Travel agent

“ No "maid and valet affectionate in the rumble." All the pomp and circumstance, all the ease and calm, of Travel have vanished, and with them all sense of independence and [206] responsibility. The modern traveller is shot like a bullet through a tunnel, or hauled like a parcel up a hill. He certainly sees the world at very little cost, but he sees it under wonderfully uncomfortable conditions. ”

“ Then remembering how the traditional maxims and methods of travelling in each country differ from those of others, and how every traveller discovers some useful contrivances for himself, it appeared to me, that I should do welcome service to all who have to rough it--whether explorers, emigrants, missionaries or soldiers,*--by collecting the scattered experiences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." ”

“ Each advertisement was worded differently, to suit its audience, but all wound up with the formula: "Inclusive terms, 4s. 6d. per day. Fifteen-day excursions, Dover—Rochehaut, second class, £1. 8s. 3d. Exact directions as to journey given." And to meet the demand which arose, he had leaflets printed, giving alternative routes by day or night, plans of stations, prices in detail, travel hints, the minute advice of an old traveler who knows every trick of the journey; leaflets which enabled the greenest novice to face the douane, and change at the right places, and catch the right trains. ”

“ Many short trips may be taken from here either by boat or train, and he who would fill his portfolio with quaint and lovely pictures, will find his enthusiasm aroused, no matter in which direction he may venture, or whether his expedition be on land 135 or water. Interesting localities are always within easy reach, and the moderate rate for transportation and accommodation render all points accessible to the traveller whose purse is of the most slender dimensions. ”

“ Americans sojourning in New York en route to Europe can avail themselves not only of the general advantages of the Exchange, but can obtain information in regard to routes of travel, principal places of resort, cost, etc., on the other side of the Atlantic. ”

“ Guides for the city or neighborhood can be had at all hotels, and are preferable to those picked up the street. Carriages and cabs can also be ordered at the hotel, but if the traveler can trust himself to make a bargain it is better to secure them outside, since the house not infrequently adds a commission for its services. Besides it is well to learn as much as possible of the people you are among, and there are no more sharply-defined characters in the world than the professional drivers of Irish, Scotch, or English cities. ”

“ Travelers in cars, on trains, in busses—campers, hikers, fishermen, hunters—will find here the information they need. How far to the next town; what kind of road; are there hotels, campsites; what should we see; are there side trips; what are the traffic and game laws? These are the first considerations of travel.
But the book contains more than that. The authors are not Baedekers descending for a moment on some foreign spot. They are writing also for the historian today and tomorrow who would know how the states appear to the people who inhabit them. ”

“ It will cost us many thousand miles of travel. We shall find neither railway-train, nor steamboat, nor stage-coach, to carry us on our way. We shall not even have the help of a horse. For us no hotel shall spread its luxurious board ”

“ In the principal hotels throughout Europe there are English-speaking clerks and servants, and it is usually easy to find guides and valets who are able to get on in the language of the British Isles. Those with deep and well-lined purses may employ a courier who will look after everything—engage rooms at hotels, buy railway tickets, attend to the luggage, and in various ways relieve the traveler from a great deal of perplexity. ”

“ Notwithstanding the advice already given in this little volume, we repeat that passengers would always save themselves much trouble, and, by facilitating the examination of luggage, their fellow-travellers great delay, if they would take the precaution to pack goods liable to duty in a separate case, marked "duty goods," and leave it in charge of Mr. Hill, the "Peninsular and Oriental Company's" custom-house agent at Southampton, who always goes on board the steamer on its arrival, and who will punctually forward it as directed. ”

“ The stolid English traveller, who, having bought half-a-dozen newspapers, and taken his seat in an empty carriage, considers he has done an act which entitles him to the whole of the compartment; the English lady, arrayed for travel in garments which are calculated to amaze the foreigner; the Frenchman, who raises his hat every time he passes a fellow-traveller, and spits on the floor of the carriage without apology ”

“ One of the most undesirable features of travel abroad is to be forced to depend upon the half-incorrect interpretations of guides for one's comfort and pleasure. How much better it is to be able to talk to the natives of the country themselves, and to understand them and their ways! A little preliminary preparation before the trip, or while one is on the way, serves as an excellent foundation upon which to build one's knowledge of the language and customs of a foreign country. ”

“ I was a member of the British Civil Air Transport Committee, and we went with care and thoroughness into the possibilities and probabilities of the air. My work on that committee convinced me that in the near future the air may be the chief if not the only highway for long-distance mails, for long-distance passenger traffic, and for the carriage of most valuable and compact commodities. The ocean ways are likely to be only the ways for slow travel and for staple and bulky trade. ”

“ In a foreign land, travel with baggage is nothing less than an ordeal; and the man who can convoy a fleet of trunks over a foreign tour and bring them all back without loss to the home port, may safely regard himself as an expert globe-trotter. ”

“ THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOREIGN TRAVEL Foreign travel is one of the most useful branches of our education, but, like a great many other useful branches, it appears to be "gone through with" by many persons merely as a matter of course. ”

“ The lines of travel chosen are such as will give the tourist the most favorable opportunities for visiting the celebrated summer resorts en route, and secure the advantages of palace coaches, dining cars, quick transit, and sure connections,—considerations which combine to make a journey enjoyable, and by means of which a trip becomes a luxury as a means as well as an end. ”

“ The American traveler will run across what will be to him a curious custom, on some of the Mediterranean lines; the supplying of food, and the service of the table generally is not undertaken by the company, but is leased or farmed out, the same as a hotel-keeper in New York leases the space for a cigar or newspaper stand. ”

“ Happily for the American business world, the infection of “summer travel” grows more and more contagious as its benefits become better understood. Year by year the tide increases in volume, and the facilities of travel are multiplied to meet the demand. If these pages shall serve to assist the tourist in the choice of his route, or, the choice being made, in rendering his journey more enjoyable, their purpose will be fully met. ”

“ If he is about to attempt a really bold exploration under fair conditions of success, he will no doubt be introduced to the best living authorities on the country to which he is bound, and will be provided with letters of introduction to the officials at the port where he is to disembark, that will smooth away many small difficulties and give him a recognised position during his travels. ”

“ It is quite sufficiently obvious that national customs and national peculiarities are being smoothed out of existence by facilities of travel. My father and mother, early in their married life, drove from London to Naples in their own carriage, the journey occupying over a month. They left their own front door in London, had their carriage placed on the deck of the Channel steamer, sat in it during the passage (what a singularly uncomfortable resting-place it must have been should they have encountered bad weather!) ”

“ The new facilities for transportation and travel by land and water bring all nations, European, American, Asiatic and African, next door to each other, and when the art of aviation is more advanced and people travel in the air as safely as they now cross oceans, the relationships of nations will become still closer. ”

“ They are mass carriers, freight handlers, great hurry conveniences for overburdened commercial minds, but little more. After all, travel, however much it may be a matter of necessity, is in most instances, or should be, a matter of pleasure. ”

“ Unfortunately for the vagrant traveller, those who work hard for practical ends prefer not to talk about their doings, and he must, therefore, pick up what information he can at second-hand or in the city. ”

“ You shall find all the nations of the earth, and all the styles of shaving and not shaving, hair cutting and hair letting alone, for ever flowing through our hotel. Couriers you shall see by hundreds; fat leathern bags for five-franc pieces, closing with violent snaps, like discharges of fire-arms, by thousands; more luggage in a morning than, fifty years ago, all Europe saw in a week. Looking at trains, steamboats, sick travellers, and luggage, is our great Pavilionstone recreation. We are not strong in other public amusements. ”

“ Leaving the custom-house behind you, the way is clear to seek a hotel. Generally there are plenty of runners at the landing-place, and if you have chosen the establishment where you are to stop, you have only to name it, and the runner for that house will step forward to take charge of yourself and your belongings. Sometimes the baggage is taken on the cab or carriage which carries you, and at others it is intrusted to licensed porters, who are responsible for its safe delivery, and can be trusted without much hesitation. ”

“ Travel on whatever line you please in England, except that grasping Brighton and South Coast, and you may take just exactly what luggage you like; while abroad, the fare is so low and the charge for luggage so high, that an Englishman generally pays double ”

“ Tourism — human circulation packaged for consumption, a by-product of the circulation of commodities — is the opportunity to go and see what has been banalized. The economic organization of travel to different places already guarantees their equivalence. ”

“ Safety in travel is greatly promoted by these conditions, but in other respects the passenger service is, from an American standpoint, much inferior to that in this country, although vast improvements have taken place both in England and on the Continent within recent years. ”

“ One could not go far in the diminutive Low Countries without getting over the frontier, but within the narrow limits one could travel a great deal and with great convenience. Much of the travel was by water, but there was also considerable use of wheeled carriages. ”

“ The traveler who holds his room till it is time to go to the train finds to his astonishment that the last hour of his occupation has cost him the same as an entire day. But the hotel keepers have a living to make, and must keep an eye to the main chance. ”

“ The travel industry is a large and direct contributor to many industries and their laborers. It helps the railroads, automobile-makers, hotels, guides, and the manufacturers of the clothing, books, souvenirs, and other articles purchased by travelers. Perhaps the farmer is the one most benefited ”

“ The “voyageurs” form a kind of confraternity in the Canadas, like the arrieros, or carriers of Spain, and, like them, are employed in long internal expeditions of travel and traffic: with this difference, that the arrieros travel by land, the voyageurs by water; the former with mules and horses, the latter with batteaux and canoes. The voyageurs may be said to have sprung up out of the fur trade, having originally been employed by the early French merchants in their trading expeditions through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes of the boundless interior. ”

“ Whoever wishes to travel comfortably takes the extra post; for greater economy, care is taken that all the places shall be occupied, and in the local papers which have existed for some little time in most of the larger cities, a travelling companion is sometimes advertised for. ”

“ Travellers now arrive from all quarters, in cabriolets, in calashes, in the shabby vettura, and in the elegant private carriage drawn by post-horses, and driven by postillions in the tightest possible deer-skin breeches, the smallest red coats, and the hugest jack-boots. The streets about the doors of the hotels resound with the cracking of whips and the stamping of horses, and are encumbered with carriages, heaps of baggage, porters, postillions, couriers, and travellers. Night at length arrives—the time of spectacles and funerals. ”

“ A traveler, with a guide-book and a good pair of eyes, can also dispense with the services of a courier, whose duty it is to conduct strangers about the city, from one lion to another. We chose rather to find out and view the "sights" at our leisure. In small villages, where we were often obliged to stop, we chose the best hotels, which, particularly in Northern Germany and in Italy, are none too good. ”

“ Travellers, who cross this plain, find no accommodations, and are obliged to sleep in the same carts they travel in, and which are the only kind of carriages made use of on long journeys here. Those who travel on horseback 22are often exposed to lie in the fields, without any covering. ”