| As I sat on the couch the other day after a taxing | | | | bicycles or Vespas and heading off into the wild blue |
| day at work, I was confronted with the inescapable | | | | yonder, with only a Let's Go or Lonely Planet |
| truth that I am fan of the BBC program, TopGear. | | | | guidebook in hand. I had a beat-up station wagon in |
| This admission might seem a little strange coming | | | | New Zealand that I lived out of for months. I've |
| from a young woman with zero interest in cars. For | | | | driven Land Rovers in both Patagonia and Tanzania |
| instance, I certainly could not be considered the | | | | (albeit briefly.) I've now driven across the country a |
| program's core clientele. I am not a prepubescent | | | | number of times for bicoastal moves involving those |
| boy with too many zits and an abiding passion for | | | | dastardly Uhaul contraptions. Yet even that has been |
| the latest and greatest Lamborghini. Also, despite | | | | fun. Having your own, personal transportation gives |
| what others may say, I do not find Richard | | | | an unparalleled dimension of freedom to one's trip. |
| Hammond attractive in the slightest; he is one of the | | | | And the big secret is that it is not necessarily out of |
| aforementioned boys with pimples. Rather, TopGear | | | | your budget, even if you're a cheapie like me. Really, |
| has struck a chord with me, and presumably | | | | personal transit is the new "must-have" accessory for |
| numerous other non-gearhead viewers, because it is | | | | the modern "flashpacker." |
| humorous and often involves independent, budget, | | | | TopGear has realized this, and turned their car |
| adventure TRAVEL. | | | | program into a car and travel program. One of my |
| The thing is, no one wants to have a passive travel | | | | favorite episodes involved their attempt to buy |
| experience anymore. Unlike our parents, whose sum | | | | cheap, secondhand motorbikes and travel from South |
| total of globe-trekking was visiting Paris twice in their | | | | to North Vietnam in under two weeks. There were a |
| lives, we are not content to sit on the sidelines and | | | | fair number of crashes, but no one died. Injury is all |
| let things happen to us. We don't want to be a | | | | part of the experience. Similarly, the fellows have |
| passenger on the tour bus, watching everything | | | | gotten cheap cars and driven them across Namibia, |
| through a glass window, protected, cordoned off, | | | | gone rally-cross driving in Scandinavian regions, and |
| quarantined. We don't want to have our every move | | | | even embarked on an odyssey of the American |
| dictated to us. I came to this realization years ago; | | | | South in pickup trucks and old muscle cars. |
| some of my best travel experiences involved renting | | | | |