I was miserable, and couldn’t wait to leave.

Ironically, pleasant surprises in the Delhi airport on my way home made me rethink what I should have done. It started with a big, welcoming grin from the guard at the entrance door and climaxed when I discovered that the amiable woman at the ticket counter had secretly upgraded me on my Qatar Airways flight. At least I can leave on a good note, I remember thinking.

After returning, my paranoia’s subsided, and as I’ve been editing my video footage of India, I’m beginning to push aside the thoughts of exhaustion and sickness and focus instead on the other extraordinary moments from my trip: petting a cobra, riding an elephant up the ramparts to a fabulous palace, watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal, which is far more magnificent in person than any photo you’ve ever seen.

So why did I let myself get derailed?

Now I have some new strategies to get back on track, thanks to an online course from Dr. Tal Ben Shahar, “Foundations in Positive Psychology,” for the University of Pennsylvania. His advice can essentially be recast as “How to Turn-Around a Trip that Starts Badly.” In short:

a.    Reframe a bad event [not your whole trip] from pessimistic (permanent) to optimistic (temporary).

b.    Then, analyze what is temporarily wrong and take action.

Now, in hindsight, I realize that that the just-endure mentality that drove much of my misery in India came from my sickness, and the unbearable noise that resulted from driving three days in a hot car with open windows on roads swarming with honking vehicles and a driver who shouted non-stop. I could have insisted that he fix the a/c and lower his voice or have his agency send another driver. But why didn’t I? Well…he was struggling to survive the drop in tourism, so I felt sorry for him and sank myself instead. Next time, I won’t. I hope.

So I’m feeling better about my trip, and after a few months of being turned off to travel, I’m starting to dream up itineraries again. And this past Christmas, as my nephew and his Indian-American fiance were traveling to meet her family, I sent them three early gifts for him: the 1982 classic, Gandhi, to understand the compelling story of India; Outsourced, so he can see how one horrified American learned to love India; and travel packets of wipes, in case he too got paranoid about forks in restaurants.

Photo: NationalGeographic.com