The Thinking Man's Guide to Traveling With Women

A Man's best place is on the road.

On the road, you give life to those myths that once made men's lives bearable: You are protector and pioneer, pilot and navigator; you wield responsibility easily and shrug off danger. On the road, you can make real the vagabond dream of your youth and become the prince for whom your sweetie has been waiting.

On the road, you seduce yourself and thereby become the great seducer.

Why travel with women?

Life, to paraphrase Chaucer, is nought but a thoroughfare of woe. Well, nothing like a little feminine company to brighten the view. A woman, after all, is a kind of portable tourist attraction; every roadside rest becomes a scenic overlook.

Still, traveling for romance is a trip fraught with peril, albeit one with great potential rewards. For a mature romance, a journey of any sort can be a watershed event in which everything either comes together or falls apart completely. A journey for two is a sort of minimarriage, a micro-life in which you must confront the worst in each other without respite or distraction. If you think your toothpaste-tube trials were annoying at home, just wait till you take your petty quarrels on the road.

Indeed, the passing planet outside your car, train or plane will never be as compelling as the person sitting next to you--if the person sitting next to you is the person who should be sitting next to you. When it comes to travel, people in love--as well as those who discover that they aren't--quickly realize that where they go isn't nearly as important as the person with whom they are going.

The natural order of things

You've seen It Happened One Night. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are stuck by the side of the road and she flags down a ride with the flash of a limb. There's a lesson in that for all male travelers who set out with women at their sides.

Your natural predilections, and those of the woman in your life, are especially complementary for life on the road. When you leave your home turf, you take advantage of your superior abilities as a planner, escort and righteous protector of innocents. Likewise, your companion will tap her innate ability to connect with the world and the people around her, to bring it, them and you out of your shells. It's another example of how mother nature is the ultimate travel agent, providing nomadic peoples with the means to thrive during arduous journeys. The thinking man plans a trip to maximize that teamwork.

One way to do that is to make sure you plan for breaks in togetherness on the trip. If you split for an afternoon, your girl is likely to come back with the names of half the town--including a guy whose grandfather knew Picasso--and an invitation to a gallery opening, a cocktail party or a ritual goat sacrifice. In a strange place, you may be the hardy explorer, but she's the one who will give you entree to the picturesque, the colorful, the personal. When the trip's over, the best stories may be the ones that start with her solo adventures.

The long-distance date

Triple-A gives no road maps for romance. But you'll know when you've arrived at a stage where you will want 102 to test your courtship by taking it out of town. The signs will be obvious: The dramatic opening act of a romance, after all, requires a giant stage. One morning, you'll wake up and realize there just isn't room in your town for the two of you, that local distractions are preventing you from somehow consummating your relationship. You'll want to go someplace else--anyplace else--and find the isolation that is the most salient characteristic of any form of travel. Only there, where you are both strangers, will your companion feel familiar.

Someplace Strange: When you select an itinerary with your love, pick someplace neither of you has ever been before. The knowledge that it's just the two of you against the great unknown is often just enough to invest the most mundane city with a remarkably romantic atmosphere.

It follows, of course, that one great reason for traveling with the woman you love is that you can have sex with her. Better, you can have sex with her in strange places--in cheap motels or in swank resorts, on slammer-quality mattresses with broken Magic Fingers machines or on down-filled quilts on the edge of the continent, with the wild, wet sea out the back door.

Your new surroundings will add an extra dimension to your romance. Novelty is an aphrodisiac, which is not to say your babe will be turned on by palm buzzers or whoopee cushions. There's just some weird mojo about being alone in a strange town in a strange bed. And even if the town is familiar, sometimes a new bedroom alone is enough to transport your companion to someplace romantically different.

The fun of flying

This is a true story: Once there was a man who was in love and determined to marry. His fiancée was the girl of his dreams. She was bright, pretty, cheerful and rich.

One spring day, he drove his girl to the airport so she could fly across the continent to see her dying grandmother. "Call me when you get there," he said, "so I'll know you've arrived safely." They kissed; she left.

Five or six hours later, the phone rang. "I've arrived safely," she said.

"Good. Are you at your grandmother's?"

"No. I'm with the man I sat next to on the airplane. We talked all the way across the country. We just connected, you know? And we're in love and we're getting married and I can never see you again. So long."

He never got over it.

Obviously, the way to a woman's heart is through the airport. Perhaps it's the claustrophobia of the plane cabin, the lack of oxygen in the air, the disaster drills, the dehydration and the bad food that remind them of matrimony. In fact, when you and your lover head down the jetway, you're walking down the aisle toward your own little bout of married life: you and her against the world, for the weekend. The partnership can be exhilarating or stifling; either way, it will help you learn a lot about the health of your romance.

To make it all work out for the best, remember a few things:

• Take charge. You have to plan your plane date or you'll find yourself at the mercy of the scalawags who can sniff out--and profit from--desperation in a traveler. Set a simple itinerary and get reservations. You can always diverge from the plan later, as opportunities present themselves.

• Arrive like a conquering hero. When dealing with foreign locals, you have to be flexible enough to fight the thieves and bastards while remaining open to the guileless and accommodating. So be at your sharpest and most outgoing when on strange turf. Ask the question, use the phrase book, extend the hand; the rewards will be manifold.

• Be a team. The two of you should push each other on to grander adventures and wider experiences than either of you could have alone. That's why you travel together in the first place.

High-Flown Ambition: If you live in New York and you ask a girl to dinner in Brussels, it'll set you back around $1500. But plan far enough ahead to qualify for a discount fare, choose a city closer to home and you may get away with a more reasonable tab. For instance, at the beginning of every off season, one or more of the transatlantic carriers will announce giveaway fares to whatever new destination they're trying to market. Last year, for example, the two of you could have traveled to Nantes, spent a long weekend exploring the ancient Breton town, eaten dinner in virtually any of the old creperies in the university district, stayed in a romantic pension and flown back for something less than $650.

I'll be down to getcha in a taxi, honey: Plane dates make great surprise getaways. Call the object of your ostentatious affection, ask her to meet you at the airport and tell her to bring a warm coat (or a bikini) and a toothbrush. Tell her she'll find out your (continued on page 160)Travelling With Woman(continued from page 102) destination when your flight number is called. And away you go.

Again, don't wing it with an airplane date. Know what you're doing and calculate carefully. Not only will you save money, you'll save a lot of embarrassment: Imagine flying to Philadelphia for dinner. Now imagine having to stay there. In the airport. Overnight.

Romantic Quarters: Every city has a district or nearby town that reeks of romance. It may not always be the most expensive part of town, and often it. won't be the safest. In fact, sometimes it may not be a neighborhood where you'd want to stay, exactly, but it's one you shouldn't miss visiting. The air of danger is just the thing to make your babe snuggle closer.

So, of course, is the knowledge that you can do what you want, wear what you want, act how you want, and nobody you know back home is going to be the wiser. In fact, for some, the notion of cultivating a secret life can enhance romantic travel.

In the spirit of romance, we offer a few wild ideas about where you and your love can find the foreign intrigue that binds.

• Cairo: The vast necropolis that stretches along the city's east side, where thousands of impoverished Cairenes live in the tombs built originally for the Mamluks. The Beggar King has his seat in the City of the Dead, whence he licenses each beggar, then maims him, then finally awards him a piece of turf.

• Paris: The workers' café in the flea market (Marche aux Puces) at the Porte-Clingancourt, where, on Sunday afternoons, a hefty brunette does a credible version of Piaf, while a dangerous-looking man with a pencil-thin mustache and two spots of blood on his black-and-white wing tips plays the guitar.

• Omdurman, Sudan: The dusty, crowded suk, where even thinking of taking a snapshot can get you in a stew.

• Hamburg: The famed Reiperbahn, the reddest of all red-light districts. Like most such neighborhoods--notably Paris' Rue Saint-Denis--it's not dangerous, but it seems like it ought to be. Instead of a sex club--all strip joints have a heavy sense of soporific, asexual inevitability--try one of the cafés, where you can sit and watch the denizens stroll.

• Brugge, Belgium: Only an hour from Brussels by train but one of the most beautifully romantic--and one of the friendliest--cities in northern Europe. Brugge was once a seaport, but the ocean traffic moved away in the 16th Century, leaving behind a storybook town riddled with old quays and canals; in the winter, if the canals freeze, you can ice skate to Holland for lunch. Food and accommodations in Brugge are about half the price of similar amenities in Brussels.

• Zanzibar: One of the most exotic destinations in East Africa. Zanzibar looks like a movie set, but be forewarned: It's hot, malarial, without a first-class hotel, boasts only one decent restaurant (The Fisherman, around the corner from the old post office) and visitors are frequently stranded because of a lack of return flights. But in return, Zanzibar will provide you with a memorable adventure in one of the most picturesque and romantic places on earth. Don't miss it now, because in a year or two, it will be lousy with luxury resort hotels.

Railroad romance

When old-timers talk about the romance of railroading, they don't always mean the beauty of a steam locomotive chugging through the night, except maybe metaphorically. You can make a case that the train--as depicted in novels and on film--is the ultimate love-mobile. Even in this relatively Spartan era of train travel, overnighters are ideal date venues, provided they meet several conditions:

• A sleeping car--preferably with a bedroom--is essential. This increases the cost of a train date astronomically, but you get what you pay for.

• If you're traveling by Amtrak, you must make some provision for food other than the gruel offered in the café cars. A picnic hamper with some chicken and champagne is a nice idea. Amtrak's more formal dinner service, when available, is acceptable, if short on variety.

• A long run is preferable to a short one. Amtrak's service is quite good and improves greatly the farther west you travel. There are sleeping accommodations--albeit aboard romance-thwarting bunks--on all of the overnight runs.

• For those willing to part with a thousand bucks for two one-way tickets, the new American-European Express, operated with refurbished 50-year-old luxury Pullman cars between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, is extraordinary, especially by American standards. The train leaves D.C. at 4:40 P.M. and arrives in Chicago a little after nine the next morning; the ambience is very much like that of a luxury hotel, complete with a piano lounge and fax machines.

A careful survey has revealed several other dream rail dates.

• Amtrak's Montrealer offers some of the old-fashioned grace that used to be a conventional part of rail travel. One traveler reported that "the rideis terrific. The windows come down to pillow level, so you still have the sense that there's a world out there passing by. It's an incredibly romantic trip."

• The transcontinental run through the Rockies is by most accounts one of the most dramatically beautiful train rides in North America. Service is offered by Via Rail Canada, among other carriers.

• The old Uganda Railway--now Kenya Railways--from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Nairobi is a 15-hour flashback, with white linen on the dining tables and comfortable berths at night. Many of the carriages are wood-paneled parlors of pre-independence vintage.

• The all-reserved EuroCity leaves Amsterdam every morning just before nine and heads for the warm south, serving first-class cuisine along the way. The train is very modern, an example of the way railroad service can be brought up to date while still preserving much of the charm of old-fashioned rail travel.

• Warning: Forget the newly revived Orient Express and its attendant nonsense. The last time we checked, the train was filled to the gunwales with tourists on high-ticket package experiences, and the whole thing resembled a sort of Atlantic City on wheels. You're better off booking any other overnight wagon-lits out of Paris.

Slow boat to china

Cruises are snoozes, unless Kathie Lee Gifford, without Frank, is actually wandering around on board in her swim-suit, singing "What a fun ship, holy cow!" Even those weekend minicruises are floating flirtations with death by boredom. Never take a woman so far out to sea that you can't see land.

Follow that dictum and Sheraton's Nile cruises would seem to be the perfect solution. Board in Cairo, hop off a day or two later in the middle of the Fourth Dynasty. The Nile Hilton in Cairo offers a similar cruise.

Other winning cruises:

• The Alaska service through Queen Charlotte Sound, north to Sitka and points beyond.

• Steamer service on Lake Malawi or a first-class ticket between Kinshasa and Kisangani on the Zaire (Congo) River steamers.

• Passenger service to the Greek isles. More fun when it's crowded, but advance booking is essential.

• The Puget Sound route between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia, is brilliant when the sun shines. That is to say, not all that often.

The road-trip date

To many men, the driving date is the perfect excursion: You get to be with your car and your girl simultaneously. And it's a good option if your relationship is not ready to go intercontinental but you still want to take it out for a shakedown cruise. So instead of picking her up at eight for supper, pick her up at 5:30 and head for the hills, if you know a restaurant there.

A pleasant drive--devoid of special effects and stunt maneuvers--on a warm summer evening is a great way to create an atmosphere conducive to chatting. Make her radio monitor; not only will it give you something to talk about, it'll help you screen out the Ratt groupies. On the way home, when the sun's long down, switch to AM and see what distant signals you can pull in. If she tunes in, and cares about, that Twins-Orioles game out. of Minneapolis, you'll know you've struck pay dirt.

Don't worry about going downmarket on a road-to-dinner date. If there's a nice lake within an hour's drive, head for it, and don't worry if the only food you'll find there is barroom hot dogs. Dinner is dinner.

It is your responsibility to make sure the trek's worth it, atmospherewise. There's no point, say, in driving 90 minutes across town to get to a franchised-food outlet exactly like the one around the corner from her house. The idea is to shroud a mundane dinner date with a light cloak of mystery: Your journey can be as brief as 20 minutes, provided you really have transported her to someplace she wouldn't normally have expected to go. Just think of all the bizarre places--roller rinks, aquariums, airports--where chow is served.

Or you may want to skip dinner altogether and opt for an afternoon adventure to a neighboring city. Even if you've been there a dozen times, get a visitor's map and take a tour-bus trip through town; examine the peculiar natives and their quaint ways; scan the local newspaper's want ads and put together an imaginary life; send postcards back home to each other.

Surprise! We're in Des Moines: Sometimes spontaneity can result in some half-expected pleasures. One way to plan a planless week is to call a drive-away service (listed in the telephone directory under Automobiles--Transporters). Instead of asking about destinations, ask about cars. Choose the best car the company has and deliver it to its owner. You'll be asked to put down a refundable (on delivery of the car to the owner) deposit of $150 or so, and you'll have to pay for your own gas, but the use of the car is free. Most drive-away services allow plenty of extra time and mileage to get the car to its owner, so the possibilities of an uncharted adventure are multiplied.

And besides, there's always sex: As Bruce Springsteen has spent his career telling us, there's something undeniably aphrodisiacal about a nighttime spin down the turnpike. It can raise the spirit almost as quickly as it raises a skirt: Women are more prone to uninhibited behavior in the quasi privacy of a well-appointed sedan or a speedy roadster (a fact of life long appreciated by truckers), so autoeroticism can easily turn into 40 miles of foreplay, especially if you're with a girl who has never seen the secret hidden world under the dashboard, where all the little wires and fuses live. The proliferation of tiny bucket-seated chastity cars, however, has reduced the comfort your road date might be able to enjoy as she crawls around on the floor mats, but, hell, let her have a good time. Just keep one hand on the wheel.

If sex on the roll is your goal, here's a list of the five best tryst-mobiles:

1. The Cadillac Coupe de Ville, vintage 1975 or earlier. One woman, on sliding across what the owner's manual describes as "the rich, silklike brocade" of the front bench, said, "Getting in this car is like checking into a cheap motel." Is there any better endorsement?

2. Chevy vans, 1968-1973. These were the prototypical highway sex lounges, usually filled with high-pile carpets, great stereos and water beds. Remember "We made love in my Chevy van/And that's all right with me"?

3. The 1990 Isuzu Trooper, the back yard of which keeps the spare tire outside and, hence, is large enough to accommodate a 4'x5' piece of plywood. And you. And her. And with the Trooper's four-wheel drive, you can get carried away a long way off the road.

4. The 1987 Buick Regal Grand National GNX. A muscle car with a twist. The Grand National was the quickest-accelerating American production car in its year, so it can blow almost anything off the road. On the outside, the car looks mean and menacing, like a shuttle from the Death Star. But inside, it looks just like Dad's Buick Regal, including a nice, wide bench back seat.

5. The 1963 Austin-Healey 3000. The quintessential sports car, throaty and low to the ground. You can't actually make love in a Healey, but it's so sexy your girl will want to stop and make love on the thing.

Last stop

There is something about romantic travel that transcends the inevitable return home. If the trip was a success and the romance is a new one, the journey will have resolved a lot of subtle yet important questions; if the relationship is a more fully developed one, the journey should have invigorated it. When you've unpacked your bags, you'll both realize that you have something you never had before: a history, complete with migratory patterns and foreign campaigns. That's how a relationship takes on weight and meaning--the two best souvenirs of coed life on the road.