Preparing for the trip
Grandma’s musings
In New York, go to the offices of the Caribbean Tour Assoc.
237 Madison Ave.
Try to get copy of “Caribbean Vacationlands” 1957-58, compiled by Helen Lowe Auble.
Also - “The Traveller’s Tree” by Patrick Leigh Fermor (London, John Murray pub.)
Boat trip, San Juan Harbor from La Rada Hotel Docks
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My musings
Grandma Bowen’s Travel Diary recording her trip to Martinique in 1959 begins with some notes to herself jotted on the inside front cover of a fresh journal. These surely reflect some recommendations given to her by her travel agent on the best publications of the day.
I’m reminded of when I used to book my trips through a travel agent who would print out the actual, physical tickets and boarding passes used for embarkation and, in an actual physical shop I would have to go to, hand them over to me in a paper or sometimes vinyl jacket where I could also keep passports and other travel documents.
It was certainly comforting to be assisted, advised and generally taken care of by our favorite travel agents. When my grandmother was traveling, indeed when I traveled in the 1980s and early 90s, there was simply no other way. Our agents not only booked our accommodation and transportation to and within our destinations, they also had knowledge of the places they sent us off to, gave advice about what to do once we arrived and suggested what guide books to purchase!
Today, with all of the online services available for booking flights and hotels (my favorites: Booking.com, Vrbo), we now have more options.
We also have travel bloggers going to all corners of the earth to report back with information on the best places to go (here are some of the ones I’ve been reading, full of a lot of useful information: Kiersten, Lauren, Matt, Michelle).
You can of course still call upon the services of professional travel agents today. Stephen Vanderpool from Nerdwallet clearly lays out the benefits of going through a travel agent and explains in what circumstances it is beneficial to do so.
I’ll admit that I personally have not been to an agent in quite a while, purchasing my plane tickets online for work or to visit family using various search engines such as Skyscanner, Momondo, Expedia, and Google Flights (interesting article on how to get points on Google Flights).
These options have generally worked out quite well although I must say that as the years go by, I do feel like I will seek out the assistance of a travel agent once it’s safe again for us all to travel far and wide. I long for the comforts I mentioned above AND want to snag some of those deals they sometimes have access to that we may never see!
The search is on in NYC for the most tantalizing publications of the day
Grandma had noted the specific title, publication date, author and publishing house of the books she intended to purchase and I am captivated by these details she reminds me of. It takes me back to the days when we learned in school of the importance of getting all that information down to find publications either for purchase at the bookstore or for consultation at the library, where we would track down books catalogued according to the Dewey Decimal System, open wooden drawers full of cards containing the information that would send us directly to the right shelf in the stacks.
I must admit it’s not something I think about much nowadays when I’m looking for a publication of any sort. I lazily plug a few words of a title into a google search and the item I seek most always magically pops up before my eyes. Sort of how I found the publications she jotted down, although it did take a bit of virtual searching.
Caribbean Travel Guides
So what were those books she had been sent in search of on Madison Avenue in NYC? Curious to find out, I revved up my search engine and eBay took me to the 1956 edition of Helen Lowe Auble’s “Caribbean Vacationlands” with a painting of Carib Indians on the front cover.
Being a language buff, I was intrigued to learn more about the Carib language which has complex verb morphology and is spoken today by 10,000 people. Native-languages.org is a non-profit which intentionally built a simple, basic website to make it possible for those with minimal internet connectivity to more easily use the website. It also provides the opportunity to become a sponsor or purchase authentic jewelry.
It’s so thrilling to have found the book my grandmother headed down NYC’s Madison Avenue to purchase in 1959 to guide her in her travels. I’m tickled pink! I was able to snatch it up but the seller has more fantastic vintage items.
Helen Lowe Auble
This fascinating Flickr album illustrates Ms. Auble’s work process (handwritten notes, scribbles, captions) on what became a leading tourist publication for the region.
Photos from the aforementioned album curated by Bruce Potter (I compiled a few of them and added the circles)
She was an instrumental figure from the 1940s onward in the promotion of Caribbean tourism as well as in the development of the CTA, the Caribbean Tourism Association, which merged with several regional organizations in 1987 to become the CTO which exists to this day. Read its history here.
Patrick Leigh Fermor
The other book she mentions is “The Traveller’s Tree - Island Hopping Through the Caribbean in the 1940s” by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This book (donated by the Boston Public Library) is available to read at The Internet Archive, where you can “borrow” it and read it online.
It’s quite the read, written by a young man just turning 30, traveling through the Caribbean immediately after World War II. The award-winning “Traveller’s Tree,” published in 1950, was his first book and cemented his career as one of Britain’s most prominent travel writers.
Of his book The Literary Times Supplement wrote, the author “never loses sight of the fact… that most of the problems of the West Indies are the direct legacy of the slave trade.” I was drawn in by his style, not least because I can detect how he may have influenced my grandmother’s thinking and writing. Learn more about this fascinating man and his infectious zest for life (look at those eyes). I was so smitten that I bought “The Traveller’s Tree” here. His other books are available for purchase at Alibris and Amazon.