Lights, Camera...Travel!

by Lonely Planet

  I tell everyone else who is packing up to travel somewhere – ‘less is best.’

  But sometimes even I forget.

  Glides Like a Piano

  ANTHONY EDWARDS

  Anthony Edwards has been a professional pretender for the last thirty-three years. Most people remember him as Goose in Top Gun, Gilbert in Revenge of the Nerds and Dr Green in ER. He’s the father of four kids and husband to one wife. Born in Santa Barbara, he was the youngest of five children. His parents instilled a need for travel at a very early age. Anthony dedicates free time to www.shoe4africa.org, an organization that uses sport as a way to bring about health and educational change in Africa.

  What would happen if both engines quit?

  ‘Don’t worry, it glides like a piano.’

  That is not really what you want to hear about a plane that is going to take you and your family around the world for a year. But Len Riley, our pilot, also communicated without words, by way of a grin and a knowing look of assurance, that it was his job to never let us be in a situation in which gliding like a piano was an option. He and his copilot, Orlando Moreno, would take care of the flying. I could look at this trip with fear, dwell on the worst case scenario and become paralyzed with inaction – or I could trust, look at the big picture and focus on the fact that this was going to be the adventure of a lifetime.

  We are a family with four children. In the fall of 2006, our youngest, Poppy, was four, Wallis, five, Esme, nine, and our oldest, Bailey, was twelve. My wife, Jeanine, had created, built and sold a very successful makeup company. I had spent eight years being the well-intentioned, bad-luck Dr Green on ER and we now lived in New York. With our oldest going to high school pretty soon, this was the moment that we as a family could take a year off to go around the world. Six in our family and two teachers made a party of eight that needed to travel to thirty countries in 310 days.

  Len Riley was the possessor of the grin and knowing look of assurance that made him the quiet foundation of this trip. He was a pilot who grew up in Alaska and would ‘borrow’ planes as an underage teenager, like a 14-year-old in the lower forty-eight would sneak out in his dad’s car. He was born to fly. Being around someone who is doing what they truly love is inspiring. And that is why when we asked Len if he would be interested in this adventure, there was no surprise when he lit up and said, ‘Yeah, I think I can do that.’

  We left New York’s Westchester Airport in a twelve-seat Challenger 601 packed to the gills with suitcases, books, crafting materials, instruments, even an 88-key keyboard (which was given away pretty early in the trip as we realized that piano lessons were going to have to be put on hold). We did look a bit like the Clampetts heading out to Beverly Hills – actually more like the Clampetts after they had been in Beverly Hills, bought a plane and thought they would take their life on the road for a spell.

  Our kids were all in a Waldorf school, which has a curriculum that is based around the idea that in educating a child, reading, writing, math and the sciences are to be explored using the mind, the heart and the hands. With the help of two great teachers, we were able to integrate that idea into the itinerary of our trip. The seventh-grade curriculum uses the Renaissance as its foundation and so after a dramatic and spiritual visit to one of the wonders of the world, Machu Picchu, we zipped over to Florence to start our school year in the heart of the Renaissance. Wallis turned six in Italy and I think she thought that this trip was going to be just fine because all the ice cream around the world was going to be that good. This was going to be a great year. We had a lot of birthdays ahead of us.

  Our plan of what to see came from a few sources. We discovered that the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ are very open to interpretation. There are the natural wonders and the man-made wonders. We combined them and ended up with Machu Picchu, the Coliseum, the Acropolis, the Pyramids, the Serengeti, the Taj Mahal, the Ganges, Angkor Wat, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kyoto, the Great Wall of China, Lhasa and Petra, among the most famous. We also used the ‘1000 things to see before you die’ theme, which got us thinking about festivals and certain-times-of-the-year events such as Tet in Vietnam, the migration in Africa, the Ice Hotel in the Arctic Circle, the religious rituals of the monks of Luang Prabang, Hindu festivals in India, the Buddhists of the Himalayas, Balinese temples and Ramadan in Cairo. This year was about going far away. We were very lucky to have time and this plane that we could use like a Winnebago. We never had to worry about connecting flights, luggage limits and lost bags, and we could stay as remote as possible.

  As a father, you always want your family to be safe. Learning and growth that can come from traveling require some venturing into the unknown. Spontaneity and surprises stimulate and challenge expectations, which leads to new perspectives. This adventure was going to take us to pretty remote parts of the world. An international health doctor can fill you with all kinds of fear in relation to infectious diseases, vaccinations and lack of access to care. It was always reassuring to know that Len, Orlando and the plane could get us on our way to a medical center as soon as we could meet at the airport.

  Be prepared for the worst but enjoy the best: that is what I respect most about good pilots. They have a great deal of respect for the power of weather. They understand the limits of the machines that they fly. Big mistakes are usually a result of lots of smaller mistakes adding up to failure. The details are never overlooked. When they are doing their job right, it seems effortless and smooth. They give themselves every opportunity for success.

  One of our destinations was the small Himalayan country of Bhutan. Its remote, high-altitude airport has only one approach to land and it is not in a straight line. As we descended between the snow-covered peaks into a series of turns in which the highest mountain range on earth seemed to be in spitting distance outside our windows, I looked up to the cockpit where Len and Orlando appeared relaxed and focused. Now I understood why three weeks earlier Len and Orlando had been in a flight simulator flying this approach over and over again to get the certification to land in Bhutan. No surprises when you only have one first time. Always be prepared. Good pilots don’t experiment and explore with a family in the back.

  Another challenging aspect of getting ten people around the world is the logistics of international travel. Customs, refueling and airport red-tape are a few of the hurdles. It wasn’t that we planned on having to pay off people, but Len was smart enough to know that to have some cash stowed away for an emergency was a good idea. The day we arrived in Ghana, the machine that printed out our visas had a ‘mysterious’ malfunction after six of the visas were complete. Our choice was to wait until the next day or take the six visas and ‘leave the money’ for the other four. Two months later, very late at night, we had a scheduled stop to refuel in Myanmar. After a long discussion, Len came back on the plane and made his way to the cash box. Knowing that the country at the time was very unstable, it appeared to be a better idea to not argue the details, give them cash for the gas and get back up in the air as soon as possible. They say that the English brought bureaucracy to India and the Indians perfected it. When we were in India, excessive paperwork – the result of India having so many different air-control jurisdictions and a rapidly expanding airline industry – made what little hair Len had go gray. I never saw him so relieved as when, after a month, we finally left Indian airspace.

  Len’s voice over the PA system sounded very legitimate, like a commercial airline captain’s. During the trip we crossed the equator six times. Every time he would say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down as we are approaching the equator. We must be prepared for the bump.’ The kids’ eyes would get a little wider and sure enough the plane would bounce up and down (lightly). There would be a little cheer and then he would look back at us with a big grin and comment on the mysteries of nature.

  The only bad flight we had on the trip was when Len was not flying and we had to take a small twin-engine plane back to Johannesburg from a game lodge. As we flew into a big
storm cloud and the turbulence literally made bags hit the ceiling, I was thinking Len would never follow a route like that into a storm. The icing on the cake of that horrible flight was that on our descent into Johannesburg, a hawk bounced off our windshield with a thud.

  When we left New York in September, we basically knew where we were sleeping through December. So during the first few months while the kids were having school in the morning, Jeanine, the master of the internet, and I would work on the rest of the year’s plan. We would first check with Len to see if it was possible to get there, which ninety-nine percent of the time he could make happen, and then continue to fill out the calendar. We also had a fantastic travel agent, Michele Cook, who would always come through when the hotel and house rental logistics got crazy. It was a high-functioning team working out the details and without an internet connection, it would have been virtually impossible.

  To find the rhythm of how to live while on a 310-day trip was something we discovered through being a family. Kids are a great barometer as to whether you are doing too much or pushing too hard. The mood swings of exhausted kids in a confined space will quickly make you adjust your expectations. We very soon got into the plan of ‘one thing a day.’ School in the morning and an adventure in the afternoon worked for us. Your senses and awareness are on a heightened level. The ease and comfort of a typical day at home is not going to happen. I am sure that people get sick when they travel because they just wear out, trying to pack it all in. In the constantly changing environment, we found the effort of slowing down brought more energy to our overall enjoyment of a day.

  There was an afternoon when we were in the wilds of the Masai Mara National Reserve surrounded by a large herd of elephants, mothers and babies, taking care of each other and going about their routine, that I saw all of our kids engaged and enraptured, sitting in our open vehicle, not able to speak. The energy was vibrant and the feeling of connection to the magic of the earth tangible. That is why we did this, so we could be consumed by moments where there is absolutely nowhere else in the world where you would want to be.

  We wanted to see the world. We wanted our children to experience other cultures from their own perspective. We wanted to make deposits into their memory banks of senses that they could draw from in their future wherever and whenever they needed. Traveling sets the foundation for how to live a life. You must be open and not afraid. Be prepared and smart by thinking ahead. But mostly know that you cannot control everything because the most unexpected thing will happen and you will have to move through the event to find your path again.

  On the morning of May 10 in Beijing, China, while the kids were having school, Jeanine got a call from a stranger on Orlando’s cell phone that Len had suffered a massive heart attack, Orlando was giving CPR and they were on the Great Wall waiting for an ambulance. We rushed to meet them at the hospital. There was nothing anyone could have done. That was Len’s last morning.

  The shock, and feeling as if the carpet had been pulled out from under us, was immediate. Our grief was huge and needed to be put to the side for a while, as what was most important was to deal with the logistics of getting Len’s remains back to his family. All was accomplished. The embassy was very helpful. Orlando’s care as a copilot and friend to Len was deeply compassionate and I witnessed what was truly good in human nature.

  Our first impulse was to stop the trip and go home. How could we continue on this adventure without one of our leaders, who had become part of our family? Very quickly we realized that no-one would be more upset about us stopping because of losing Len than Len. He had dedicated so much time and energy to getting us around the world. He had left his life back home to get this done.

  We finished the last two months of the trip. Incredible adventures were waiting for us, more sights, discoveries and people who stirred our thoughts and confirmed what an amazingly diverse planet this is that we live on.

  I am so thankful that Len’s daughter was with him while we were in New Zealand, Australia and Bali. He was so proud of her. I have great pictures of Fran, whom Len was going to marry in June in Greece, riding on a motorcycle with Len in Vietnam with the biggest smile.

  The journey of a lifetime was just that, an event that holds in it a lifetime full of observations and experiences. But of course what really stays with you are the shared moments you had with the people you were with. I often think about what brave adventurers my kids were. How lucky I am to have such a smart and loving wife who is my partner in life and cares so much for others’ well-being. Two teachers, Molly and Charlene, taught and cared for the kids through the most varied classrooms imaginable. Len and Orlando kept us all safe in the sky and were such honorable men on the ground.

  I will never stop wanting my family to be safe while they explore life and push their limits. I often try to imagine how Len would have done something to make sure that the possibility of success can be maximized.

  When we bought the plane before the trip, I remember Len talking about a piece of equipment that it didn’t have that he felt was important. It was called a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS). It was not cheap but Len said that in the very remote chance that we would ever need it, we should have it.

  On our final approach, on our last landing coming into Oxford, Connecticut, after 310 days of travel, the TCAS alarm sounded because a small plane was doing acrobatics in our path. The pilots powered on and pulled up. A collision was avoided. All was fine. Len did everything he had promised us. He kept us safe to the end of the trip.

  Islands in the Storm

  DAN BUCATINSKY

  Dan Bucatinsky was the writer and star of the indie romantic 2001 hit comedy All Over the Guy, co-starring Adam Goldberg, Christina Ricci and Lisa Kudrow. In 2003, Dan partnered with Kudrow to start Is or Isn’t Entertainment, a company best known for its Emmy Award–nominated, HBO series The Comeback and its hit NBC docuseries, Who Do You Think You Are? now in its third season. In addition to roles on his own shows, Bucatinsky has worked as an actor in dozens of films and television shows, including In Plain Sight, Grey’s Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Under The Tuscan Sun and The Opposite of Sex. As a result of his regular performances in Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine, Bucatinsky signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster to bring his autobiographical tales of parenthood to bookstores by Father’s Day, 2012. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of seventeen years, filmmaker Don Roos, and their two children, Eliza and Jonah.

  Having grown up in a city, I’ve always felt most at home in one. I could say it’s because of my sophisticated appreciation for culture – and my need to be near museums and theaters. But I’d be full of it. Truthfully? I’ve always had a touch of attention deficit disorder and the thought of traveling to a place with large, open, rural farmlands has always made me feel bored and panicky at the same time. I love being a tourist but hate being treated like one. I like walking for hours beyond the grid of a foreign metropolis – losing myself in parts of town where the language and food are strange and delicious and specific only to the locals. But the actual countryside? No thanks. Cities, or towns, or – failing that – small towns. That’s my speed.

  All that said, when I met my spouse, Don, and he told me he had an old farmhouse an hour north of Dublin, I remember being incredulous: ‘Really? How? Or more importantly, why?’ After graduating from college, Don had gone to Ireland to fetch and carry (mostly bedpans) for his elderly and soon-to-be-dying great aunt and uncle. They’d lived in a century-old farmhouse in a small parish called Grangebellew. I teased him: ‘Why didn’t you just get a Eurail pass and a backpack like every other college grad?’ But when his relatives finally passed away, Don inherited the house. The joke was on me. Those of us with our backpacks and Eurail passes inherited nothing more than a bad case of crabs from a youth hostel in Avignon.

  For some reason, I wasn’t eager to visit the house. Having been born of snooty Argentine parents and traveled extensively in South Ameri
ca and Europe, I’d never been attracted to Ireland. It seemed too green and Catholic and – green. But Don had a deep connection with Ireland – the way I had with Buenos Aires – and it was time to see it for myself.

  I arrived in Dublin for the first time one early morning in 1995. I looked down from the airplane window as we landed – at an ocean of green farmland that almost instantly filled me with dread and boredom. But then, something happened. After we landed, we drove through the most verdant farmland I’d seen in my life, passing hills littered with sheep and cows and horses. It was so open and virginal. That’s right – I said ‘virginal.’ It was free from high-rises and mini-malls, developments and refineries. And yes, it was green – very, very green. I rolled down the window and drank in the cool, unambiguously clean Irish air. I was in love.

  Over the next few years, we traveled to the house in Grangebellew several times. Each time, I would welcome the musty farmhouse smell as opened the front door; the fresh-cut hay, rolled into bales in the back field; the old-fashioned ring of the phone; and even the sad but charming old black-and-white television with only three channels – all of which seemed to be playing Friends. We’d sit at the kitchen table enjoying our tea and brown bread, listening to Irish radio. I barely recognized my new self, singing ‘Danny Boy’ to the cows in the back field, immersed in Irish farm living.

  I had such affection for the quaint, yet modest, farmhouse and its rich history as the town’s post office for most of the past century. Large stone fireplaces crackled in every room. And there were mysterious stone sheds I’d felt compelled to explore – excavating old wagon wheels, butter churns and milk cans. I’d run upstairs, pull blankets out of the creaky old trunks and smile at the crucifixes that had been hanging on the walls for generations.