Inoculation Vacation

Tom Swick: Contemplating and celebrating the world of travel

01.14.09 | 2:02 PM ET

The other week some friends who live in Bethesda visited and told me that they were going to New York for the inauguration. They liked the idea of driving against the traffic, avoiding the crowds, watching on a hotel TV. 

A few days later a friend from Lafayette, Louisiana, called, saying he wanted to come to Florida at the end of February to get away from Mardi Gras.

And I was reminded of a type of travel that gets almost no attention: that of people who flee an event that others flock to. I’d come across it before, visiting soon-to-be Olympic cities where some residents—indifferent fans, avid capitalists—talked of renting out their houses for the duration.

In this tourism of negation, the impetus is less toward something than away from something. The primary objective is not to see but to miss. And the inescapable, and paradoxical, requirement is that you become that which you are attempting to avoid: a tourist, or at the very least an outsider. It is travel as a kind of vaccination: you happily take on some of the symptoms rather than experience the full force of the disease.

Tags: Tres Loco, North America, United States, Washington, D.C.

Tom Swick

Tom Swick is the author of two books: a travel memoir, Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland, and a collection of travel stories, A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Traveler. He was the travel editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for 19 years, and his work has been included in "The Best American Travel Writing" 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2008.


1 Comment for Inoculation Vacation

Veronica Solomon 01.14.09 | 6:17 PM ET

Hello Tom, you have figred me out.  I am one of those travelers.  I will be in Las Vegas for the inauguration and am looking forward to being in that less crowded place called DC.  Felt like you had figured out my secret.

Veronica Solomon

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