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Spring break, as we know it today, kind of turns 50 this year. In 1960, the surprisingly frank film Where the Boys Are ignited a tourism boom of Fort Lauderdale, which gradually ballooned into a messy drunken sprawl of university students until the city said ‘enough’ in the mid ’80s and forbid alcohol on the beach.

Then the party moved to Panama City Beach in the Florida panhandle.

Most people’s idea of spring break — beer, beach, ballyhoo (and jocks) — was always about the opposite of my idea of a worthwhile travel experience.

During my senior year in college, I passed on South Padre Island invites from fellow University of Oklahoma students, and spent my memorable spring break on a long road trip through the plains of West Texas. Stopping at the dry town of Lubbock to see Buddy Holly’s statue, past Odessa where a cop with crooked teeth and a dizzy look gave me a warning for speeding (despite the Oklahoma license plate!), playing pool at a weird bar in weirder Marfa, and spending a few days at wonderful Big Bend National Park.

Me, and the handful of Okies I coerced into going, began by pouring over the park’s campsite map and simultaneously zeroed in on the same one: Mt Nugent. From our Nuge base, we lazily filled the days soaking in hot springs, boating across the Rio Grande to a crappy Mexican pueblo (the border closed after 9/11), and hiking through free-boulder zones that look out of Land of the Lost.

It changed how I saw travel. Every year before that trip, I joined overnight caravans to Colorado ski resorts for my spring break vacation. I’ve not been on a full-fledged ski trip since.

The New York Times Travel Show attracts three types of people: crusty travel vets looking for contacts, casual travelers (some keen for group tour deals) and travelers pulling rolling suitcases to fill with freebies.

In two full days, I met dozens of vendors. I posed at for a Zapata-moustache pic at the Mexico section, where I also grabbed a pink drawstring bag. The three grumpy women at Russia’s Intourist Agency set out ‘Trans-Siberian’ tours, but shrugged in silence when I mentioned I had (co-)written a guidebook to the train ride. (Russia, please regroup on effective ways to attract people to your lovely country.)

Enjoyed many panels too. New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, in a panel of travel writers MC’ed by David Farley, confessed to not being a travel writer, and that she believed in travel ‘without preparation.’ Sree Sreenivasan, of Columbia University, suggested Facebook’s motto is ‘if it’s not broken, we’ll break it.’

That panel, on social media in the tourist industry, ended with a slide show on Germany, where I learned that Germany has 16 federal states but that its list of musical geniuses included Bach and Brahms, but NOT Klaus Meine of the Scorpions!

Every day has its moment — unless you stay in and write bad poems. Mine came Friday when I lost my favorite pen, a multi-ink-jet dealie that I left by the coffee. After an hour of re-padding my empty pockets, I walked back to the scene and found an employee, Nina. ‘Um, I lost a pen — do you know if anyone saw it?’ Her eyes lit up, and she pulled it out (of her sock actually — Javits Center uniforms have no pockets, I guess). ‘You mean this?’

Travel is all about little connections and kindnesses made when you least expect, and if you’re lucky, most want them.

Thank you Nina. Thank you Travel.

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Links:

• Sean O’Neill of Budget Travel
• Kim Mance of Galavanting TV
• David Raezer of Approach Guides
• Mike Peters of NoDebtWorldTravel

Some of the reasons why virtual travel, while a nice aid, will never replace the non-virtual version. Recorded during my Siberian trips of 2005 and 2008 while updating Lonely Planet’s Trans-Siberian Railway guide.

Due to repeat questions — two and counting — we deemed it necessary to alert 76-Second Travel Show viewers that Charles Guiteau in the 22nd episode of SSSTS was not played by Robert Reid, but John Whitaker.

Here is the cast:

ERIC DAVISON

JOHN WHITAKER

DAMON COOK
as Garfield’s friend

EHREN GRESEHOVER
as Garfield’s admirer

Did you hear you can ‘ride’ the Trans-Siberian Railway on Google? Last year a team spent 30 days on the six-day ride from Moscow to Vladivostok to roll a camera, during daylight, at a (sometimes maddening 25-degree angle) out the north-side window. Seven time zones worth.

I wrote on Lonely Plant that it missed the real highlight: what happens on the train.

But I’m not immune to the cubicle-locked past-times that sometimes lead to web browsable travels. A few months ago, I followed Google’s street-view around Columbus, Ohio, and caught the Google photographer getting a Big Mac.

I spent President’s Day thinking about two presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, the only pres born in Manhattan, and Chester A Arthur, the only one where you can buy a Lebanese sandwich in his old bedroom. Plus Arthur had great chops. Plus he wore five pairs of pants a day. Plus he pronounced his middle name ‘Alan’ as ‘alAN,’ French-style.

On Monday, I visited his old home, at 123 Lexington Ave in New York City, and requested a particular-type of sandwich. One that brings all these Arthur components together.

Warning: this video features two simulated gunshots, some blood, and the acting debuts of John Whitaker (as Charles Guiteau) and Eric Davison (as James Garfield).

Lost between the Olympics, Chinese New Year, post-Super Bowl delirium and New Orlean’s Mardi Gras, it’s President’s Day on Monday. I came up with 50 suggestions for presidential attractions, state by state, for Lonely Planet.

But here’s three more key things to do on Monday.

CHOP IT
Narrowly edging out Lincoln’s beard, and William Howard Taft’s peppery swoop of a ‘stache (the last pres with facial hair), Chester A Arthur had the best facial hair of any US president. In a landslide.

This year, replicate it, by picking up a chop and adding a moustache. Caufield’s sells the chops – curiously called ‘60s sideburns’ – for US$8.49.

Speaking of facial hair, from Lincoln to Taft, only two presidents of the 11 went bare-faced – and didn’t fare well. Andrew Johnson, the VP who assumed presidency after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, was impeached; William McKinley was gunned down by a crazed Polish-Belarussian American (barefaced) anarchist.

USE YOUR LEFT HAND
Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Reagan – every president since 1980 except W – were left-handed.

RE-CREATE MILLARD FILLMORE’S DEATH
Last year was Poe’s 200^th birthday and Richmond, home to one of a few competing Poe sites, recreated – curiously – his death. Wonderful. Let’s repeat it for the last Whig president, Millard Fillmore, an elected VP who became president when Zachary Taylor died in 1850. Here’s how: Spend Monday in bed, having soup and uttering, nearly breathlessly, Millard’s last words: ‘the nourishment is palatable.’ He died at 11:10pm, March 8, 1874 if you’re curious.

Moving on, in non-presidential news, I took a stab at making an ‘Oklahoma world map’ for my favorite Oklahoma blog yesterday. It was fun.