Remember to meet the Create travel challenge with an account of your own.

I want to tell you about all the travelling I did in 1983. It was a memorable year for me – I visited two continents, moved from one country to another, and experienced a lot of new and interesting things. But that's not really what I want to talk about.

I want you young'uns to appreciate what you've got.

These days, if you need to plan a journey, you just fire up the internet. You go to fasterthanthespeedoflight.com, or hotbabesonthe beach.yeah, or whatever, and book your flight, your hotels – all at the click of a mouse and with comparison of the latest rock-bottom prices. In the Dark Ages of 1983, children, you needed hardcopy. Brochures. Print ads. Books, even.

Spring Break: Belgium versus the Netherlands

It started in the spring. Easter weekend coming up in Cologne, and Elektra and I had a yen to see a particular castle in Belgium that had housed Godfrey de Bouillon. I forget why. Anyhow, during a lunch break, I betook myself over to the Belgian Tourist Office next to the Hauptbahnhof – that's railway station to you. The nice man there sported a beard that must have taken years to grow, as it reached nearly to his belt buckle. I guess he had a lot of time on his hands – I was his only customer. I explained to him where we wanted to go.

'Rent a car,' was his helpful reply.

'I can't,' I replied. 'No driving licence.' He shook his head. 'Then you can't go there.'

'Why not?' I demanded. 'Is this not Europe? The land of trains? Is this place not two-three hours away, at most? I could take a train to Paris. Or Budapest. Why not Godfrey's castle?'

He sighed patiently. I felt he had practice in this. He got out the timetables. 'You see, to get to Beulen from here, you have to change trains at this town. Now, the only train that stops there does so at 12.05 every day. But the only train that leaves there for Beulen departs at 11.45,' he shrugged apologetically. 'As you can see, it is impossible.'

'So if we took the train, we'd have to stay there for a whole day? Anything to see?'

He shook his head emphatically. 'There are no hotels there. You couldn't stay there at all.' I thanked the gentleman for his advice, and we went to Arnhem for Easter. Arnhem was on the railway line, run by the Dutch. Of course, coming home on Sunday night, we were stopped by the border police, because the border police always stopped the Amsterdam express on Sunday night, looking for people smuggling the kind of stuff they bought in Amsterdam. . .

Summer Travel: Adventures in Airplanes

Come summer, for complicated reasons, I needed to go to the US for a three-week visit. Alone. So off I trooped to another travel agent. Travel agents were useful in those days – at least, most of the time. This cheerful individual didn't have a beard, as I recall, but he did have a big grin. Oh, goody. Flying to Amerika? He reached for a book the size and shape of the New York telephone directory. That's how it was done. In no time, I had a set of fully-paid-up tickets to Elmira/Corning, New York, by way of Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Two legs, no problem.

This blissful state of affairs lasted until I landed in New York and went in search of the boarding area for my connecting flight. The agent in charge looked at my proffered ticket in puzzlement.

'That airline doesn't fly to Elmira any more,' he announced. 'In fact, it doesn't fly anywhere in New York State.' I looked at him, stunned in the way a person is stunned who has just flown across the Atlantic in coach and is hauling around a suitcase full of presents for relatives.

'But the man sold me the ticket. He even looked up the flights in a book' I offered this as tangible evidence of some sort of reality. I mean, there must be a plane. It said so in print.

The agent scratched his head. 'They must be using last year's book in Cologne,' he ventured. Then he brightened. 'No problem. I'll book you on to Elmira with Empire Airlines. You'll have to go by Rochester and change planes, though.' He wrote tickets, I called the family.

The journey to Elmira turned out to be more adventurous than anticipated. First, there was a DC-3, or -9, or some such, flying to Rochester. A prop jet. I sat over the wing. Have you ever sat over the wing on a prop jet? Let's put it this way: have you ever used one of those coin-operated hotel massage beds – for, say, about 3 hours? Then you know what it feels like.

Rochester was even more interesting. I almost didn't get into that 10-seater Lear-jet-type plane when I saw where the baggage compartment was. In the nose. 'If there's one more leg to this journey, I'll end up going by hang glider,' I grumbled. After all, I was heading to the gliding capital of the US. The little jet was surprisingly comfy, though, and the view was lovely. There in one piece: baggage, jet lag, and all.

During my three weeks in the US, I went by car, by bus, and by airplane again. My mother and I bought an all-you-can-go-in-eight-days ticket and flew to Memphis and Nashville to visit relatives. My mom enjoyed herself immensely, as she liked all the little packets airline snacks came in and found flight attendants fun to talk to. Before take-off in Elmira, she watched the baggage handlers out her window. She chuckled.

At my quizzical look, she explained, 'That man's bald head looks so funny from above.' It's always good to have a fun travelling companion.

The bus part was when I abandoned the parents and went off to my sister's, meeting a brother-in-law for the first time (we hit it off immediately), and also an eighteen-month-old nephew (he kicked me, but not maliciously). The three of us, minus nephew, made a clandestine visit to the racetrack. The babysitter had strict instructions that if anyone named Gheorgheni called, we were at the cinema. (It's a Baptist thing, you wouldn't understand.) Sis and I won $30 using our 'psychic powers'. Brother-in-law lost his stake with the help of a tip sheet and inside dope from his jockey friends. Winners bought pizza.

A pleasurable visit over, it was time to mount the tiny plane again. Turbulence over Upstate New York meant that I arrived at Kennedy with a large, unsightly stain on the front of my trousers (Coca-Cola) and my luggage checked through to Köln. My sense of complete embarrassment led me to the only solution open to me: I sat in the waiting lounge wearing an oversized yellow T-shirt that said 'I NY' from the gift shoppe while I read Philip K Dick's The Unteleported Man. I really sympathised with Rachmael ben Applebaum, but I would have been ready to board the Omphalos at this point.

Chattanooga Dubrovnik Choo-Choo

Come September, it was time to change homes. The Germans among whom we'd been living for five years protested. 'You can't move to Greece. It's full of foreigners.' We promised to be careful. Our Turkish and Greek friends gave us a good send-off at Cologne, and we boarded our train. Ultimate destination: Xanthi, Greece.

But first, we had to ride through Yugoslavia. Thankfully, we had a first-class sleeping compartment. Let me tell you: it was well worth the few extra marks. The privacy was appreciated. The view was splendid, through Germany, Austria, the Balkans, into mysterious Greece. We'd never been there before, and it was to become our home for another five years. Every bend in the track brought us closer to a new adventure.

We'd never seen any of it before – no Google, Flickr, or travel website images. We only knew of it through tales and texts, and guidebooks such as Let's Go Europe. It hadn't been planned, much, and we didn't always know what to expect. We certainly couldn't be sure we'd picked the perfect weekend to travel, or got the best price bargain.

But oh, was it fun.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

08.04.13 Front Page

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