Rudy's Rules for Travel

Most honeymoons, Mary knows, do not start this way. Lying outside on the sloping attic roof in Edinburgh, listening to the soft snores of her groom, she realizes that Rudy’s number one rule, “adapt," once again reigns.

Rudy’s Rules for Travel takes you across the twentieth-century globe with intrepid, frugal Rudy and his spouse Mary, a catastrophic thinker seeking comfort. Whether stalled in a Spanish car tunnel, stranded atop a runaway elephant, or held at rifle-point at a Soviet border, Rudy has a rule for every occasion―for example, “Relax, some kind stranger will appear.” Mary, meanwhile, has her deep breathing and her own commandment: “Expect the worst.”

The two are a picture of contrast. As Mary was being born, Rudy was a new American citizen flying US Air Force missions over his homeland, Germany. His father was a seaman, hers an accountant. And when this marriage of opposites goes traveling, their stories combine laugh-out-loud humor with poignant lessons from the odyssey of a World War II veteran. So start packing―you’ll want to join these two.


My Review

When I started reading this book, I was Mary but by the end I was Rudy. I just loved Rudy's free spirit. The way he embraced all of the locations that he and Mary visited with an "hakuna matata" attitude was great.

Example is when the first place that they traveled was Mexico City and Rudy thought he was speaking fluent Spanish. He asked about the location of the bathroom and had the waiters at the restaurant thinking he was inquiring about riding horses.

The rest of the book just got better and better. Rudy's way of traveling is much better. He shows that if you really want to learn the culture of the place you are visiting that you need to stray from the main stream "tourist" attractions and take a bus with the locals. So pack a bag and take a vacation per Rudy's Rules for Travel.