The Companion Situation

Personally speaking....

It’s not advisable to travel with just anyone. After all, it is among the most intimate of human interactions and one of the very few that is socially acceptable to accomplish in public. No wonder, then, it is fraught with the possibilities of highly strung disaster.

You don’t want to suddenly deal with freak-outs while turning off the interstate to see where a back road leads. Or a hissy fit when the night’s accommodations in no way resemble the website’s photo of a quaint pastel-painted motel near downtown rather than the ragged one pulled into after midnight, illuminated by the flickering red and yellow lights of the attached liquor store surrounded by a congregation of partiers. Most dire is the abhorrent situation of encountering in your companion a complete unwillingness to seek out local food as opposed to settling in at the neighborhood Outback Steakhouse.

Family members and close friends present a particularly charged dilemma. What is loved about them when in familiar surroundings may not play out in foreign locations. Now you’re not only stuck together for an extended period but, once back home, if you have not broken up completely, you face unavoidable years and years of recrimination at gatherings where everyone feels they have a right to take sides.

This is what’s at stake when making the choice of a traveling companion. I tell you this in the hope you avoid my various mishaps. Consider these:

• The teenage nephew I thought would, biologically speaking, be up for devouring vast quantities of Brunswick stew at a prominent cookoff in Richmond, VA. Instead, he spent the entire weekend in the hotel room sneaking down to the vending machines to load up on junk food. We still love each other very much because I made a long detour on the way home to drag him through the Petersburg Civil War Battlefield, where I let him practice his nonexistent driving skills.

• The close friend and expert travel writer who, on a long time-sensitive drive from north to south Idaho, insisted on stopping at every roadside attraction. Also, one of his travel goals is to explore every inch of every state’s capitol even if they’re off limits. On the other hand, it remains among my favorite outings because he’s curious, adventurous, funny, and kind. And awfully patient when, upon arrival, I announced I made a mistake and we’d have to take that long drive from north to south Idaho through which he endured my bad map readings. Most endearing was when he stood around a street festival holding my multiple cups of wine while I danced. I continue to adore him, he continues to suffer me—and he edits my stuff.

  

  Idaho State Capitol. They really are worth seeing. Credit: Stephen Garone.

• The close girlfriend who wore fashionable platform heels and only wanted to get her nails done instead of trooping through Montana’s great northern plains. She was also horrified at the notion of eating freshly butchered wild game and barbecued rattlesnake. We broke up as soon as the airplane hit the LaGuardia tarmac.

These are just a few reasons why I rather be on my own.

Sue in front of the Iowa State Fair’s butter cow

Except if I lure my sister, Sue, to come along, refuting the above warning about relatives. By now we must have logged more than a thousand miles together, notably to a tiny Spanish town for a saffron festival, the Neshoba County Fair, and the Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa state fairs. Sue’s the model of a travel companion, very organized, methodical, and a superb problem solver. Over the 500 miles we drove on the state fairs trip she calmly dealt with my proclivity for losing most of my clothes, my phone and bank card, and stopping at drug stores to replenish my stomach medicines. She countered my introverted nature by finding just the right people to interview, had an uncanny knack for locating backstreet food gems, and, most importantly, at the end of our day together, always led to the best bar in town for our expertly shaken martinis.