Family Travels: Around the World in 30 (or So) Days
"Let's go around the world. The whole family together. All the kids," said the mother.
"What are you crazy? We're not rich. People can't quit jobs," said the father.
"The tickets are the biggest bargain there is, like $2,000....We'll do the whole trip in thirty days!"
They did it and lived to tell the tale in eight voices. The political writer, his wife the do-gooder, and three of their kids -- Colin, the television producer, Conor, the rock singer, and Fiona, the ten-year-old headed for parts unknown and known. The chef, Cynthia, and her husband caught up as soon as Ian, the first grandson, was old enough to fly -- eight weeks old, to be exact. There were no rules, except one bag each -- and the things seemed to mate as mother and daughters swept through markets in a dozen languages and the men of the family gambled in one.
After sixteen countries, a couple of dozen ambassadors, prime ministers, and assorted other high mucky-mucks including one Living Goddess and one Nose Dropping Divine Progenitor, two strip-searches, club-swinging cops and soldiers, explosions, wars and near-wars, a hundred arguments, and a thousand laughs, nine Reeves, O'Neills, and two Fyfes made it from Los Angeles to New York by way of Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Guangzhu, Denpasar, Ubud, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Singapore, Kathmandu, Delhi, Agra, Islamabad, Dubai, Cairo, Jerusalem, Jericho, Berlin, Paris, and St. Pierre-sur-Dives.
Then there was the overnight Deluxe Sleeper train across Java, which had been canceled four years ago, leaving the troupe in deluxe air-conditioning as described by Colin: "It began with the battle for seats in the total darkness, which became blinding fluorescent white light . . . it was like trying to sleep in the refrigerated ice-cream trough of a supermarket, sitting upright on a stack of Breyer's, during an earthquake. Eleven hours. . . . This is how they get people to confess during wartime."
And a father-daughter sunset over a golden Nile. "It's just amazing," Fiona said and her dad began a number on the cradle of civilization. . . ."No, no, not the river," she said. "I think it's amazing that I'm here at the river."
"Yeah," said the father. "Me too."
Back home, Conor the rock singer, who sometimes felt like he had been kidnapped, said: "Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. We all got to know each other a little bit better."
"So, where do we go next?"
Reviews
"Laughs -- tears -- insights -- and amazing sights. This is NOT the Brady Bunch at a state park." Tom Brokaw
"Fast, funny, fabulous -- and cheap. The amazingly functional Reeves family does for world travel what disposable diapers did for car trips -- makes you want to go!" Gail Sheehy, author of New Passages and The Silent Passage
"The Plan was the hardest part, with Catherine O'Neill persuading her husband, Richard Reeves, and three of their kids, including two spouses and one infant, to agree: first to an affordable round-the-world trip, and then on an itinerary. The emergent trip started in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, followed by Indonesia, Nepal, India, Dubai, Egypt, Israel, Germany, and France. Told mostly by Richard, but with asides and journal entries from the rest of the family, not counting the babe, the family peregrination is filled with beautiful travel vignettes, interesting and laudable family dynamics, and much fun." Amazon.com
"Syndicated columnist Reeves, author most recently of Running in Place , turns his attention from presidential politics to travel in this multivoiced narrative of his family's 1995 'round-the-world-in-34-days trip. Reeves and his wife, Catherine O'Neill, had "done" circumnavigation in 22 days with their recently blended family in 1981; this time, their troop included sons-in-law and, before the trip was over, the couple's first grandchild. This trip was a predominantly Asian journey, stopping in Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Denpasar, Ubud, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Singapore, Nepal, Delhi, Islamabad, and then Dubai, Cairo, Jerusalem, Berlin, and Paris. Yes, many of those names will be unfamiliar to most readers, which means Family Travels offers a wide range of exotic information, as well as the perceptions of various family members on aspects of the places they visited. Gracefully written; likely to intrigue armchair travelers." Mary Carroll, Booklist
"A book about presidents and prime ministers, karate tournaments in Japan and night trains in Indonesia, the Nose Dropping Divine Progenitor in Taipei, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, and the Berlin Wall, Family Travels recounts the experiences of award-winning writer Richard Reeves and his family on a month-long journey that would take them through luxury and poverty, politics and war, discomfort and discovery." Ingram
Latest Column
Obama So Far: Good Job!
LOS ANGELES — This is about what I think, expressed cleverly by another columnist, Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal:
Column Archive
A Congressman Reaches Out -- And Ducks!
RESEDA, Calif. — Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from the 27th District of California in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, is a congressman who is obviously not afraid of his constituents. Many are these days, but Sherman takes out advertisements in local newspapers urging people to come and reason with (or yell at) him at "Town Hall" meetings.
Naturalized On The Fourth Of July
LOS ANGELES — Among the charges leveled against King George III on July 4, 1776, in the Declaration of Independence was this one:
The Special Relationship Is Very Special
WASHINGTON — The 300th British soldier was killed in Afghanistan last week, which means that, proportionately, Great Britain is paying a higher price in manpower and money out there. That's 300 dead in a 10,000-troop commitment compared with the United States' 1,126 deaths with a commitment of more than 94,000 troops right now.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Conspiracy Theories
WASHINGTON — Last Saturday morning, Mike Allen's Politico Playbook, the early-morning blog Washington whisperers wake up to, began this way:
The California Winners: Corporate Power
LOS ANGELES — You can't fool all the people all the time, only about 48 percent. That, rather than the triumph of women billionaires, may be the abiding lesson of California's spring elections this year.
Where Does The Buck Stop?
LOS ANGELES — President Obama, in an impossible position, decided to take a page from the Harry Truman-John F. Kennedy playbook as oil fouled the Gulf of Mexico and the second year of his presidency.
The Republican Political Bubble
LOS ANGELES — In a rather charming video at randpaul2010.com, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Kentucky, Rand Paul himself, a libertarian by birthright, says that he was not named for Ayn Rand. The writer is acclaimed as a prophet by many libertarians, although she once said she would rather vote for the Marx Brothers than a libertarian.
Pentagon Papers II
NEW YORK — Henry Fairlie, the British-American contrarian who wrote for The New Republic and The Washington Post, among many others, derided the publication of the Pentagon Papers as nothing more than a summary of what Americans already knew about the war in Vietnam. To prove his point in those pre-Google days, Fairlie spent hour after hour plowing through newspaper, magazine and government archives, finding stories and public documents revealing the same information the Defense Department was classifying during the 1960s.
Events Are In The Saddle
NEW YORK — Let us now praise famous cliches.
California's Stimulus Package: Meg Whitman
LOS ANGELES — There is a sweet little proposition on this year's California ballot, 15 by number. Authored by state Sen. Loni Hancock, a Democrat from Berkeley, Proposition 15 would institute public financing for one state office, secretary of state.
Are We A Nation Of Crooks?
LOS ANGELES — In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. OK, so Bernie Madoff is a criminal. But a lot of other people on Wall Street and beyond are only crooks — so far.
Obama In The Quagmire
WASHINGTON — Is Hamid Karzai really nuts? Or are we?
The Lady Of The House
SAN FRANCISCO — Nancy Pelosi was a Democratic Party activist practically from the moment she was born, the daughter of a Maryland congressman. But at 47, the mother of five children had never run for public office — and did not think she ever would. She had promised herself she would never even think about it until her youngest finished high school.
The Power Of Zero
DALLAS — Remember the good old days? Remember when a Republican senator, Olympia Snowe of Maine, said she heard history calling? Well, history did call and not a single Republican answered in Washington. Zero in the Senate. Zero in the House.
Obama's Secret Weapon: The Tea Partiers
LOS ANGELES — The Republican Party of California met in convention last weekend and listened to five candidates for governor and United States senator in the state's June 8 primary election. They fell all over themselves trying to sound like tea partiers.
Students Wake Up In California
LOS ANGELES — Thousands of California students, from graduate students to kindergarten kids, walked out of their classrooms last Thursday to peacefully (mostly) demonstrate against the decline of education in the Golden State. Could this be the start of something big? Something bigger than tea bags?