You Virtually Can't Get There from Here

You Virtually Can't Get There from Here Lad Tobin It's two A.M. and I'm still looking for a place to stay on St. John. The problem isn't a lack of appealing choices: St. John is the least developed and most beautiful of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and it would be hard to find a place here that didn't look like a brochure advertising Caribbean travel. In the past two hours alone, I've seen everything from ecotourism tents on the beach to postcard-quality villas with tiled swimming pools and private hot tubs. No, I'm afraid this is clearly a case of "it's not you, it's me." How else to explain why, at two o'clock in the morning, I feel compeUed to scan yet another search engine's websites for accommodations for a trip I probably wiU never take? Let me confess right off: this isn't a first for me. In fact, it is how I spend an increasing amount ofmy time: I choose a destination that I think I'd like to visit—last year it was Italy, two years ago, Vancouver—and then spend days, even weeks, drawing up endless itineraries of the ideal trip; reading every website on the place; bookmarking info, about houses, hotels, beaches, music clubs, hiking trails, and restaurants; e-mailing owners of smaU B&Bs and people interested in house-swapping; scanning the airlines' web pages again and again in search of the cheapest fares and the best connections ; and then, more often than not, staying home. I've got powerful memories of aU sorts of experiences I've never had. I can picture the viUas where we would have stayed on our bike trip through Tuscany. I often find myself remembering the fjord-filled cruise we never took along the Alaskan coast. I've chosen the plays we would have seen if we had gone to London three years ago and the performers I would have taken in had I actuaUy attended last spring's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Armchair travelers know the thriU they are seeking is vicarious; they are in search of a satisfying literary experience, not potentially usable information. 14 Lad Tobin15 No one reads PaulTheroux to find out die train schedules in China or Bruce Chatwin to find a nice B&B in southern Argentina. But whüe I've been searching orfiine for information about the Virgin Islands or Greenland or Buenos Aries, I have every intention of taking the trip. If I didn't, if I knew going into the planning that I wasn't going out on the road, I'd immediately lose aU interest. What appeals to me about virtual travel is that I am actively, voraciously, planning a trip that I can't wait to take. The problem is that I do wait, and by the time I've completed my research I usuaUy realize that I've lost my nerve, interest, or vacation days. ? There are, I have now come to understand, two kinds oftravelers—the kind who love to plan every detail of a trip and the kind who don't. Unfortunately these two kinds usuaUy end up traveUng together. My friend EUeen teUs me that she once had a boyfriend who spent months planning their trips. She, meanwhile, hated to make such plans and, in fact, refused as an official policy to even look at any ofhis accumulated brochures, guidebooks , and travel articles until they were on the plane. The boyfriend insisted they engage in the activities he had marked and categorized; after a few days ofbeing on a schedule that must have seemed like a müitary operation or scavenger hunt, Eüeen became equaUy insistent that they ignore the list and act spontaneously. The issue came to a head in the English town of Chester ("one of the principal gates to North Wales," according to her boyfriend's Blue Guide of England), when Eileen reluctantly consented to the plan that their very first activity would be an early-morning walk along the medieval waUs that surround the city ("This is the ONLY way to get oriented," the boyfriend had...