Roads Less Traveled

I recently returned from a Galapagos cruise, and the demographics of the other passengers got me to thinking about who can afford to travel these days and how that might reflect on the current state of political affairs worldwide. The other passengers on the M/Y Grace weren’t what I expected: three families, one of four from Australia, one of four from Miami, and one of five from Norway were aboard, plus a daughter/father team from New Mexico and Texas. Amazingly, two of the families (the Aussies and the Norwegians) had been traveling for months already, making their way through some of the most exotic (and expensive) itineraries on earth, from Antarctica to Iguazu Falls, confirming the fact that this wasn’t just an average group of people, and their professions confirmed it: both of the Norwegians were lawyers and the Aussie was a well-known architect. Rounding out the group was a plastic surgeon and a “silver spoon” real estate tycoon. That this level of travel has always been affordable for the rich I have no doubt, but what is different today is that, by and large, even when I travel in more modest circumstances, I don’t see as many Americans, which seems strange to me, given the fact that we are still supposed to be the richest country on earth.

Before I went to the Galapagos Islands, I found myself asking the question, why spend so much money on a trip going to the remote island chain for a week when, for the same price, I could go to Costa Rica and spend a couple of months, or even mount a safari to Africa? Is it really worth all the expense and trouble, especially when there are no man-made attractions on the Galapagos, and so many nature tours worldwide are so much more affordable?  The short answer is yes, to my way of thinking, and here’s why:

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Yes, I’m here, fulfilling a bucket list requirement at last, and it’s everything I’d hoped for. The animals, the weather, the seclusion…here you have it all. Endemic species, brilliant sunny equatorial days, no crowds. What more could I want?
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