Travel stories are the part and parcel, the containers, the frameworks within which our travel memories and memoirs are couched and wax eternal. The tales are the repositories of our experiences, the manner in which our experiences live on for ourselves and are passed on as our legacies to family, friends, and human posterity. Stories are as old as humanity; they are the means by which history is passed along.
But travel stories are a unique genre that make up our own unique personal histories. They are more about where we have been than where we are. They are bits of the history of exploration, adventure, and discovery, but uniquely created and contributed in our own small ways by ourselves, remembered by ourselves, and passed along to others. So many of us have paid forward to others the sum total of our particular manifestations of our travel-life experiences. It’s all in the telling of our own unique brands of history.
“Thanks to Michael Brein . . . to be the pioneer of this field . . . ”
–Shawn K. 07.18.2013
To read a variety of my fascinating tales of travel,
UFOs, and the Paranormal go to michaelbrein.Medium.com
A Hilarious Excerpt from
Travel Tales Monthly No. 9 Mar 2015
[Travels of the ‘Fool’]
St Petersburg, Russia, 2001
by Michael Brein
The Squirting Fountains of the Peterhof
I’ve just completed a new ebook and audiobook in my Travel Psychologist Travel Tales Series on funny travel stories. It’s funny as hell! I’m so proud of this ebook. Why not have a looksee or a listenhear? I even have a monthly special for April to help pave the way for you.
I’m working on a new ebook and audiobook in my Travel Psychologist Travel Tales Series on funny travel stories. But I am also working on an ebook and audiobook of toilet stories as well. Sorry, but the latter book is also funny as hell! The sketch by my old friend Ted Keller about ‘outhouse pigs’ gives you a hint of what’s to come! I’m so proud of this ebook. Have a looksee!
[Note: Definitely not for the faint of heart!]
This is in Goa, India. In fact, Goa used to be a Portuguese colony. It was not a part of the English empire and so the Portuguese influence still lingers in Goa.
Interview with Carolyn and Casey Caughie. Reproduced from Travel Tales Collections, Food & Drink, No. 7, February 2015, by Michael Brein.
[Michael] Let’s talk about your fantastic experience in Belize. When did you go?
[Casey] We went in January of just this year. We were looking for a place just to get away to quickly, to get some sun. We’ll typically go to Cabo or go down to Cozumel. We decided on a beautiful stretch of beach in Belize.
So we started out without direct flights to Cozumel. You have to go to Houston. If you have to go to Houston, you’ll need two-and-a-half hours more to get down to Belize. And so the light bulb went off . . . “Hey, let’s go check that out!” So that’s how we got headed down that way to go down for a week of sunshine, be able to check out the beach, and get some diving time in.
The Art of Miscommunication!
“I don’t always throw tantrums in my travels, but when I do, they most always work!” . . .
Such might have said the world’s most interesting (Dos Equis) man, but, clearly, he doesn’t ever need to throw a tantrum, but some of us might benefit somewhat by doing so.
Here are a few vignettes of mixed success of temper tantrums strategically placed. A couple are outrageous; another may be more on a slow burn, but effective, nonetheless.
Is It What You Say? Or How You Say it?
Some stories are funny only in retrospect, like the one about the “mad bomber.” A man on a plane (our Donald, again!–see an earlier posting) just prior to takeoff said something to the passenger seated next to him about being “ready to crash” in the sense that he was tired and ready for sleep.
The Airplane Loo: A Room with No View!
There was once was a man named Donald who was using an airplane restroom, seated on the john, but who FORGOT to lock the door!
A VERY large buxom woman, presumably from an Eastern European country, now proceeded to open the door and back her way into the restroom–the only way she figured she could–in order to be able to use the commode–for it would have been exceedingly difficult for her to negotiate turning around in order to do so.
Just Doing the “Right Thing”
An American couple and their child were driving in a Eurasian country when a little girl darted out in front of their vehicle. She was hit, but not seriously hurt. To do the “right thing,” the American man drove the little girl to a doctor in a neighboring village. To “show good faith,” he left his wife and child behind. He later returned to find that they’d been hanged by villagers who’d grossly misunderstood what happened.
**Anonymous
Reprinted from‚ Travel Tales Monthly, Issue No.1, JUL 2014
Sketch by Ted Keller
“I was riding the Madrid metro, standing in the center part of the car. I was loaded down with an attache case, a backpack, rolled up posters I had stuff in my hands and in all my pockets. I was, shall we say, oblivious. In sum, I was a mess! an accident ready to happen a perfect victim in waiting!”