“Travel expert offers advice for novice sightseers”
The Vindicator – Mar. 13, 1986
By: Teresa Rossi (Vindicator Trumball County staff)
WARREN—Dena Kaye believes in making herself at home. That attitude has led her into a career as an authority on travel, cultural differences and the people that make up the world.
Speaking Wednesday at Packard Music Hall as a guest of the Trumball Town Hall lecture series, Miss Kaye offered her audience of novice travelers some insight and advice for the making of perfect vacations.
She spoke from experience—Miss Kaye’s travel articles have appeared in numerous magazines, she’s a travel reporter for CBS Morning News and has written a book called “The Travel Woman.”
As the only child of actor Danny Kaye, Miss Kaye received a taste of the exotic world of travel second hand through her father, who always returned from his journeys with stories and folk songs.
“He travels to the most wonderful places. He enjoys cooking, so he always brings back some new, unique recipe to try out at home,” noted Miss Kaye. “One morning I woke up to find a filleted duck hanging in front of our air conditioning unit in the living room. He was preparing and drying it out for pressed duck, a recipe he picked up in the Orient.”
However it wasn’t until she was in high school and involved in a study abroad program that she ventured out on her first excursion.
“I lived in France and attended summer school. It was by no means a luxury vacation. The family I stayed with lived several miles away from school and had no form of transportation. But I got to learn about the people, the customs and traditions of a country,” she said.
That experience has guided her ideas on travel over the years. She has journeyed throughout much of Europe, gone on safari in Kenya, and visited Thailand, Norway and Hong Kong, just to name a few places. On each excursion, she has taken the time to learn about her destination, its culture and beliefs. The effort has paid off, she said.
“You can make your trips more enjoyable, more enriching, if you just take the time to learn a little about the place you’ll be vacationing in,” she noted. She attributed much of the hostility that European people sometimes express to American vacationers as “impatience towards people who won’t take the time to learn about them.”
Besides spending the time to research a destination, Miss Kaye also offered advice
on packing: “lay out everything you’re going to bring, then pack half of it”; the
recently popular “trend” vacations: “vacationers have their choice of anything from
fitness vacations at health spas to “stop-
Miss Kaye is undaunted by the recent terrorist unrest abroad and plans to continue her extensive travel schedule.
“Oh, I’m more cautious now—I think everyone who goes abroad is a little concerned. I was in the Rome airport last year only a month after the terrorist attack took place, and I was worried,” she said. “But you can’t live your life in fear.”