lisa lindblad travel design

November 1998

On November 1st, Lisa Lindblad Travel Design completed its first year of business. It has been a thoroughly wonderful time, and I thought some of the travel highlights of these past months--along with suggestions for places to visit and ways to visit them in the next year--might be of value to you.

My clients have covered much of the world: Machu Picchu and Patagonia, gentle, rainy Ireland, the northern reaches of Alaska and the wilderness of Idaho; the Bavarian Alps and Provence’s lavender fields; Mongolia’s vast stretches of horseback riding country, Morocco, East Africa’s Serengeti Plains and Mahale Mountains and the Okavango Delta of Botswana. I have chartered gulets, Turkey’s wide-beamed, wooden vessels, along its south- ern Turquoise Coast, sent a group of artisan lovers to Romania and another to Uzbekistan, and sent several sets of plain old lovers--the best kind--to London, Paris, Capri and Venice. All of these clients, with a few self-im- posed exceptions, have been accompanied on part or all of their journeys by superb men and women with insight, sensibility, humor and knowledge: back-countryman, Keith Nyitray, took a family of eight, 60 miles above the Arctic Circle to Alaska’s Brooks Range where he shared his love for and inti- macy with this last great American wilderness; the writer, Richard Nelson, joined them in Prince William Sound to show the children how to track deer and to impart his own beautifully articulated experiences of life alone on a remote Alaskan island about which he wrote so movingly in The Island Within; Wilhelm Thommen, a charming Swiss gentleman, acted as a driver and guide for another client in the Bavarian Alps. What was so wonderful about this experience was that each found in the other a companion of ex- ceptional intelligence and compatibility; my oId friend, Allan Earnshaw--East Africa’s preeminent guide (I’m partial but, really, he is )--took a family to visit chimps near Lake Tanganyika and they all returned enchanted by the experience, Allan no less than the rest. I could go on but you get my point: destinations are pretty easy to find; it’s what you do with them that counts. Hopefully, if I am doing my job right, I can help to make them shine.

I have gotten some travel in myself: I scoured Southern Africa and was pre- dictably moved by its incredible beauty but surprisingly so by the superb quality of the accommodations offered. I was lastingly impressed by the strange mix of emotions South Africa generated in me. It is a society of ex- traordinary cultural diversity and impressive moral courage with a complex but tangible history. My heart ached at the beauty of the Winelands’ Drack- enstein Mountains, and, in a different way, in Capetown’s townships where I was escorted by a brilliant, angry and electrifying guide. I spent a moving day with one of Mandela’s cellmates on Robben Island and found myself in tears as I shook his hand goodbye. I have put Botswana’s Okavango Delta on my “must see” list; it is a unique natural environment--and I’m big on using “unique natural environments” as one guiding principle of travel--that with each yearly flood undergoes one of the earth’s most dramatic transfor- mations. And on top of all of this I found passionate people who can make Southern Africa come alive in ways that are rarely found anywhere in the world. I also spent a good deal of time this summer in Turkey and discov- ered a favorite hotel. I traveled to France’s Provence which I know like the back of my hand. What I didn’t know, however, is that, just four hours from Avignon, I would find an enchanted place to lay down my cares, to eat sublime food, and to breakfast in the calm of a medieval garden. I have also been looking at abbeys...perhaps it is a sign of my age...and have come across two in particular where you can stay and renew yourself in the tonic of a quiet and contemplative environment. This is not for everyone, I know, but that is the beauty of travel: finding as close to what it is that you seek.

And this is where, again, I come in. My job is to try to match the traveler’s expectations to the reality of the travel experience. In theory, this is not diffi- cult, but an often romantic vision coupled with the vicissitudes of travel itself make this reality hard to achieve. It is for this reason that I work so closely with my clients; I find it the only way that I can begin to truly understand-- and to help them to understand--what it is that they are seeking.

Alright. Suggestions for the New Year: Ten days in Capetown, the wine- lands and the garden route during” our” winter • A long weekend--a very long weekend--at my enchanted haven in the Landes region of France • Two weeks in the Okavango Delta (with a stopover at the “must-see” Vic Falls), and a foray into Bushman country with a superb old Africa hand during “our” summer • A weekend in southern Morocco during the Spring Rose Festival • A barge trip in Holland’s Friesland coupled with accompa- nied visits to the museums, squares, gardens and churches of Haarlem, Delft, Leiden and Den Haag • Italy, from a beautiful villa as your base, with a remarkable guide who can make magic: a private, after hours tour of the Sistine Chapel, a visit to the Pope’s private chapel and clothing room, lunch in a Palladian villa • A family trip to Alaska with Keith, a family trip to East Africa with Allan, a family trip to The Galapagos on your own yacht with Tui and Mark, a family trip in March to see the “friendlies” in Baja Califor- nia’s Pacific whale lagoons, a trip into Peru’s rainforest accompanied by a celebrated wildlife biologist • Tents, tents, tents...Rajasthani tents in India, gers in Mongolia, Lawrence of Arabia tents on the shore of Lake Tangya- nika, nomadic tents in Morocco’s Sahara, cloth pavilions in Indonesia • A night under the full moon on gleaming African saltpans that stretch as far as the eye can see or under the stars on the deck of a riceboat in Kerala • Arts and artisans--anywhere • As an option to the Caribbean, experience Mexico’s beautiful haciendas and its rich culture • Short hops closer to home: Santa Fe for a private visit to the new Georgia O’Keefe museum; four days re-living Newport’s Gilded Age accompanied by a magnetic cultural historian; an accompanied weekend in Charleston, South Carolina or Deer- field, Massachusetts, for a view onto our own history.

Think of travel in terms of some of the great offerings the earth holds out to us: GREAT PERFORMANCES such as the wildebeest migration or the Okavango’s yearly flood; UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTS like Ecuador’s flooded rainforest or the ice and tundra of the arctic; CULTURAL GIFTS like Egypt’s Nile River Valley or Jordan’s Petra, Romania’s painted and wooden church- es, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, Nepal’s architectural wealth; PEOPLE, whether East Africa’s nomads, Botswana’s Bushmen, Alaska’s Eskimos, India’s farmers, Burma’s fishermen or Panama’s Choco and Cuna Indians.

And then realize that there are wonderful people who can open these worlds for you to unimaginable dimensions with anecdote, reflection, intel- ligence and deep love.

Do give me a call if I can be of service.