The Good Travel Secret™
Magnificent and Mundane
What’s a good travel secret? Well, it can be practical or remarkable, usually a little improbable. If we’re honest, the revealer probably wants to offer a hint of worldliness, but if the secret is useful then all is forgiven. Travel secrets used to be a form of currency. Now we have videos of hotel rooms, photos of airplane seats and Reddit threads about the best bakery in Copenhagen. James Salter kept a small black book of Parisian brasseries recommended to him. Now we’ve got Where to Eat in Paris lists all over the internet (hey, I’ve written one), which is somehow less romantic. Yet I still learn useful secrets all the time.
Do you know the easiest way from JFK to Manhattan? Air Train to Jamaica Station. Tap your credit card, walk a couple of minutes to the LIRR platform, you’re at Grand Central or Penn Station in half an hour for $15. Michael Williams, naturally, already knew all this. He’s great at practical matters (Uber from Newark Airport into Newark Penn Station, then take the train from there: another clever MW recipe).
Here’s a famous one: There’s a cash machine in every 7-11 in Japan, which is good to know. Here’s a less famous one: If you’re in Kyoto Station about to take the Shinkansen to Tokyo, you wait in a huge area mobbed with travelers (many who have no idea what to do—it’s like awful, oversized wheeled luggage convention). It’s bright, overwhelming and not where you want to be. Behind a set of noren (those fabric panels outside doors in Japan) is a great soba restaurant with good food and good lighting. There’s even enough room for your bags. It’s quiet inside and you feel like you’ve solved the world’s problems. That’s a travel secret.
