Holiday was created in 1946 for “a world in which recreation will be more important to everyone than ever before – more important in this busier world of new stresses and strains because more and more doctors are prescribing escape, and travel, and fun.”  For three decades, the travel magazine promoted the advice of neurologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, “The sun, the open air, silence, and art are great physicians.”  I suffer from the anxiety, fatigue, rampant skepticism, and extreme boredom that plagues the unlucky, middling members of the generation called “X”.  On the advice of my doctor, I considered a Holiday.  Over the summer, I squeezed in a trip with James Michener to Japan, saw the Great Barrier Reef in Australia with Arthur C. Clarke, and I was escorted to Norway by Robert Capa.  Henri Cartier-Bresson has been tagging along and promised to share his snapshots with me for my photo album.  Over drinks, John Steinbech and I have been considering the value of an American tourist.  I’ve also been taking practical advice about what and how to pack from fashionable women, who actually travel, from Italy, France, Spain and Scotland.  Because I’ve been on the go so much, I’ve decided my next trip will be a staycation, New Hampshire with John Cheever.  I just don’t know when I’ll find the time to buy a new pair of inlaid shorty boots for my trip with Debs Myers to that Colorado dude ranch.  The good news is I’m dutifully following my doctor’s advice, taking my medicine and feeling better all the time.  You might do the same.

 

http://www.holiday-magazine.com/

Holiday.  Philadelphia, Pa.: Curtis Pub. Co., 1946-1977 (ISSN0018-3520)

 

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