Five Burning Travel Questions with Malcolm Gladwell

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello everyone, Malcolm Glabwey here, I'm back in the feet a bit early with a little amused boush before we come to the finale of our Gun series on Thursday, Airbnb, one of our loyal sponsors, asked if we could do an episode about travel, because, of course arabbnb is all about travel, and as you may or may not know, I do a lot of travel. I am well over a million frequent flyer miles on United at this point. I've been to Manila, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Washington, d C, Detroit, and Grand Rapids in just the last month. And if you're wondering, my favorite of all those places, not even close, Grand Rapids. Love Grand Rabbits. Why doesn't everyone live in Grand Rapids. I don't get it anyway, Airbnb travel me it all seemed like an actual fit. But before we hit the road about the Gun series, your responses so far have been phenomenal. Please keep sending in your thoughts. There's a contact form at revisionististory dot com and next month Maria Konokoba and I will talk about some of the feedback, but for now, a little side trip a revisionist history Getaway. Five burning travel questions with Malcolm Glapa. First question, which I've been asking myself for at least thirty years. Given the choice, should you ever go to Las Vegas? I'm asking this question because I'm in Las Vegas right now, not by choice for work. And instead of trying to answer this question rationally with the benefit of reasoned argument and academic scholarship, as is our standard practice on revisionist history, I'm just going to play you some short clips of the music that has been played for my enjoyment as I sit by the hotel pool. Oh my god, this is My brain is killing me right now. It's nuts. Everywhere you go in Las Vegas. This is what you hear everywhere. First question, who would willingly listen to this music? Do you know anyone who does? Have you ever been over to someone's house for dinner or just to hang out and they say, oh, let me put on a little house music while we chat. No, you have it. But clearly, at some point early in the history of Las Vegas, all of the city fathers must have gotten together in a room. I'm guessing it was convened by Bugsy Seagull, the mobster who founded Las Vegas, and Bugsy was like, gentlemen, We're going to create a great city in the desert. People from all over the world, of every creed and religion, of every shape and size, rich and poor, great and small will come here to this glamorous oasis to gamble away their life savings. What music shall we play them? And all the guys said, And then the little old guy who wanted to open a high and jewelry store maybe with mister Harry Winston raises his hand and said, but mister Bugsy, I'm trying to attract a sophisticated clientele. Is it okay if I play Schubert? And Bugsy gets all scary and angry and bangs his fist on the table and says, no, Harry, you schmuck, that goes against everything I'm trying to do with this oasis in the desert. You must play. I mean, this is like the craziest thing ever. Maybe there are some sixteen year olds out there who like music like this, but I'm looking around the pool. There are no sixteen year olds here. It's all cranky old people like me. You know how, in hostage situations sometimes they try and force the bad guy to give up by playing like heavy metal really loudly all night long. I should be so lucky to be a hostage taker hearing heavy metal right now. So short answer to question number one, No, don't do it. Don't go to Las Vegas ever unless you absolutely have to. All right, Question number two, what was the greatest road trip of my life? I think it was my first road trip summer I believe of nineteen eighty two. My friend Terry and I were at that moment obsessed with Alger Hiss, the State Department official who in nineteen forty eight was famously accused of being a Soviet spy. Biggest story of the day. Huge drama ensues. It goes on for years, with one side saying he's innocent and the other side saying he's guilty.

00:04:45
Speaker 2: Were you ever a Communist spy, mister Hiss?

00:04:47
Speaker 1: No, I was not either a communist nor a spy. That's him, and Terry and I were firmly of the he's guilty camp. So early one August morning, before dawn we wake up, Terry won't tell me beforehand what time we're leaving because he says he doesn't want and this is his exact phrase to pierce the cloud of unknowing. We get into his mom's Pontiac. We drive from our little town in rural southern Ontario straight to Washington, d C. Ten hours, and we visit every house Algerhiss lived in during his long career of treachery, up to and including the famous town house in Georgetown on p Street where so much of his skull duggery allegedly went down. We pull up, We knock in the door, two scruffy teenagers from rural Canada who haven't shaved or showered, or slept or really even eaten for several days. Because we had no money. All we had was our youthful, mocksy and enthusiasm. So the door opens and we say, are you aware that you're living in the house of the notorious American Cold War trader Alger Hiss. They look at us blankly and we're off. Our job is done. Then afterwards we write up findings in a little essay called The Many Houses of Alger Hiss, which opened with a long, florid, damning summary of the facts of the case ending of the line, all of which leads to the one overwhelming question, who was this man? They called alter hiss and where did he live? I mean, how do you top that? Later? Terry and I did a modified ballpark tour Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Yankee Stadium. But everyone does one of those who does the many houses of outer your hiss. Now you might think that this was just some youthful fancy, a teenage lark. But take out your phone. Google George F. Baker, the third Harvard University. You'll see a picture of a handsome guy right around my age. The first name Terry, professor of what Russian studies? Baby? How many road trips set in motion a lifetime of scholarship? Okay? Question number three? Do some parts of the United States pose particular problems for travelers? Are there states the novice traveler should avoid? Answer? Yes, absolutely, North Carolina. No one talks about this, but it's a long standing pet peeve of mine. I was actually chatting with my friends Michael Specter and Dye Zoc recently about my travel theories, and it came up and acdotally there's a I did a talk in at wake Forest University and which is not weirdly in wake Forest, which I would point out because I nearly went to Wake Forest, which is like two hundred miles away. And when I told my host that, I I got so I finally I self corrected, like half nur in go to Winston Salem, which is where Wake Forest is. And then I was sort of outraged, goes like, what kind of trick is North Carolina playing on people? Where they put in Wake Forest University hundreds of miles from Wake Forest. And then when I told my host, oh, I nearly went to Wake Forest, They're like, oh yeah, people do that all time. It's like, I'm something, it's weird. Fix the problem, change the name. How hard is this? It's like it's been going on for hundreds of years. People have been going to Wake Forest in search of Wake Forest University. Like I said, no one talks about this, but it's kind of nuts. You land in Charlotte and you punch in Wake Forest on Ways and Ways says two hours forty two minutes, and you say, huh, that's weird. That's the other side of the state, right outside Raleigh. Why didn't I just fly to Raleigh? And you get halfway there and you think, oh, maybe I should double check, and you realize that North Carolina has devised a nefarious scheme to frustrate unsuspecting carpetbaggers arriving from the north. One hundred percent. This has something to do with the Civil War. Roberty Lee says, let's let it leak out that we're setting up for a last stand at wake Forest, and the Union Army spies hear this and say aha, and they muster everyone and they march up. What is now I eighty five only Lee, that old trickster. It means wake Forest, a school, not wake Forest, of town and somewhere around Lexington, he pounces, surprising the unsuspecting Union Army. I mean, that's the only explanation that makes sense. Wait, there's more, do I I have some travel faux past stories, like when I went to the wrong Columbia, the wrong.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: The country, No, no, the.

00:09:32
Speaker 1: University columb yesh was the Washington Post. Washington Post was obsessed with covering hurricanes Columbia, Maryland, and I was told there was a hurricane fast approaching the outer banks of North Carolina, and I was dispatched to Columbia just cover the hurricane. I landed Columbia, North Carolina, and there was no hurricane, and I called it and said, it's no hurricane. What are you guys talking about? Know this is hurricane No, No, I'm here, I'm here and there's no hurricane. Like, no, you can't be in Columbia, North Carolina because there's a hurricane going on there right now. And I looked around and I was like, oh, I'm in Columbia, South Carolina. To Columbia's in adjoining Carolinas. This is another This is like the this is like the Wake Forest thing all over again. This country is set up to fool the unsuspecting outsider. What kind of colossal failure of imagination is this? Someone in one of the Carolinas goes first and says, oh, I have a good idea, let's call our town Columbia. And then someone else a few years later says, oh, I have an even better idea, let's call our town Columbia as well, Because one of these days some dumb yankee is not going to realize that Columbia is like a generic Southern term for medium sized city with big city aspirations, and he's going to go to one Columbia well meaning to go to the other Columbia. And so for hundreds of years thereafter, countless well meaning people from the North go to the wrong Columbia. I mean, what happens if I had been a legendary brain surgeon flying down for a prestigious hospital in the Northeast to save the life of an adorable Southern toddler, and I go to the wrong Columbia. Did they think about that? No, they didn't. They were too busy chortling over their stupid little practical joke. Stay away from North Carolina, and while you're at it, stay away from reporting on the weather. Well. No, the horror story was there was Remember that terrible hurricane that hit Miami in the nineties, I forgot much work, the.

00:11:48
Speaker 2: One that flattened southern Florida.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bill, my colleague Bill Booth, we didn't realize was as serious as it was. He went down there to cover it, and he returned home like two months later, And when I saw that, I realized that the mistake he made was doing a good job of covering. So that was when I decided that, I mean, actually, the Columbia thing happened. Just after that, I realized that there was no upside to being a good hurricane reporter, because the worst the hurricane is the longer you'll be away from home. You got to screw up early and often, so they turn elsewhere. So then I followed that up with a there was a hurricane in New Orleans, and I suggested that the best way to cover it was to approach it from the west. So I flew, I flew? Did I fly to Dallas? The whole thing was so preposterous. I spent like a day and a half in the car before I even got there, and then just said, I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't see it. Finally they gave up and let someone else take over. But there are there are certain tricks of self preservation in the journalism business, and one of them is to always do a bad job of something you don't want to do. Okay, coming up the big question, what do you do about traveling when you have a dog? So here's the big question. Why I gather my friends Michael Specter and Dyezarc for counsel. There's a lot of pressure right now in the global household for us to get a dog. If you do like an Internet history search on any laptop in the global household, it's just dogs. You type in B and Google autocompletes Burmese Labrador mix. That's where we're at right now now. I love dogs, but like I said, I travel a lot, and it's hard enough without having to factor in another needy living creature. So I wanted to ask Michael and I how they deal with the have dog, will travel problem. And I would like to start out just by having each of you please give us the name and type of dog you own, and also a brief word about your dog's temperament.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: My dog's name is Linus. He's five years old. He's a Woodle, which is a cross between a wheaten Terrier and a poodle, and his temperament is he is by far the mellowest person in the history of the Specter family.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: And Die I have.

00:14:27
Speaker 3: A black lab named Junebug. She's my third lab. She's like all my other labs, ambassador of love.

00:14:37
Speaker 1: She is.

00:14:38
Speaker 3: When I had to choose between two labs in a litter, they said, okay, we have two girls. One is ball obsessed and one is a snuggler. Which one do you want?

00:14:51
Speaker 1: And I was like, yes, you went with the snapler. So the obvious travel question, can you just put the dog on a plane.

00:15:00
Speaker 3: I have flown dogs before, and I have found it slightly traumatizing. Yeah, just a two thousand yards stare when they get off the I.

00:15:09
Speaker 1: Just just I mean, the dog just wants to be with you.

00:15:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, Linus really didn't care. He just is fairly mellow. I was traumatized. In fact, I flew Air Alaska that time because they're said to have the best dog flying program. When I got to my seat, there was a stewardess standing there with a piece of paper which said relax, Linus is already on board, which was really nice. Of course I knew that because I put a tracker on his collar because he was freaking out.

00:15:39
Speaker 1: So flying is problematic. But both Michael and I have driven cross country with their dog. How does that work? I started with Michael. Where does Linus sit? Is he in the front seat of the backseat?

00:15:52
Speaker 2: Back seat? He tries to go in the front, In fact, he tried it again last week. But the the problem is like, if you have some sort of accident and your airbag goes, your dog goes too. Oh yeah, so I've made a little shelf out of the back seat for him.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: My best This is a good time for me to interject with my favorite dog in the animal in the front seat story. I was talking to a wildlife veterinarian recently and she had raised two cheetahs from from when they were from when they were kittens, and they were they adored her, and she would they stayed at her house and she worked at this kind of wildlife sanctuary and every morning she would drive them to work. And it was the seventies, and she had one of those bench seats in the front and the two cheetahs would sit on the seat in front of and she said, because you know, they have really long necks, so you would just see her and then these two adorable cheetahs, she said. She said, uh, the like the looks she got from other people on the freeway were priceless. I think it is the word she used. And I was curious about where where'd you put jumpbug thunner back?

00:17:05
Speaker 3: I have one of those slings, so she would hang out in the back with her giant carrot stuffed animal and giant frog stuffed animal.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: Would you say a giant I've seen his carrot. It's a good four feet.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: And it's a pillow and a security blanket.

00:17:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always gave him his bed, his pillow and security blanket and he would curl up in the back. But the best part of it was going to dog parks. I mean I went to some crazy dog parks. I went to one in Amarillo where this guy had an Australian Shepherd and he was so into the dog and I said, wow, what do you do? Are you a dog trainer? He said no, I just got out of a federal penitentiary for dealing meth. I said, oh, okay, he said, but now I'm totally focused on my dog. And we talked dogs and then he told me where to eat. You didn't Amarillo, And you know, you can't get that kind of experience if you don't remember.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: Dog dogs are the great leveling dog parks the great leveling ground you.

00:18:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great icebreaker having a dog anywhere.

00:18:22
Speaker 1: So to recap, the reason to have a dog with you on a road trip is that you get to acquire giant, fluffy carrots. It allows you to explore one of the great undiscovered American treasures, the dog park, and it greatly expands your social circle to include meth dealers. These are not compelling arguments.

00:18:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, when I was ready to head home back to Los Angeles from the Hudson Valley. Junebug maybe from drinking pond water, got some kind of bacterial infection and basically an explosive digestive track. And it was like three days before I had to head across country, and so that was very clearly something that I did not want to drive a past country with a dog who has explosive diarrhea.

00:19:22
Speaker 1: See my point, My life isn't complicated enough already. I've never traveled with a dog, but I had traveled with a cat, and I had the experience recently of well it was just from here to New York City, but there was bad traffic, so we were out for about four hours in total. In hour four I had one child, the six month six week old, who's just over it and just crying NonStop. I had Edie who sang without stopping for three hours, so she's singing the top for lungs. And then the cat decided to start serenading us at the same time, so I had I had the singing, yowling, crying combination, which has never happened to me before. It was I'd say quite some I don't know whether I because you know, if you were to go across country, that could considerably go on for hours. Luckily we hit an endpoint. But there you The more people you, the more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater the upside risk of you some now I repeat, the more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater the upside risk. Are you nuts? Don't do it? Don't go to Vegas. Don't cover the weather, don't set foot in North Carolina. Don't buy a house in Georgetown without checking to see if the previous owner betrayed crucial American secrets. Don't travel with a dog unless absolutely necessary, and do not ever please listen to music. It sounds like this, all right? Everyone, that's travel advice from Revision's History. We'll be back on Thursday with conclusion to our six part Gun series on Revision's History. You won't want to miss the final episode. This episode was produced by Nina Lawrence, Bendadapt Haffrey, and Jacob Smith. It was edited by Sarah Nix, engineering by Nina Lawrence. Special thanks to my guests and old friends Michael Specter and Dazac. I'm Malcolm Godwin. Oh you're still waiting for question number five, aren't you here? It is? What about treats? Do we have agreement on treats?

00:21:55
Speaker 2: You gotta have some particular This is a dog owner term high value treats, like not just like the kind of food he eats, but cheese and smelly fish and things that you may find repulsive, but that that dog will do anything for, because there are times when you want to reward him, and there are also times when you want him to pay attention, and if you produce the right kind of cheese, he'll walk through fire for it.

00:22:22
Speaker 3: There's also those keep them busy for a long time treats, Like there's those Himalayan she sticks that will take forever, and I think that's kind of good.

00:22:30
Speaker 2: Actually, my big thing on that these days are collagen chees. You can get these long college and chees and they last a pretty long time and they're not terribly unhealthy. As opposed to you.

00:22:42
Speaker 1: Say a long time, you mean hours.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: It can be a couple hours of hardcore chewing.

00:22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could get a college and chew could get you across the state of Kansas.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. The thing is my dog. You know, I have spent five years trying to buy things for my dog that say, under no circumstance, can your dog rip this toy apart? It's impossible. He's never lasted twenty four hours with those. He's like taking it down.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: This is this is like Alcatraz. You know when they say you no, no, no no, you can never get to als. Someone else gets out of Alcatraz.