Even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
—Daniel 12:4
6735 200 Million Yearly
International tourism is a huge business—it involves 200 million people traveling outside their own countries every year throughout the world. This mass of tourists, nearly equal to the population of the entire United States, spends $24 billion a year abroad, not including air fares.
6736 Travel-Minded Americans
Americans have traditionally been a mobile people. Between one-fifth and one-quarter of the native population recorded in every census for the last 100 years had been born in some state other than the one of residence at the time of the census.
In 1940, almost 27 million persons in this country had moved away from the states where they were born. In 1950 almost one-fifth of those aged one and older were living in houses different from the homes they had occupied one year before.
The migration characteristically has been from East to West, from South to North, and from rural areas to cities. Both kinds of movement are still continuing.
6737 Traveling People
Stand on any busy street corner, or expressway, and watch the cars go by. Air terminals are crowded with passengers; the air lanes are filled with planes. Many people travel farther now on a weekend than their fathers did in a lifetime.
6738 A Top Industry
Tourism is among the top three industries in 46 states, and is number one in Florida, Nevada, and Hawaii. It’s the second leading industry in the U.S. Only grocery sales pump more money into the economy. The tourist industry employs four million Americans and grosses more than $61 billion a year.
6739 Passports Issued
Q: How many passports does the Passport Office issue in a year?
A: In 1955, when I became Director of the Passport Office, we were issuing less than half-a-million passports a year. Since then, passport issuance has increased on an average of 11 percent a year until 1974. In 1973, we issued 2,966, 975 passports, and in 1974 we dropped to 2,665, 003—roughly a 10 percent decrease. Travel is closely related to the state of the economy.
6740 Traveling In The 1980s
On a bright, summer morning in 1989 the Smith family of Suburbantown, U.S.A., is preparing for a camping trip. Leaving Mom and the kids to assemble the gear, Dad goes to the garage. He puts the fiberglass fenders of his 50-mile-per-gallon, two-seat commuter car and squeezes past what the family calls “the big sedan”—an auto about the size of the compacts of the 1970s that the Smiths use only for long hauls.
Finally, he reaches the “vacation vehicle,” a cross between the vans and station wagons of the old days. It gets more than 30 miles to a gallon of fuel and can seat seven people. Dad slides behind the wheel, switches on the ignition and the driver’s seat automatically adjusts to the position he likes best. The computer terminal on the dashboard flashes the car’s vital statistics: the tires are at the proper pressures, the exhaust-feedback system is filtering pollutants and the air bags are set in case of a crash. All is in order, and the camping trip can begin.
6741 The Road Map
The origin and development of the road map as we have it is of comparatively recent date. The start was given by the Chicago Times Herald in 1895 when it outlined for spectators the route of an automobile race from Chicago to Waukegan and back.
6742 Cook’s Tours
The most familiar name to world travelers is doubtless Thomas Cook and Son, Ltd., of England. “Cook’s Tours” has helped hundreds of thousands of travelers make the most out of their precious vacations. This was how it began:
About 150 years ago, Thomas Cook took his Sunday School class of boys and girls on a holiday excursion to London. He conducted them personally, told stories of interest regarding places and events, and enjoyed the trip himself as much as the children did.
6743 Help For Tourists In U.S.
What do foreign travelers find most difficult about the U.S.? Their main problem, of course, is language. Relatively few Americans know a foreign language well enough to help out a perplexed visitor.
Accordingly, the U.S. Travel Service has launched a number of programs, including a toll-free, multilingual information service. Foreign visitors can pick up a phone anywhere in the country (except Alaska) and dial 800–255–3050 to get answers to questions ranging from the price of auto insurance to the closing time of Disneyland.
The Travel Service also lists some 200 hotels throughout the country whose reception desks, switchboards and restaurants are staffed with personnel who speak three languages in addition to English. California is the leading state in the program with 31 multilingual facilities. High-ranking cities include Washington, D.C., Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas and Houston.
6744 Most Traveled Man
The man who has visited more countries than anyone is J. Hart Rosdail of Elmhurst, Illinois. Since 1934 he has visited 154 sovereign countries and 67 non-sovereign territories of the world, making a total of 221. He estimates his mileage as 1,482, 729 miles by July 1975. The only sovereign countries which he has not visited are China, Cuba, North Korea, North Vietnam and the French Territories.
The most countries visited by a disabled person is 119 by Lester Nixon of Sarasota, Florida, who is confined to a wheelchair.
The Methodist preacher, Francis Asbury of Birmingham, England, traveled 264,000 miles by horseback in North America from 1771 to 1815, preaching 16,000 sermons.
6745 Defining A Tourist
Palma de Majorca, Spain, schoolchildren were told to write their definitions of “tourists.” This was an effort to boost the local tourist trade. Nine-year-old Maria Canelli won honors with her definition: “A tourist is a person on vacation with nothing to do and is busier than an astronaut and rushing faster than a rocket to get it done!”
—Ella May Miller
6746 Putting Tourists To Work
Berlin (UPI)—Tourists arriving at the Thueringer Hof Hotel in the East German resort town of Rudolfstadt are handed a bucket filled with chopped wood and pressed coal.
“We have got no central heating, so you have to do your own heating,” the porter tells the patrons.
The rooms are equipped with small, iron stoves.
6747 Borderline Hotel
During the era of Napoleon, when the frontier between France and Switzerland was constantly being shifted, a crafty Swiss accurately predicted the final borderline and built a hotel, now known as the Hotel Franco-Suisse.
This schizophrenic hotel is situated on the border between France and Switzerland. The dividing line cuts across the middle of the hotel and through many bedrooms. A guest often has one foot in France and the other in Switzerland. Climbing the stairs to his room, the guest goes from Switzerland to France. Halfway up the stairs, he is in Switzerland again. The hotel has a dual-phone system, one provided by the Swiss, the other by the French. The cost of a call depends on which phone is used.
What happens if a guest begins to leave without paying his bill? Call the police, of course. But which one depends on whether he left by the front or back door.
6748 Federal Holidays On Mondays
President Johnson signed a law likely to cut church attendance. The measure—which won rare unanimous support from the National Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Commerce Department—moves four federal holidays to Monday. Beginning January 1, 1971, new three-day weekends will result annually from these holidays: Washington’s birthday (third Monday in February), Memorial Day (last Monday in May), Veterans’ Day (fourth Monday in October), and Columbus Day (second Monday in October). The changes increased weekend travel and, as a result, church absenteeism.
—Christianity Today
6749 Camping On Hi-Rises
Hi-Rise Campsites, Inc., has announced plans to construct a 20-story campground in downtown New Orleans and is seeking financing for the project. “This will be unique,” said Wesley Hurley of Hi-Rise. “It is designed for today’s different brand of camping. People don’t want the woodsy bit now; they want to camp in comfort near the city.”
Plans for the $4-million project call for eight lower floors of parking and 12 upper stories, with 240 individual sites equipped with utility hook-ups for campers, and carpeted with artificial turf. The campground will include a rooftop pool.
—Selected
6750 Boat Hitchhikers Across U. S.
Little Rock, Ark. (AP)—The Dave Pearlmans, who say they hitchhiked halfway across the country with a 19-foot boat, said that motorists were surprised to see them at first, but usually were cooperative about giving them a tow.
Pearlman, 37, his wife Maxine and their daughter Ingrid, 15 months, spent about 2½ weeks and on the trip got rides from about 20 motorists.
The end to the hitchhiking came in Tulsa, Okla, where the family took to the water for a journey to New Orleans and then, they say, to Europe.
Pearlman said the family had left San Francisco with a camper towing the boat, but the camper was wrecked before the family got out of California.
I wanted to turn back, but Maxine said we could make it,” Pearlman said. “I told her hitchhiking with a boat was preposterous.
“We’d be standing next to the boat with our thumbs out and somebody would stop to give us a ride,” Pearlman said. “We’d tell them we had the boat with us, too and they were always a little amazed. It just didn’t dawn on them.”
6751 Reviving Art Of Walking
I read the other day that some community colleges and adult education centers now offer courses in walking.
That type of instruction likely will grow increasingly popular as the gasoline shortage worsens. So I got in touch with Dr. Archibald Stridewell, professor of peripatetics at Brogan State College to see what was going on in his field.
“Walking has become a dying art during the automobile age,” he told me.
“There’s a lot more to walking than merely putting one foot in front of the other. Walking also can be an important means of communication and a valuable emotional outlet.”
“Once you master the various gaits and paces, a whole new world of self-expression opens up to you.”
At the moment, he said, the Brogan state curriculum includes two courses in walking—beginning pedestrianism 110 and basic promenading 411.
“The former offers introductory instruction in the elementary steps—tramping, trudging, plodding, shuffling and so forth, with maybe a smattering of shambling.
“The latter gives the student a rudimentary grasp of the more advanced forms of walking, such as strolling, sauntering and sidling.”
—Selected
6752 Walking Across Polar Cap
In 1969 the first four men to walk across the polar ice cap arrived home in Portsmouth, England.
The team of British explorers set out from Alaska in February 1968, trekked 3,620 miles over the frozen wastes, landed on small Blackboard Island on May 30, 1969, and then got picked up by a helicopter after 477 days on the treacherous ice floes.
Various dangers faced the four men as they made their incredible journey, including cracking ice, polar bears, which were fearless inasmuch as they had never seen human beings before, temperatures as low as 45 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and the team’s ill-tempered husky dogs.
—Prairie Overcomer
6753 Record Walks
Clinton, Iowa, (UPI)—Two Clinton men claim they have set a world’s record for the distance covered during 24 hours of continuous walking.
Jim Clark and Roger Rurgess began walking side-by-side at 8 a.m. Saturday and covered 116.5 miles in the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Sunday.
But according to Guinness Book of Records, C. A. Harriman of California walked without a rest for 121 miles, making him the champion nonstop walker.
6754 Record Tight-Rope Walk
Karl Wallenda, age 65, took 821-foot-long walk in 616 steps over the 750-foot-deep Tallulah Gorge in Georgia in July 1970. The whole walk took only 20 minutes, and on the way he made two headstands. It was considered one of the highest tight-rope weeks.
—Bible Expositor
6755 Record-High Walk
New York (AP)—A Parisian aerialist walked a wire between the quarter-mile-high twin towers of the World Trade Center, then won dismissal of criminal trespass charges by promising to perform for children in a city park.
“That was the most beautiful place in the world to walk,” said the elated Frenchman, 25-year-old Philippe Petit, after his feat which nearly doubled the height record for a tightrope walk.
He denied it was a publicity stunt and said he did it because of the challenge and not for more down-to-earth rewards, such as money.
Charges also were dismissed against one confederate who was arrested with him. Two others eluded the police atop the skyscrapers.
Petit’s walk atop the 1,350-foot-high buildings almost doubled the previous record for the highest tightrope walk. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the walk of Karl Wallenda over the 750-foot-deep Tallulah Gorge in Georgia in 1970 as the previous record.
AIR TRAVEL
6756 Air Travel Statistics
The U.S. has the busiest airlines system, where an all-time high of 2.5 billion passenger miles were logged in 1976. This was equivalent to an annual trip of a thousand miles for every inhabitant of the U.S.A.
In the early 1960s, the transportation department registered over 140 million passengers flying the airlines. In 1976, there was a record high of 220 million passengers in airplane trips.
6757 Busiest And Largest Airports
The world’s busiest airport is the Chicago International Airport with a total of 700,000 takeoffs and landings a year, or one plane movement every 45 seconds around the clock.
The world’s largest airport is the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, Texas, which extends over 17,500 acres between the two cities. It opened in 1974 at an initial cost of $700 million. Its planned ultimate capacity is for 60 million passengers per year.
6758 Where Americans Like To Go
Annually, 22 million Americans spent $11 billion in foreign countries, plus $4.2 billion for getting there and back.
Europe and the Mediterranean ranked No. 1, and South America ranked last.
6759 Survival Rate In Planes
In 1976 the U.S. airline industry had the safest year in its history. The 2,300 airliners flew 2.5 billion miles, carried 220 million passengers and had only four fatal accidents. The record low was in 1975, with three fatal accidents, but only 45 people were killed in 1976—compared with 124 the year before. Flying by commercial jet in the U.S. is now at least 15 times as safe per passenger-mile as driving in a car.
The passenger who shows his ticket to the smiling stewardess and buckles himself into his narrow seat has a 99.999% chance of arriving at his destination safe and sound. Indeed, flying has become so routine that the notably pragmatic insurance companies charge pilots no more for policies than they do ribbon clerks.
The year 1979 saw 353 people killed in U.S. skies, including 273 in Chicago’s DC-10 crash.
6760 Airplane Care
U.S. airlines—and the best overseas carriers—take pains—taking care of jets like the 747. Each plane, and each engine on each plane, get a series of standard checkups. Even if it has no obvious problems, the jet receives an eight-hour maintenance check four times annually. Every year, in addition, mechanics wheel each plane into a hangar for two weeks and tear it down piece by piece, like federal agents hunting for heroin. Ceilings and floors are removed; every rivet and every cable are inspected. Engines are constantly being monitored and overhauled. The maintenance procedures are so complicated and expensive that TWA estimates it has $300 million tied up in spare parts and equipments enough to buy a whole airline fleet.
6761 “Jet Lag”
“Dysrhythmia” is the medical term used to describe the real, potential and imaginary upsets of the body’s biological clock caused by moving at jet speeds across time zones. It is also known as “jet lag.” It can however be conquered or controlled by following these tips:
(1) AVOID A LAST-MINUTE DASH TO THE AIRPORT—don’t get exhausted before starting your trip.
(2) DO NOT OVERPACK—you may have to carry your luggage and be fatigued.
(3) WEAR LOOSE-FITTING CLOTHES—give your skin a chance to breathe freely. In plane, remove shoes.
(4) DO NOT OVERINDULGE IN FOOD AND SPIRITS—it can increase heartbeat and make sleeping difficult. Also, don’t oversmoke.
(5) TRY TO SLEEP IN-FLIGHT—the best way to fight time zone fatigue.
(6) DRINK LOTS OF WATER IN-FLIGHT—will prevent dehydration, a common thing in the rarefied air of jet cabin.
(7) FRESHEN UP BEFORE ARRIVAL—brush teeth, wash face.
(8) BRING GOOD READING MATERIAL—if cannot sleep, reading will make time pass quickly.
(9) DON’T OVER-EXERT YOURSELF UPON ARRIVAL—don’t schedule too may activities at first.
(10) REMEMBER DYSRHYTHMIA IS A TEMPORARY CONDITION—it is sometimes also psychosomatic. Wind your biological clock by resting frequently throughout your travels.
The above rules were given by Dr. Joseph G. Constantino, corporate medical director at Pan American World Airways. He is also a recognized authority in aviation medicine and worldwide medical practice.
6762 Course In Skimming
One summer, at a cost of $1,615 each, 156 students from Los Angeles flew around the world in a DC-8. The idea of the flight was to see as much of the world as time would permit in two weeks. Los Angeles Times reporter, who flew with the students, reported that “all through Europe the DC-8 made low passes—4,000 and 5,000 feet above cities like Copenhagen, above the crater of Mt. Vesuvius, above Pompeii, Naples, and the Isle of Capri.… During the two-week odyssey, classroom in the sky spent 65 hours in the air and traveled 38,000 statute miles.”
6763 Via The Polar Route
George Neuwith, a New York businessman found himself tied up in Los Angeles during a nationwide airline strike. He faced the necessity of getting back to New York by hook or crook for an important business meeting. “Then I remembered that Scandinavian Airlines had a polar flight,” he said. And he got to New York.
6764 Travels Of Teddy The Bear
Los Angeles (UPI)—The odyssey of Sir Edward the teddy bear ended when he was reunited with his 4-year-old owner, Jamie Fowler, ending three months of jet-setting in which he was cuddled, kidnapped and “knighted.”
The foot-high teddy bear began his travels June 21 when Jamie and his mother left Ngario, New Zealand, for a visit to his maternal grandparents in Kent, England.
The teddy bear was inadvertently abandoned when his young master fell asleep and was carried off the plane at Singapore. But not for long. The Air New Zealand stewardesses adopted the bear and he became a veteran of the airways on the New Zealand-Australia-Singapore route.
Other airline crews got wind of the escapades of Sir Edward who flew with about a dozen different carriers, acquiring a collection of labels bearing such exotic names as Hong Kong, Papeete, Buenos Aires, Jamaica and Paris.
By the best estimates, the bear logged more than 150,000 miles during more than 300 hours aloft. News stories were written about him.
In the meantime Jamie, whose mother tried to soothe him with a stuffed koala bear, hankered for his teddy during a stopover in the United States.
Newspapers in New Zealand told the sad story of the lonely, little boy, whose errant bear was who-knows-where.
Jamie’s father read about the much-flown Sir Edward, deduced it was his son’s and contacted Air New Zealand.
A smiling Jamie boarded an Air New Zealand flight here Sunday night, clutching the bear whose worldly jaunts are over.
6765 Flight Of The Wren
One day in November, Wren Chadderdon, a retired superintendent of schools, found a balloon near his home in Central Lake, Mich. A card attached to the balloon said it had been released by a sixth grade science class in Winneconne, Wis. The note asked the finder to send the pupils a letter telling where the balloon was found. Chadderdon, who was about to leave on a four-month trip around the world, sent the youngsters a letter which said only: “I am a bird. My name is Wren.”
For the next four months, the children received letters almost everyday from Wren, the bird. They came from such places as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and England. The astounded children followed Wren’s travels on the classroom globe. In the letters, Wren described the customs, food and history of each country.
Each letter also contained a small piece of the original card which the children had attached to their balloon. As the pieces arrived, the students put the card back together. When the last piece of puzzle came from Central Lake, the children realized where the bird, Wren, began and ended its flight. They wrote a letter to the Central Lake newspaper, and the editors uncovered Wren’s identity.
Meanwhile, the sixth-graders enjoyed their most stimulating and exciting four months of school. Their knowledge of the world was broadened and the excitement made the learning process fun.
6766 Marrying For Travel
San Francisco, (UPI)—A graduate student once offered $2,000 a year to marry any airline stewardess—and he’s not particular—in order to get the customary free flight benefits given to airline workers and their spouses.
The University of California student has placed a classified advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle.
6767 Hitchhiking By Air
Early this year, word seeped through the underground that the hippest new way to travel was overground—hitchhiking on the steadily growing fleet of 80,000 or so private American aircraft that are in service at any given time. Pilots of noncommercial planes found themselves confronted increasingly often by earnest youngsters holding signs that read “Boston,” “Twin Cities,” or simply “West” or “Europe”—and often the hitchhikers made it to their destinations.
As a way of travel, hitchhiking by air is both adventurous and free, and has become popular enough to be declared illegal in Denver.
6768 Final Departure?
A Californian says he’s still a little nervous about the public-address announcement he heard at the San Francisco airport concerning his plane for Los Angeles. “Flight 609,” the voice intoned solemnly, “is now ready for its final departure.”
—Los Angeles Times
6769 Only One Drop
The teacher was lecturing to a class in science. “Now, then, Bill,” he said, “name me a poisonous substance.”
Bill Smith, who was not gifted with an oversupply of intelligence, thought deeply. “Aviation,” he said.
The class tittered with amusement, and the teacher looked sternly at the embarrassed pupil.
“Explain yourself, Bill,” he demanded.
“One drop will kill, sir,” responded Bill.
—Sunshine
6770 Epigram On Travel (Air)
• One who travels thoughtfully adds another dimension to life.
• In this jet era of tremendous speed, you can now have early breakfast in New York and fly to Los Angeles in time to find nobody up.
—Woman’s Day
• A tourist in Switzerland was taken by a local guide on a mountain climb. At one point the guide disturbed his client by urging: “Be careful not to fall here because it is very dangerous. But if you do fall, remember to look to the right—the view is the best for miles around.”
—Tid-Bits
• Every year it takes less time to fly across the ocean and longer to drive to the office.
—Saturday Evening Post
• Monty Woolley slipped on the stairs of the Times Square subway station one rainy night when there were no taxis to be had. Halfway down, he bumped into a stout lady, who toppled against him and landed on his lap at the stairs. Woolley tapped her on the shoulder and pointed out, “Madam, I m sorry, but this is as far as I go.”
• How long should a vacation be? Just long enough for the boss to miss you, but not long enough for him to discover that he can get along without you.