Know me for long enough, and you know I love to travel. It’s not like I’ve ever made beaucoup bucks as a nonprofit worker–my day gig since I was in my 20s–so for a long time my husband and I traveled as we were able, which is to say that we’d take a vacation outside the US maybe every few years or so. Until my husband started working for an airline, anyway; now we take several trips each year, although I’m still ramping back up after the pandemic restrictions eased. All that to say I was having breakfast with fantasy author Meredith Kasian (we’re doing an event together on Monday, February 3–more info about it here) a few days ago, and she made me realize that I have a different way of traveling than a lot of other people.
Specifically, we were talking about Paris. My husband and I are flying there in the near future, and this isn’t our first time in the city (I think this will be our fifth stop in Paris). Meredith mentioned that she enjoyed Paris but didn’t think she had a reason to return because she’d done everything she wanted to there–and I know what she means. Before I had access to cheap/free air travel, my vacations were similar. Travel to Canada and Mexico is fairly accessible for Americans because they’re on the same continent, so it doesn’t seem like it’s out of the question to visit again… but beyond that, oftentimes it feels like maybe you’ll never have an opportunity to travel to the same city twice because of cost and distance. When you travel to a place with that mindset, you feel compelled to see the highlights and cram in as much as you can, leaving nothing left to do or see.
My first trip to Paris (before my husband’s flight benefits) was absolutely like that. You know, you see the Eiffel Tower, you see the Louvre, you take a bateaux mouche ride on the Seine, you go to Notre Dame cathedral and maybe Sainte-Chapelle, etc. And clearly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Like at all. The way I travel now is different because I tend to concentrate on a single neighborhood (or two).
It’s probably my regularly visits to Venice made me morph into this kind of traveler. That’s interesting all on its own–Paris and Venice are two cities that people either tend to love or hate; there doesn’t seem to be anywhere in between. I definitely never visit in the summer (crowds make me cranky), but that’s beside the point. What is the point is Venice is a city of tiny islands and neighborhoods that have a very specific feel to them–and the vaporetti (vaporetto boats are sort of like water buses that travel the Grand Canal and, in some cases, into a smaller canal) are terribly slow, and the points between where you are and where you want to go are winding and often confusing. To really enjoy Venice, I started staying each time in a different neighborhood or on a different island, and then planning what I want to do by what’s nearby (for the most part, anyway–it’s not like I don’t take the vaporetti or leave the neighborhood ever. There’s always an outlying event or place I want to revisit).
Again, this isn’t the superior way to travel, but it makes sense for me–there’s always something I haven’t seen or done, so there’s always a reason to return to a place.
Granted, the reason we’re heading back to Paris is more about fleeting events. The Louvre is having its first-ever contemporary fashion exhibit, and the Philharmonie de Paris is having a disco exhibit. Plus, Notre Dame just reopened to the public at the end of last year after the fire decimated it–and my last trip to Paris was only a few weeks before that fire. We’ll be staying in Le Marais, a neighborhood I’ve never stayed in before. The Louvre, the Philharmonie, and Notre Dame aren’t in the Marais, of course, but the bulk of our time will be spent futzing around that area. That leaves quite a few arrondissements where I’ve never stayed and explored–and a zillion reasons to return.
There’s something weirdly comforting to me about really getting to know a place. Venice feels like a second home to me because of it. My Italian has certainly improved with each visit, and there are places I keep going back to–my favorite gelato shop, my favorite restaurant. I can find my way around sometimes without a map. The airport, the vaporetti, the water taxis, the airport ferry aren’t mysteries anymore. It’s nice. Reykjavik is another city where I have history. Maybe one day I’ll feel that way about Paris, too.
