January 19, 2012
Ask Harriet
Although I wouldn’t call myself the most tech-savvy person in the world, I enjoy learning about new forms of technology and different ways people stay connected with one another—especially during their travels. That’s why I loved reading the responses we received to a recent question my team posted on our OAT Facebook page. We asked travelers: “What’s your favorite gadget to bring on your travels?”
We got many great answers from OAT travelers, who shared that they bring along items like their iPhones, laptops, and Kindles. Joan Rudloff—a 10-time traveler from Palo Alto, California—posted about exactly what she does with the iPad she brings with her. It’s such a clever and efficient way to keep track of your trip, I simply had to share it:
I took my iPad with Pages [a program that lets you create special flyers, reports, invitations, and other projects on your Apple products] on my Ultimate Australia trip. Each day, I wrote a little documentary including pictures, and when I returned home, had 19 days of my adventure to share with my travel friends. I plan to do it for my Rhine Christmas River Cruise as well.
Joan Rudloff
10-time traveler
Palo Alto, California
Joan, what a creative way to remember your adventures—and to bring those experiences home to your family and friends. Thanks for sharing this great idea with me. I hope you’ll continue to email me or post your comments on our Facebook page to help keep the conversation going. I always enjoy hearing from you!
Letters to Harriet
I returned from a trip to Egypt this past December—and let’s just say my timing was interesting. At around the same time, we made the very difficult decision to suspend OAT departures to Egypt. Ever since, I’ve been reading your comments with particular interest—including this one from our OAT traveler forum.
I agree with you now is a great time to go to Egypt. I had just firmed up my schedule at work for 2012 and was looking to book a trip in April. The problem is that OAT and Grand Circle are not offering any trips to Egypt or Tunisia in 2012. I guess people only want a little adventure in their travel.
—Username “porkchop55” in the OAT forum
Thank you to everyone who wrote in about this issue, either by email, on Facebook, or in our forums. The simple answer is that our travelers—at least, the vast majority of you—do not want to travel to Egypt right now. People are afraid to go. When the bookings stopped, we needed to listen to our travelers. Please know that it was an extremely difficult decision. We very rarely stop traveling to a country, even in times of political turmoil. This time, though, the conflict is much more long-term than we had initially suspected. We will revisit travel to Egypt as soon as we feel the timing is right. There is only one Egypt, and it makes me sad to not be supporting them through tourism.
That said, yes, Alan and I went to Egypt in December. We often travel to places that people perceive as dangerous—but we believe there are politics, and then there are people. As a traveler, I’ve found that the news blows things way out of proportion. We found it was very easy to be in Egypt. We arrived on the first day of elections, and the people were very positive. Everyone has a different opinion on what’s going to happen. We learned that some of them had been waiting for hours and hours to vote, and the government kept polls open until everyone had a chance. To us, it was a fascinating time.
Of course, that’s me, and that’s Alan. I know there's a small percentage of travelers out there who agree with me—but I respect the opinions of the larger percentage who don’t. To all of you, I’ll say again that there is only one Egypt, and I hope OAT is able to bring you there soon.