Revisionist History - Five Burning Travel Questions with Malcolm Gladwell

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Revisionist History hits the road, courtesy of Airbnb. Malcolm shares some travel tips, including music for poolside relaxation, how to find your way around the Carolinas, and what to do about inclement weather. Then, Di Zock and Michael Specter talk about the pros and cons of traveling with your dog. The finale of our series on guns in America airs this Thursday. Please write in with your comments at revisionisthistory.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, hello everyone, Malcolm Gladwell here. I'm back in the feed a bit early with a little amuse-bouche before we come to the finale of our gun series on Thursday. Airbnb, one of our loyal sponsors, asked if we could do an episode about travel. Because of course, Airbnb is all about travel. And as you may or may not know, I do a lot of travel. I am well over a million frequent flyer miles on United at this point. I've been to Manila, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Grand Rapids in just the last month.

And if you're wondering, my favorite of all those places, not even close, Grand Rapids. I love Grand Rapids. Why doesn't everyone live in Grand Rapids? I don't get it. Anyway, Airbnb, travel, me, it all seemed like a natural fit. But before we hit the road, about the Gunn series, your responses so far have been phenomenal. Please keep sending in your thoughts. There's a contact form at revisionisthistory.com and next month, Maria Konnikova and I will talk about some of the feedback. But for now,

a little side trip, a revisionist history getaway. Five burning travel questions with Malcolm Gladwell. First question, which I've been asking myself for at least 30 years. Given the choice, should you ever go to Las Vegas? I'm asking this question because I'm in Las Vegas right now, not by choice, for work. And instead of trying to answer this question rationally, with the benefit of reasoned argument and academic scholarship, as is our standard practice on revisionist history. I'm just going to play you some short clips of the music that has been played for my enjoyment as I sit by the hotel pool. Oh my god,

my brain is killing me right now. It's nuts. Everywhere you go in Las Vegas, this is what you hear everywhere. First question, who would willingly listen to this music? Do you know anyone who does? Have you ever been over to someone's house for dinner or just to hang out and they say, oh, let me put on a little house music while we chat. No, you haven't. But clearly, at some point early in the history of Las Vegas, all of the city fathers must have gotten together in a room. I'm guessing it was convened by Bugsy Siegel,

the mobster who founded Las Vegas. And Bugsy was like, gentlemen, we're going to create a great city in the desert. People from all over the world of every creed and religion, of every shape and size, rich and poor, great and small, will come here to this glamorous oasis to gamble away their life savings. What music shall we play them? And all the guys said. And then the little old guy who wanted to open a high-end jewelry store,

maybe it was Mr. Harry Winston, raises his hand and said, but Mr. Bugsy, I'm trying to attract a sophisticated clientele. Is it okay if I play Schubert? And Bugsy gets all scary and angry and bangs his fist on the table and says, no, Harry, you schmuck. That goes against everything I'm trying to do with this oasis in the desert. You must play. I mean, this is like the craziest thing ever. Maybe there are some 16-year-olds out there who like music like this, but I'm looking around the pool. There are no 16-year-olds here.

It's all cranky old people like me. You know how in hostage situations sometimes they try and force the bad guy to give up by playing like heavy metal really loudly all night long? I should be so lucky to be a hostage taker hearing heavy metal right now. So short answer to question number one. No, don't do it. Don't go to Las Vegas ever unless you absolutely have to. All right. Question number two. What was the greatest road trip of my life? I think it was my first road trip. Summer, I believe, of 1982. My friend Terry and I were at that moment obsessed with Alger Hiss, the State Department official who in 1948 was famously

accused of being a Soviet spy. Biggest story of the day. Huge drama ensues that goes on for years, with one side saying he's innocent and the other side saying he's guilty. Were you ever a communist spy, Mr. Hiss? No, I was not. Neither a communist nor a spy. That's him. And Terry and I were firmly of the he's guilty camp. So early one August morning, before dawn, we wake up. Terry won't tell me beforehand what time we're leaving because he says he doesn't want, and this is his exact phrase, to pierce the cloud of unknowing. We get into his mom's Pontiac. We drive from our little town in rural southern Ontario straight to Washington, D.C., 10 hours. And we visit every house Alger Hiss lived in during his long career of treachery,

up to and including the famous townhouse in Georgetown on Peace Street, where so much of his skullduggery allegedly went down. We pull up. We knock on the door. Two scruffy teenagers from rural Canada who haven't shaved or showered or slept or really even eaten for several days because we had no money. All we had was our youthful moxie and enthusiasm. So the door opens and we say, are you aware that you're living in the house of the notorious American Cold War trader, Alger Hiss?

They look at us blankly. And we're off. Our job is done. Then afterwards, we write up findings in a little essay called The Many Houses of Alger Hiss, which opened with a long, florid, damning summary of the facts of the case, ending with a line, all of which leads to the one overwhelming question. Who was this man they called Alger Hiss? And where did he live? I mean,

how do you top that? Later, Terry and I did a modified ballpark tour, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Yankee Stadium, but everyone does one of those. Who does the many houses of Alger Hiss? Now, you might think that this was just some youthful fancy, A teenage lark, but take out your phone. Google George F. Baker III Harvard University. You'll see a picture of a handsome guy right around my age. First name? Terry.

Professor of what? Russian studies, baby! How many road trips set in motion a lifetime of scholarship? Okay, question number three. Do some parts of the United States pose particular problems for travelers? Are there states the novice traveler should avoid? Answer, yes, absolutely. North Carolina. No one talks about this, but it's a longstanding pet peeve of mine. I was actually chatting with my friends Michael Spector and Dai Zok recently about my travel theories, and it came up.

Anecdotally, I did a talk at Wake Forest University, which is not weirdly in Wake Forest, which I would point out because I nearly went to Wake Forest, which is like 200 miles away. And when I told my host that I got, so I finally, I self-corrected, like half an hour in, go to Winston-Salem, which is where Wake Forest is. And then I was sort of outraged because it's like, what kind of trick is North Carolina playing on people where they put Wake Forest University hundreds of miles from Wake Forest? And then when I told my host, oh, I nearly went to Wake Forest, they're like, oh, yeah,

people do that all the time. It's like, I'm sorry. That is weird. Fix the problem. Change the name. How hard is this? It's like it's been going on for hundreds of years. People have been going to Wake Forest in search of Wake Forest University.

Like I said, no one talks about this, but it's kind of nuts. You land in Charlotte and you punch in Wake Forest on Waze and Waze says two hours, 42 minutes. And you say, huh, that's weird. That's the other side of the state, right outside Raleigh. Why didn't I just fly to Raleigh? And you get halfway there and you think, oh, maybe I should double check. And you realize that North Carolina has devised a nefarious scheme to frustrate unsuspecting carpetbaggers arriving from the North. A hundred percent, this has

something to do with the Civil War. Robert E. Lee says, let's let it leak out that we're setting up for a last stand at Wake Forest. And the Union Army spies hear this and say, aha, and they muster everyone and they march up what is now I-85. Only Lee, that old trickster, means Wake Forest to school, not Wake Forest to town. And somewhere around Lexington, he pounces, surprising the unsuspecting Union Army. I mean, that's the only explanation that makes sense. Wait, there's more. Do I have some travel faux pas stories,

like when I went to the wrong Columbia? The wrong, the country? No, no. The university? Should I tell that story? Yes. When I was at the Washington Post, Washington Post was obsessed with covering hurricanes.

Columbia, Maryland? And I was told there was a hurricane fast approaching the outer banks of North Carolina, and I was dispatched to Columbia to cover the hurricane. I landed in Columbia, North Carolina, and there was dispatched to Columbia to cover the hurricane. I landed in Columbia, North Carolina, and there was no hurricane. And I called it and said, there's no hurricane. What are you guys talking about?

There's no hurricane. I said, no, no, I'm here, I'm here, and there's no hurricane. Like, no, no, you can't be in Columbia, North Carolina, because there's a hurricane going on there right now. And I looked around and I was like, oh, I'm in Columbia, South Carolina. They have two Columbias in adjoining Carolinas.

This is another, this is like the Wake Forest thing all over again. This country is set up to fool the unsuspecting outsider. What kind of colossal failure of imagination is this? Someone in one of the Carolinas goes first and says, oh, I have a good idea. Let's call our town Columbia. And then someone else a few years later says, oh, I have an even better idea. Let's call our town Columbia as well. Because one of these days, some dumb Yankee is not going to realize that Columbia is like a generic southern term for a medium-sized city with big city aspirations.

And he's going to go to one Columbia while meaning to go to the other Columbia. And so, for hundreds of years thereafter, countless well-meaning people from the North go to the wrong Columbia. I mean, what happens if I had been a legendary brain surgeon flying down from a prestigious hospital in the Northeast to save the life of an adorable Southern toddler, and I go to the wrong Columbia? Did they think about that? No, they didn't.

They were too busy chortling over their stupid little practical joke. Stay away from North Carolina. And while you're at it, stay away from reporting on the weather. Well, no, the horror story was there was, remember that terrible hurricane that hit Miami in the 90s? I forgot which one it was.

Yeah, the one that flattened Southern Florida. Yeah. Bill, my colleague Bill Booth, we didn't realize it was as serious as it was. He went down there to cover it and he returned home like two months later. And when I saw that, I realized that the mistake he made was doing a good job of covering. So that was when I decided that, I mean, actually the Columbia thing happened just after that. I realized that there was no upside to being a good hurricane reporter, because the worse the hurricane is, the longer you'll be away from home. You got to screw up

early and often, so they turn elsewhere. So then I followed that up with a, there was a hurricane in New Orleans, and I suggested that the best way to cover it was to approach it from the west. So I flew, I flew, did I fly to Dallas? The whole thing was so preposterous. I spent like a day and a half in the car before I even got there. And then just said, I don't see it.

I don't see it. I don't see it. Finally, they gave up and let someone else take over. But there are certain tricks of self-preservation in the journalism business. And one of them is to always do a bad job of something you don't want to do. Okay, coming up, the big question.

What do you do about traveling when you have a dog. So here's the big question. Why I gathered my friends Michael Spector and Dysak for counsel. There's a lot of pressure right now in the global household for us to get a dog. If you do like an internet history search on any laptop in the Gladwell household, it's just dogs. You type in B and Google autocompletes Burmese Labrador mix. That's where we're at right now. Now, I love dogs, but like I said, I travel a lot. And it's hard enough without having to factor in another needy living creature. So I wanted to ask Michael and I how they deal with the have dog will travel problem. And I would like to start out just by having each of you please give us the name and type of dog you own and also a brief word about your dog's temperament.

My dog's name is Linus. He's five years old. He's a woodle, which is a cross between a Wheaton terrier and a poodle. And his temperament is, he is by far the mellowest person in the history of the Spectre family. And Di? I have a black lab named Junebug. She's my third lab. She's like all my other labs, ambassador of love. She is. When I had to choose between two labs and a litter, they said, okay, we have two girls. One is ball obsessed and one is the snuggler. Which one do you want? And I was like, no brainer. Yes, no brainer. You go with the snuggler. Which one do you want? And I was like, no brainer.

So, the obvious travel question, can you just put the dog on a plane? I have flown dogs before and I have found it slightly traumatizing. Just that thousand yard stare when they get off the plane. I just felt so bad. I mean, the dog just wants to be with you.

Linus really didn't care. He just is fairly mellow. I was traumatized. In fact, I flew Air Alaska that time because they're said to have the best dog flying program. When I got to my seat, there was a stewardess standing there with a piece of paper, which said, relax, Linus is already on board, which is really nice. Of course, I knew that because I put a tracker on his collar because I was freaking out. So flying is problematic, but both Michael and I have driven cross-country with their dog. How does that work? I started with Michael. Where does Linus sit? Is he in the front seat or the back seat? Back seat. He tries to go in the front.

In fact, he tried it again last week. But the problem is, like, if you have some sort of accident and your airbag goes, your dog goes too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've made a little shelf out of the back seat for him. My best, this is a good time for me to interject with my favorite dog or animal in the front seat story. I was talking to a wildlife veterinarian recently, and she had raised two cheetahs from when they were kittens. And they adored her, and they stayed at her house. And she worked at this kind of wildlife sanctuary.

And every morning she would drive them to work. And it was the the 70s and she had one of those bench seats in the front yeah and the two cheetahs would sit on the seat in front and she said because you know they have really long necks so you would just see her and then these two adorable cheetahs she got from other people on the freeway were priceless, I think is the word she used. Anyway, I was curious about where. Where did you put Junebug? Front or back? She was in the back, too. I have one of those slings.

Oh. So she would hang out in the back with her giant carrot stuffed animal and giant frog stuffed animal. When you say a giant, I've seen this carrot. It's a good four feet. It's a four foot long carrot and it's a pillow and a security blanket. Yeah, I always gave him his bed, his pillow and security blanket, and he would curl up in the back. But the best part of it was going to dog parks. I mean, I went to some crazy dog parks. I went to one in Amarillo where this guy had an Australian shepherd and he was so into the dog. And I said, wow, what do you do? Are you a dog trainer? He said, no, I just got out of a federal penitentiary for dealing meth. I said, oh, okay. He said, but now I'm totally focused

on my dog. And we talked dogs. And then he told me where to eat in Amarillo. And you know, you can't get that kind of experience if you don't have a dog. Dogs are the great leveling. Dog park's the great leveling ground. eat an Amarillo. And you know, you can't get that kind of experience if you don't have a dog. Dogs are the great leveling, dog parks are the great leveling ground. Yeah, it's a great icebreaker having a dog anywhere. So to recap, the reason to have a dog with you on a road trip is that you get to acquire giant fluffy carrots. It allows you to explore one of the great undiscovered American treasures, the dog park, and it greatly expands your social circle to include meth dealers. These are not compelling arguments.

Yeah. from the Hudson Valley June bug maybe from drinking pond water got some kind of bacterial infection and basically an explosive digestive track and it was like three days before I had to head across country and so that was very clearly something that I did not want, to drive across country with a dog who has explosive diarrhea. You see my point. My life isn't complicated enough already. I've never traveled with a dog, but I have traveled with a cat. And I had the experience recently of, well, it was just from here to New York City, but there was bad traffic.

So we were out for about four hours in total. In hour four, I had one child, the six-month, six-week-old, who was just over it and just crying nonstop. I had Edie who sang without stopping for three hours. So she's singing at the top of her lungs. And then the cat decided to start serenading us at the same time. So I had these singing, yowling, crying combination, which has never happened to me before. I have to say quite something.

I don't know whether I – because if you were to go cross-country, that could seem to go on for hours. Luckily, we hit an end point. But the more people you, the more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater the upside risk of, you know, something. I repeat, the more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater the upside risk. Are you nuts? Don't do it. Don't go to Vegas. Don't cover the weather. Don't set foot in North Carolina. Don't buy a house in Georgetown without checking to see if the previous owner betrayed crucial American secrets. Don't travel with a dog unless absolutely necessary. And do not ever, please, listen to music that sounds like this.

All right, everyone. That's travel advice from Revisionist History. We'll be back on Thursday with the conclusion to our six-part gun series on Revisionist History. You won't want to miss the final episode. This episode was produced by Nina Lawrence, Ben Nadaf-Haffrey, and Jacob Smith. It was edited by Sarah Nix, engineering by Nina Lawrence. Special thanks to my guests and old friends, Michael Spector and Dysog. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

Oh, you're still waiting for question number five, aren't you? Here it is. What about treats? Do we have agreement on treats? You got to have particular, this is a dog owner term, high value treats, like not just like the kind of food he eats, but cheese and smelly fish and things that you may find repulsive, but that that dog will do anything for. Because there are times when you want to reward them. And there are also times when you want them to pay attention. And if you produce the right kind of cheese, he'll walk through fire for it. There's also those keep them busy for a long time treats. Like there's those Himalayan cheese sticks that will take forever. And I think that's kind of good. Actually, my big thing on that these days are collagen chews. You can get these long collagen chews and they last a pretty long time

and they're not terribly unhealthy as opposed to some- When you say a long time, you mean hours? It can be a couple hours of hardcore chewing, yeah. You could get a collagen chew could get you across the state of Kansas? Yeah, totally. The thing is, my dog, you know, I have spent five years trying to buy things for my dog that say under no circumstance can your dog rip this toy

apart. It's impossible. He's never lasted 24 hours with one of those without taking it down. This is like Alcatraz, you know. When they say, you'll, no, no, no, could ever get it. Oh, someone always gets out of Alcatraz.