We’re back in the USA for the summer, flying Southwest Air to get to family in San Diego, Seattle, Maine, and Florida. Because we’re the “travelers in the family” with “lots of miles” and a companion pass, we’re the ones who bear the brunt of cross-continental travel to all four corners of the US to see our family.
It’s a life I picked, so I’m okay with the requirement.
But gawd help us, it’s amateur hour in the airport.
The unwritten rule, now written: middle seat gets both armrests.
10 Rules of Summer Travel (pick one at least)
School’s out and the family summer vacation has begun. So let’s go through some rules to make sure we all get to where we want to go, on time, and with sanity intact.
If you can’t carry it yourself, DON’T BRING IT. This applies to ALL AGES above 5.
If you can’t lift it above your head into an airplane overhead, CHECK IT.
If you want to sit next to your loved one, partner, grandma, or best friend, PURCHASE YOUR SEATS.
If you’re extra large and can’t fit in a typical seat, BUY THE CORRECT SEAT(s). (See https://www.reddit.com/r/delta/comments/1ukpj0w/to_everyone_telling_plussize_passengers_to_they/ for big insight into how to do this and the difficulty in doing in.)
If your flight doesn’t serve food, PACK FOOD (no sushi, bbq, pizza pies).
If the flight attendant asks you to do something, DO IT.
If your flight is delayed, BE THANKFUL.
If you travel with your pet, LEAVE IT IN THE CARRIER on board.
If you’re in the aisle seat, GET UP at least once so others can get out without asking.
If you have your own personal device, USE A HEADSET (ALL AGES.)
Which of these rules resonated with you? Select it, restack it. Thank you.
If you see us in the airport, please come say hi. We’re in Maine (Old Orchard Beach) for the month of July. If you’re coming this way, reach out.
I didn’t realize this was the same author as Island of Missing Trees, which I adored. This story is absolutely fabulous—an ensemble fiction bound by water. Amazing story telling. Grab it off my list of over 150 travel writing books.
Missed what Kindling is about? Here’s the marketing piece for it. It releases every Tuesday and Thursday. Not interested? Unsubscribe in your Settings from Kindling (but not from this newsletter.)
KINDLING. A Novel — Based on a True Story
When Kelly leaves her Kindle on a bus in Bucharest, she has two problems. The first is practical: 733 irreplaceable notes for the travel memoir she has been writing for five years. The second is something she doesn’t yet understand: she has just set eleven lives in motion.
Through the Nomad Life Facebook group, Kelly launches a relay. City by city, stranger by stranger, the Kindle makes its way back across Europe. And as it passes through each pair of hands, it carries more than Kelly’s notes. It carries the weight of every life it touches.
There’s Marcus, a retired coach from Fresno who has been composing limericks since his wedding day and has travelled to Ireland specifically to read one to people who will understand. His wife Leenie, who has researched every detail of their nomadic retirement and is quietly terrified it won’t be enough.
Grazia, a Cuban-American engineer who left Havana at five on Operation Pedro Pan. Dave, twenty-five years sober, riding a Harley through Slovakia toward a farmhouse in a photograph. George, a Mexican-American widower on a Beatles pilgrimage through Liverpool.
And Ari, a former CIA analyst who has spent three years searching for the great-aunt her family has refused to name for eighty years.
All of them are heading, without knowing it, toward a pub in Croom, County Limerick — toward each other, toward the things they’ve been carrying across borders for decades.
For readers of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry ,and Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Themes: full-time travel and nomadic life, found family, Cuban diaspora and Operation Pedro Pan, Irish history and the Great Hunger, LGBTQ+ history and the Nazi occupation of Jersey, sobriety and recovery, grief and forgiveness, genealogy, music and memory, the Beatles.
Perfect for: book clubs, fans of ensemble literary fiction, upmarket women’s fiction readers, travelers, anyone who has ever left something behind they couldn’t replace.
Kindlinghas launched,. The map is set, the characters are ready. Where will the Kindle go next?
Where will your dreams take you next?
We finish up in the US at the end of the month, having visited all of our immediate family members. We’re headed back to Europe: Sweden for the month of August outside of Copenhagen and Malmo. Will we see some Northern lights, try some fika, and swim in the Lommabukten? Stay tuned.
Great list! Just a couple of exceptions I wanted to point out in case people weren't aware, in hopes we can all be gracious... I've heard that sometimes a larger person buys two seats and the airlines will try to resell or put a standby passenger in their second seat (it sometimes happens when parents purchase a seat for an infant, too). Also occasionally families who do buy seats together will get split up because a different plane with a different seat configuration gets assigned at the last minute. Another situation is that a family might be traveling for a last minute emergency (death or injury in the family) and there were no seats together left to be purchased. Or their flight got canceled and they all got reshuffled to the next flight. So we don't always know people's situations.
I think #9 is my favorite on your list. I love the aisle seat and I'll get up to stretch and give my row a chance to escape at least every 90 minutes.
The list of a seasoned traveler. Completely appropriate. Thank you.
Great list! Just a couple of exceptions I wanted to point out in case people weren't aware, in hopes we can all be gracious... I've heard that sometimes a larger person buys two seats and the airlines will try to resell or put a standby passenger in their second seat (it sometimes happens when parents purchase a seat for an infant, too). Also occasionally families who do buy seats together will get split up because a different plane with a different seat configuration gets assigned at the last minute. Another situation is that a family might be traveling for a last minute emergency (death or injury in the family) and there were no seats together left to be purchased. Or their flight got canceled and they all got reshuffled to the next flight. So we don't always know people's situations.
I think #9 is my favorite on your list. I love the aisle seat and I'll get up to stretch and give my row a chance to escape at least every 90 minutes.