Frommer’s Comfort in the Wild is Out Now. A Talk with Its Author Jane Wooldridge

And welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.

I'm your host, Pauline Fromer.

We have a very special episode today because Fromers has a very special book out.

I am proud to say that we have put out our first co coffee table book.

I'm even more proud to say that the author is an incredibly important person in the world of travel writing.

She is the former president of the Society of American Travel Writers.

She was on a Pulitzer Prize winning team at the Miami Herald, where she worked for many years.

Her name is Jane Wooldridge, and she is a force of nature, which is why I was so excited to do this book with her.

And hey, Jane, welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.

Well, hello, Pauline, and thank you.

That's such a nice introduction.

I appreciate it.

Oh, of course, of course.

And you know, when we do a book, usually Fromers has been doing books for so many decades now that I go out and I look for specific authors who know about Paris or who know about London or know about Mongolia.

You came and pitched this book to us.

And let me give the name of the book.

I don't want to keep everybody in suspense.

It's called Comfort in the wild.

100 plus idyllic nature destinations.

No roughing it required.

So what does that mean?

What was your pitch to me?

Well, I think one of the things that we all remembered, I'm not going to say learned from, because I think we knew it but forgot it, is that being outdoors, we learned it from COVID that being outdoors is just really essential to, well, being, to how you feel in the day, to every part of your life, and especially those of us who live in cities, forget that really often.

I live in Miami and I have nature all around me all day because I have these giant windows, blessedly.

But I still don't go outside all that often.

And just getting outside, feeling the air, feeling the wind on my face, it makes me.

It clears my head and makes me actually a better person, I think.

Certainly makes me feel better.

And so coming out of COVID I think we had all gotten cabin fever.

It was time to get outdoors.

But if you're anything like I am, camping is really not my jam.

I did not grow up camping, and I think my mother would have murdered any bug that came within 100 yards of our house.

And I carry that with me.

I'm not real keen on the icky part of being outdoors.

This was a way to make the outdoors approachable and accessible to all of us who really want to appreciate the best of it.

But don't Want to be, well, uncomfortable with it.

All right, so let's talk about some places where you can have a comfortable mattress, a good bottle of wine, but still see incredible nature.

You in the book, talk about expedition cruises.

Now this is a type of travel that has just in recent years gotten much more comfortable, right?

Absolutely.

It used to be that expedition cruising was limited to really hardcore, you know, people who wanted to go, who were willing to go and maybe not wanted to, but willing to suffer.

Pretty much a narrow little cut with the, with the marine head down the hall to be able to go and see penguins in the ice in Antarctica or whales in the Arctic, seals in the Arctic, all of that kind of remarkable wildlife.

And one of the things that's happened probably in the last 10 years is that there are now everything from those basic icebreakers to really, really luxurious cruise ships where you go with top notch naturalists who really teach you about the place that you're in, give you a much greater appreciation of what challenges those places face and what's really special about those types of wildlife.

And then you go back at the end of the day and you have some incredible meals, a really fluffy duvet.

Maybe if you're just stuck on watching the latest Netflix, whatever it is, series, you can do that.

But really you have the advantage of being with these experts and having these great meals and learning about this place, but not being tortured by the place.

Right.

Well, speaking of experts, one of the companies we profile in the book or one of the boats that does expedition cruises is National Geographic Explorer.

Right?

Tell us about that cruise.

Well, that first off, National Geographic Explorer is in partnership with Lynn Blad Expeditions.

And Sven Lynn Blad, the father who is gone now, the son is still with us, pioneered Antarctic exploration for normal travelers, not for, you know, the, the wild and woolly 120 days cross the ice people.

But they really started exploration for I'm going to call everyday explorers like you and me.

And so they have long time history in the Antarctic, in the Arctic with top naturalists, in fact naturalists now that you find on other cruise lines actually usually started on Lindblad.

And I took this amazing voyage with them to Antarctica.

It's kind of the classic Antarctic trip where you go from Ushuaia and Argentina, sail across the Drake Passage, which many people dread, but I loved it.

And then you go and spend time on the ice with the penguins and there's this whole build up to how you're supposed to keep your distance from the penguins and you want to do everything you can to protect this environment because it's quite fragile.

And then you get there and the penguins did not get this memo.

You are trying to do your best to keep however many 20ft from them.

No, the penguins are just like running right into you and coming across your path.

And it's really remarkable experience where, you know, my exposure to penguins was in storybooks and at SeaWorld.

And to actually get to see penguins up close, I just was magic to me.

The idea of being surrounded all around by ice was just magical to me.

And even more magical was on the way back from the ice, somebody handed me a hot chocolate.

Now this is really magic because that's about the time you're ready for that hot chocolate.

Yeah, absolutely.

So is it the case that because of climate change and because so much ice is melting, it's gotten easier for expedition cruises to get into these environments?

I don't know how big a factor that is, but the reality is there are a lot more ships that are equipped to go into those kinds of seascapes.

There are a number of different lines that have purpose built ships with these ice hardened hulls.

There's rating systems for what kind of ice you can go in and many lines have them.

And you know, one of the things people in the cruise industry figured out is that there are people who understand that to be able to do this in comfort, you need to pay a premium.

And you do.

This is not cheap, but for my money, if you are going to take a once in a lifetime, splurge it all out the edges trip.

This is the trip to take.

And a lot of people are put off by the Drake Passage because it has, you know, a reputation for having tumultuous waters.

What I will tell you is that when we went over the Drake Passage the first time, it was really like a roller coaster.

And we were grabbing onto ropes that they'd set up along the hallways and things.

But I had on the patch so I didn't feel nauseous.

And on the way back, it was the Drake Lake.

Like I could have been in a canal in Florida and it would have been just about that smooth.

So you never know what you're going to get.

And of course nowadays, if you really want to avoid all that, you can fly and catch the ship on the other side of down when you get to Antarctica.

To me, making that voyage as part of the sense of exploration, I wanted to know what it felt like to be Shackleton.

Not exactly, no.

I did want heat, but I wanted to have a sensibility of and it really gave me a new appreciation of what it would be like to be a really true explorer without having to undergo the months of training and the rigors and the mylar lined pants and all the things that I think have to go with being a true overnight explorer on the ice.

Right.

I got the benefits without the drawbacks, I think.

Right.

So National Geographic and Lindblad, they're the gold standard.

Absolutely.

And the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Wow.

Those are the big, big adventures.

But there are other places and other ships.

Right.

Like, how would you figure out what is the best expedition cruise for you?

There are all other kinds of expedition cruises because life does not only revolve around the coldest parts of the planet.

I think the best thing is to think about what are your passion points?

What are the things that you want to experience in this lifetime?

Is it a remote tribal culture?

In that case, you find a voyage.

And there are a number of them.

I went with seaborne cruises and went to Papua New Guinea.

Now, I've actually, unlike normal people, I have actually been to Papua New guinea before, several times.

I know that seems a bit odd.

It is a bit odd.

It was worth it every time, and every time it was different for me.

But I will say that I really enjoyed it when I went on board a ship, because the two previous times I went, I was sleeping on mats, on floors, on wherever you could find a spot.

And while it was worth the adventure of it, I'm not going to say that it was particularly comfortable on board the ship.

You're on the ship and then you go into.

And it's still a good.

It was still a good hour's drive or ride on the Zodiac to get into where the tribal people lived, but it was a terrific experience.

All these villagers from the ASMAT showed up.

None of them were headhunters, or at least not in this life.

So, you know, I felt quite secure that I was going to come back in one piece, which I did, and, you know, had great guides.

And yet the.

This is not always the case, but I felt in this case, the experience I had was really authentic.

And I have spent enough time in Papua.

I know that sounds weird, but I've spent enough time there to know what feels authentic.

And this was a great experience for me.

It sounds great.

And we have gorgeous pictures in the book.

I mean, let me just say we call this a coffee table book, because not only is Jane's writing sparkling, the pictures will knock you over.

We have gorgeous, gorgeous photos on every single page.

I love looking through the book.

And I have had people say to me, oh, I sat down and read it cover to cover.

And my question to them is, did you read it or did you look at it cover to cover?

Because I think it gets so entrancing as you're looking at those photographs that.

Okay, people forget to read about it.

Well, that's okay.

They can go back and read later.

Sure.

So that's one of the extreme adventures.

We'll talk about others.

But there are also places closer to home where you can get into nature in a different way.

For example, there are now these geodesic domes, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

They're totally see through.

So you really.

You have a barrier with nature, but it doesn't feel like it.

And they're in different places in the world.

And in some of the most gorgeous places in the world, like Bryce Canyon.

Can you talk about the resort there?

Well, Bryce Canyon.

I don't know how I had missed it.

I had missed it on, you know, a couple of my jaunts across the universe.

And we particularly put it on the itinerary as I was researching this book because I'd always heard about how beautiful it was.

And then I was just blown over the.

The land formation there are called hoodoos.

You can discuss the, you know, origin of that term.

But it looks like some giant took a handful of colorful mud and dripped it out the bottom of their hand.

Like when you're making a sandcastle on the beach.

And it's just stunningly beautiful.

So you go to the park and you see all of this.

And there are now just outside the park, so you're in the same landscape.

There's a resort called Clear Sky.

I think it's called Clear Sky, Bryce Canyon.

You go to this resort and you feel like you're in the film the Martian.

It's these domes.

And there's something so unparalleled about being in the desert that you just don't know that a place that ostensibly is dry, in fact is so full of life.

And I love waking up in the morning and looking at these clear panes of glass.

And it is geodesic.

And it's the Buckminster Fuller original design of how these are done.

So it is in itself a geometric marvel.

But you open up your curtains and yes, you do get curtains, because not that I'm worried about the long eared jackrabbits seeing me and Maya altogether, but it just seems like the right thing to do.

So you open up your blinds or your curtains in the morning.

And there are these spectacular colors just right in front of you at Clear Sky.

They have a couple of different kinds of domes.

They have different themes.

One of them is sort of really otherworldly.

It's kind of a disco theme.

It reminds me a lot of films like Barbarella from the 60s or 70s.

It was really kind of crazy.

It even had a dance floor, A light flashing dance floor.

My dogs were so confounded by this.

They were like, why am I getting these colors when I walk on this floor?

They were pretty entranced by it.

But for me, the big attraction was that I could lie on the bed and look out.

And here is this universe all around me.

And when you go to dinner and they have a dinner place at the up at the top of the resort and you go up there and you just sit there and here's this magical vista just spread out across it and you're drinking some cocktail that has a cosmic name.

It all seems to make sense at the time as so many travel experiences are so transportive that you can't really explain them fully because you have to be there to feel the wind and to hear the chirping of the.

Whatever cicadas are and to feel the crackling of the logs in the fire pit.

And it's just really evocative.

Yeah.

So we have domes on the ground, or you could go way up into the trees.

And we actually start the book with a whole chapter.

Who knew there were many, this many tree houses?

And my favorite, at least from the photos I haven't been, was in Sweden, it's called Tree Hotel.

And oh my goodness, I want to be on whatever drug the architects were on when they designed this place.

Can you talk a little bit about how it came to be what it looks like?

It's just extraordinary looking.

Well, this is the story behind these tree houses is remarkable.

First off, like all kids, I wanted a tree house when I was a little kid.

And my dad did build me one.

He was not an architect.

I'm now married to an architect, but my dad wasn't.

And what daddy built is not this.

Okay.

I'm grateful to him.

It was a platform in the middle of a pine tree in the middle of our backyard.

But these are something else.

And what had happened is this couple in this small village in Sweden, it's called Harrods, and it's about 45 minutes or an hour from the closest airport.

And they had bought this old guest house in this village, hoping to make it a tourist place.

For get more business for the village.

And it just, it wasn't working out all that well.

They were having trouble attracting attention.

And the gentleman who was the husband of the couple took a couple of his friends out on a camping trip.

I think they were fishing up someplace in another country, I think maybe in Russia.

And they're fishing and they're sitting around having this, you know, esoteric conversation about what would the perfect tree house be.

And they decide that they will go back and each of the them will build their ideal tree house on this property that these people own outside this little village in Sweden.

And so that's how the first of the first two or three of the tree houses were built.

And each one is incredibly individualistic.

One is a mirrored cube.

And they started doing this long before there were mirrored cubes like there are now in some wooded areas.

Right.

And so the mirrored cube almost disappears into the landscape.

Absolutely.

The mirrored cube does disappear.

There's another one that is.

And some of these are by world famous architects like arc angles.

One looks like a birdhouse and is covered in bird houses.

And the idea that you are the bird in the nest.

Looking out through these bird houses, One of them looks like a flying saucer and it has just landed in this forest.

And surprisingly enough, one of these, I think it's the flying saucer.

One is actually accessible to people with mobility issues because it's set near the ground and you can walk up a ramp.

And they tell the story that people who own it tell the story about they.

They had a guest who called in one day and said, I can't get to the main lodge for breakfast.

And they said, well, why not?

And he said, well, there's an entire herd of reindeer standing between me and my ramp on my house.

And they run up there and of course, it is a full herd of reindeer.

And he doesn't want to disturb them, doesn't know if they're dangerous.

They're really not.

But there are all these incredible experiences.

And when you go up to your tree house, you just smell in the woods and the snow.

I was there in winter.

I was there really in the middle of winter, and it was glorious.

I wanted to stay forever.

However.

And they are heated, no problem.

Great views, that's all great.

But most people come and stay for a night and then they go for snow activities like dog sledding and ice shoeing and ice fishing and all that kind of thing.

Part of what's remarkable is that you have this treehouse village at this historic lodge which is where you take your meals.

And five miles down the road there is something called the ice.

I forget what the name is.

It's the Arctic Bath, that's what it is.

And it's literally outside the same village.

And it is a floating lodge on a frozen river.

It thaws in the.

In the rest of the year.

And it is literally in the same village.

And with some of the friends of the people who built the lodge, who built the Tree Lodge and so the Tree Hotel, the.

They're linked, but they're not owned by the same people, but one inspired the other.

So this tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Sweden has become this tourist mecca.

Yeah.

And not surprisingly, when you see the photos, I think you too will want to go.

Now, we've talked about expedition cruises to the ends of the earth.

We've talked about spending the night in a see through dome with stars all around you and hoodoos nearby.

We've talked about living up in the trees.

But sometimes agricultural nature is as appealing.

And so one of the chapters is about staying in wineries, sometimes in wine vats or going to ranches.

So let's talk about the Lone Mountain Ranch in Montana.

Why did that make the book?

I was looking for things that spoke to the roots of America, of the American experience of being a settler and being off the grid in the mountains, the agricultural life, the ranching life.

And for me, this really evoked that in a very comforting kind of way that was not too complicated and that enabled somebody to.

Who wants to travel with their children to be able to do that and have a great family experience and yet still feel like you're part of an authentic America that doesn't always seem to exist in big cities.

Huh.

And so when you go to this ranch, can you help out on the ranch?

Is it like city slickers or is it more removed?

It depends on what you want to sign up to do.

It's not quite like city slickers.

Okay, I'm just going to put that out there.

There are places where you can join in on some dude ranching, but quite frankly, that's an activity best left to the experts.

Because it is.

No, you know, we think it's an easy thing.

Oh, you jump on the horse and you just follow the cattle.

This is nothing is as simple as it looks.

But you can get a sense of what it's like to be out on the range with cattle.

It's just that you're not responsible for where they end up.

And who wants to be responsible for that?

Right?

Right.

Exactly.

Well, there's so much more in the book, Jane.

We haven't gotten to half the things I wanted to discuss with you.

Can we make this a part one and do another part two?

Love to do that.

I have so many favorites in this book.

I had a conversation with somebody and they said, what's your favorite?

And you know, your favorite is always the last place you went or the place that sparked your imagination that day.

So I can't think of anything I love more than to talk more about this book and the places that it took me.

Well, we will do that because I think the phrase spark your imagination pretty much describes this book.

That is what this book is going to do.

It's going to show you incredible facilities, incredible nature spots all around the globe.

And as you can hear, Jane brings it all to life when she discusses it.

And you'll read that in the book.

So thank you so much, Jane.

We will do a part two and so stay tuned for that.

And to those who are traveling, maybe you'll go to one of these places.

May I wish you a hearty bon voyage.

I'll see you next week.

Sour candy on the table Lazy afternoons in your sweatpants watching cable well it feels so far away all the channels seem the same same Trying to remember all the songs we like to play Cuz those lazy afternoons don't come so frequently these days oh it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with this hour can in the boathouse on the lake oh but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes.

I can't get you off of my mind Looking out the window where we see Spend so much of our time Cuz I miss the way it felt But I guess you can't control those damn cards with Babe I know the both of us are happy when we're free but would it be so hard to find your freedom here with me?

Wow, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake But I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes.

And I, I hate the way it tastes But I love it all the same and I, I hate the way it tastes But I love it all all the same.

Oh I know it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boathouse on the lake But I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes it's been, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home When I see you with this sour candy don't want it any other way oh, I just hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes.