Perusing the section today, one headline did catch my eye, “The Frugal Traveler.” Aha! Perhaps this was a worthy travelogue, filled with heart-warming homilies and inspirational photos of the wide open spaces of the Land of the Free! Unfortunately, I became disappointed.

Now before you write me off as being overly critical, remember, I’ve seen some outstanding travel blogs out there, so I am drawing from a good deal of experience. And some of the stories were truly interesting (like the car failure in South Dakota and accepting an invitation from a local family to stay with them– all the while concealing the fact that their new guest– this Frugal Traveler– is a NY Times reporter). Actually, the segment on South Dakota was the most entertaining, in my opinion.

But the Zen meditation and joking with locals in Colorado about getting drunk wasn’t terribly frugal to me. It had “New York Times” plastered all over it. The stories never got beyond my head and into my heartstrings, which is how I feel about the New York Times in general. Moreover, I failed to see how this travel was particularly frugal, besides the “mingling” with the unwashed masses and driving a beat-up old Volvo across the continent.

Though frugal travel has required me to embrace certain Buddhist conventions — shedding attachments to luxuries, for example — the closest I’d ever come to spiritual enlightenment was drinking bourbon from a silver Tibetan flask I bought in India.

Oh yeah, when I go frugal, I never leave home without my Buddhist conventions, not to mention my Ming vase and silver Tibetan flask I bought in India for those religious moments.

I am easily bored and, I assume, so is the typical travel blog reader. I like stories short, I like lots of “play by play” photos, and I love the historical aspect of the places I visit. And I must have some kind of inspiration, whether it be in the scenery or in the journey or in meeting new people. I think this element was missing from the narrative. Like I said, it never left my head to touch my heart.

And when I travel to “Middle America,” I don’t consider it “Middle America.” That’s a name given to us by “Upper America.” One segment has the author wandering into a Utopian society and calling the residents “pretty normal.” I wondered what “pretty normal” meant?

But from what I could see, Dreamtime’s residents were pretty normal: mIEKAL’s 19-year-old son, Zon, had just graduated from the Waldorf School in Viroqua, a couple of towns west; Camille, whom mIEKAL had married after he and Elizabeth divorced, was a cheerful, inquisitive filmmaker who had moved there from Romania only a few years earlier (Elizabeth, who had renamed herself Lyx Ish, died in 2004); and Ken, a handyman who’d been in West Lima longer than anyone, was quieter than the others but so what… and the sun was warming the town’s sole remaining business, a Pepsi machine (50 cents a can).

College, divorce, Pepsi. “Pretty normal.”

Face it, most people go “frugal” because they have to. Rubbing stories of grimy trailer parks and shady hotels in the faces of readers (who, like me, practice frugality as a lifestyle not for a story written to titillate Manhattanites) is depressing. The true frugal traveler looks for expensive stuff inexpensively (good deals), not cheap (non-Manhattan) stuff and calling it frugal.

I don’t think the author was intentionally condescending, but the overall story seemed to mock the average non-Tibetan-flask-drinking American. The segment seemed more like a travel story about the “little” people, for the “big” people to read, done with typical sneering New York Times style. Who likes that?

The Boring Traveler

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The main gist of the story is that online travel sites are really starting to take off. Stephen Kaufer’s TripAdvisor was spoken of. I like TripAdvisor, and wrote my first hotel review on it, a few days ago. The information is not quite all-encompassing (I noticed that TripAdvisor did not list all hotels in the Corning, NY, area), but it’s a wonderful resource.

Traditional print travel guides, whether in book or periodical form, are usually written and edited by travel professionals — some of whom regard the growing online travel review sites as interlopers that barged onto their turf like boisterous day-trippers piling out of their Winnebagos and plopping down next to the members of a beach club.

But Mr. Kaufer argued that online sites have advantages over written guides, including the fact that the Internet reviews are often more immediate and tend to be punchier than guidebook listings.

I don’t mind being a boisterous day-tripper piling out of my Winnebago. I’d love a Winnebago to boisterously pile out of.

But the divide between “professional” travelers and us boisterous day-trippers is summed up in one word: m o n e y. The “pros” aren’t better travelers than Ma and Pa Winnebago; they just get paid to travel and write about it. If anything, I appreciate input from Ma and Pa before I’ll take the word of a sponsored, sushi-eating, fancy-hotel living “professional.” Not that all professional travelers are like that. But if they are allowed to create stereotypes, why can’t I?

The divide is a ridiculous one, crafted for sensational broadside news. Isn’t the goal to travel? And don’t Ma and Pa Winnebago travel just as much as professional travelers travel? And can’t they both offer good information and advice? As for me, I think the charm of my blog is that I am a simple woman, traveling simply, offering entertainment and tips about simple trips, all in simple language.

It’s just like that, you know. Hail the Winnebago jet-set crew!

Online Travel Websites

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