New England Travel

The road to nowhere

by Chris Wright

We in Boston are very lucky; whichever direction we drive (except east, of course), within a few hours we will come across some exquisite, world-class holiday destination: the North Shore, the Berkshires, the Cape. But we all know this, don't we? Exquisite or not, Rockport does get a little, well, predictable. So, in order to add a little zing to our day trips, my wife and I have made a weekly habit out of what we call our "mystery tour." We simply get dressed, get in the car, and drive. We have no destination in mind; nothing determines our course but whim. We have absolutely no idea where we are going. Sometimes we don't even know where we are, but that doesn't matter.

It's not that we don't enjoy visiting local tourist attractions. We might very well wind up having lunch in Rockport, having drifted from Route 125 onto Route 133 onto Route 127. But having gotten there sort of by accident renews the thrill of wending our way through the town's narrow streets. We somehow feel lucky to have found such a lovely spot, even though we've always known it was there.

Usually, though, we don't end up in popular tourist spots like Rockport, Falmouth, or Northampton. More often than not we'll find ourselves in Belchertown, Whitman, or Groveland. These are places that seldom find themselves on anybody's holiday wish list, and that is precisely the point. We had no idea that Shelburne Falls is one of the loveliest little towns in Massachusetts -- we found that out entirely by accident.

In his book The Happy Isles of Oceania, the travel writer Paul Theroux makes an interesting, if somewhat smug, point: "Tourists don't know where they've been," he writes. "Travelers don't know where they're going." Theroux doesn't necessarily mean that, like my wife and I, the traveler is unaware of his final destination, only that he has made no assumptions about that destination. Conversely, the tourist has made all sorts of assumptions -- probably of the picture-postcard variety -- and his experience is made less for it.

In a similar vein, a critic whose name escapes me argued that, for today's pilgrim, the experience of visiting scenic überspots such as the Grand Canyon is irrevocably diminished. The critic did not mean simply to say that for many camera-toting tourists this sweeping spectacle is consigned to the peephole of a viewfinder, nor even to touch on the miserable banality of viewing one of the grandest sights on this planet from designated viewpoints, shoulder to elbow with other viewers.

The critic's point, as I remember it, was that our experience of the Grand Canyon is compromised by the fact that by the time we visit it, we've already consumed countless images and impressions of its attractions. We, like Theroux's tourists, are riddled with assumptions and expectations, unable to appreciate the majesty of the canyon precisely because we are there to appreciate its Majesty. The last person to see the Grand Canyon for what it is, said the critic, was the person who discovered it.

And these same problems apply to Niagara Falls, the Houses of Parliament, and Rockport, Massachusetts. How, then, to reclaim a sense of discovery, a sense of wonder?

There are ways. When my wife and I visited the Grand Canyon on our honeymoon, we made our way to a desolate spot at 3 a.m. and settled down to watch the sun rise. Inch by inch, the canyon's dizzying depths and dazzling colors revealed themselves. It was breathtaking. When visiting Niagara Falls, the truly heart-stopping moment is not had standing on a safety-barriered promontory, but by roaming, in the dead of night, through a park on the American side, where first you hear a vague rumbling and then, terrifyingly, Niagara's vast cascade plunges before you. Finally, whenever I visit the Houses of Parliament, I do so via an entanglement of streets running near Parliament Square. Suddenly, without fanfare or warning, you turn a corner and there it is: Big Ben, towering at the end of this dinky street. It's a stunning view, and it could not be had from the upper deck of a sightseeing bus.

And these principles can be made to work closer to home. Simply by trusting chance rather than Rand McNally, even the humble day trip can be reinvested with an element of surprise. Of course, chance is notoriously unreliable, and you could easily end up spending a rainy day at some godforsaken seaside town. Who, after all, would plan on going to Hull on a wet Saturday afternoon? But there is something precious about unexpectedly finding yourself, on a breezy fall day, driving down Hull's broad, rain-swept, melancholy promenade.

And when the towns are not so picturesquely desolate, when they are simply shabby and depressed, there is always something: some part of town that is architecturally interesting, or historically significant, or full of weird industry. Even when this is not the case, when a town is run-down to the point of being sluggish and flagrantly grim, you can always get some cheap eats, or pick up a bargain in a thrift shop, or just keep driving. After all, you're just passing through. Who knows what's coming up around the next bend in the road?

That's the beauty of it. You can find out for yourself.

Chris Wright can be reached at cwright@phx.com.