I have traveled a good deal in Concord. — Henry David Thoreau
I know what he means. When I lived in New York City, there was a time when I couldn’t wait to leave the summer city air behind and head east to the beaches of the Hamptons or north to the Green Mountains of Vermont. Until I realized that I lived in the greatest city on the face of the earth, and that there was plenty to see — and ways to escape the humdrum — right there.
Now, I always knew that New York was a fabulous city. But when you live someplace day in and day out , it’s easy to forget that people from all over the world come to see things that you walk by every single day. Never was this brought home to me more sharply than when two Danish travelers were deposited on my doorstep one day in the summer of 1990.
My friend Kelso had agreed to take friends of friends around the city for a day. It was their first time here and they had a list of things they wanted to see. He had planned all along to play tour guide but a bit of non-negotiable family business came up at the last minute and he was unavailable. Hence, the deposit at my door of two uber-cute young Danish men in their twenties, eager to see the sites of the Big Apple. It could have been worse.
They showed me the list they had created of the “top sites to see.” I groaned: the Empire State Building. The Staten Island Ferry. Greenwich Village. Central Park. They wanted to buy a hot dog and a pretzel from a street vendor. They wanted to ride the subway. I told them that we’d be walking a lot, since I didn’t do subways unless there was gridlock-level traffic on the route I had to take.
Anyway, I remember grumbling a lot but started walking south from my Chelsea apartment along Eighth Avenue. First stop, Greenwich Village. I had no particular place in mind, but when I saw their reaction to Washington Square Park and all the goings-on that we as inmates of this crazy island take for granted . . . well, an amazing thing happened. I was transported back to the first time I had ever been to the Village — the mid-1960s. The folk scene supplanting the beatnik scene. Music everywhere. A new young poet named Bob Dylan, whose songs were breaking our hearts. Coffee houses and guitars. Short skirts and thick black eyeliner. Mary Quant and Carnaby Street creeping into the culture. Dogs and chess players and people in berets walking arm-in-arm under the arch . . . and I stopped and saw it all again.
And so it went, that day. We rode the Staten Island Ferry both ways and I thought of Edna St. Vincent Millay, although I did not feel exactly young or merry. We walked and we walked. Finally I convinced them that we should take a cab up to the Empire State Building; we did, and they were awed by the views. I took them on a detour to Macy’s and showed them the fabulous wooden escalators. And we walked through Times Square, which was still Times Square and not the Disney Land it is today. Then we walked over to Fifth Avenue and walked up it and then crossed over to Central Park and they were really, really happy. And so was I. They had seen everything on their list and more. And so had I.
We met Kelso after a long day of exploration and had dinner together somewhere on the Upper East Side. And we sent these fellows home, filled with an experience of Manhattan that they hopefully still remember. It was the Manhattan they wanted to see, but one that surprised them, nonetheless, as Manhattan always does.
And that’s the great thing about traveling in your own backyard. You think you know everything about it. You walk or drive past it every day. But you never see it. Not really. Not until you stop and look. Maybe it’s forced upon you, like it was with me. I’m suggesting that you should force it upon yourself.
Play tourist this year. Drag some out-of-town friends with you, if that will make you feel better about it. But keep your eyes open and your agenda flexible. Dorothy was right. Sometimes, there’s just no place like home.
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
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