There’s Always a First Time: My Husband’s First Group Adventure

Picturing My Husband Attached to a Whisper Device 

The idea of my husband, Martin — who’d never gone on a group educational travel experience — wearing a Whisper device and traveling with a group of strangers was unimaginable to me. However, people change (some of them, anyway), and I figured that maybe he would and could change his mind. I immediately tried to entice him with a description of a Road Scholar program to Sicily this past January.  

I explained that it is comparatively warm in January in southern Italy (he hates the cold) and that the trip would be focused on food — shopping for it and preparing and eating it, all among his favorite activities (he is a pasta maven). He thought about it and then said that he’d give it a try. 

So, I enrolled us, and we flew to our home base for the week in Taormina, a magical place with magnificent views of both the sea and of the famous volcano Mount Etna. 

Warming Up to a New Experience 

I think that Martin first began to warm up to group travel after we arrived in Taormina and met our Group Leader. He said that she had a depth of knowledge about Sicily — and its culture and history — that was impressive. Besides that, she was friendly, inspiring, kept us on schedule and responded to our questions and problems. (It didn’t hurt that on our first day in a lecture about Sicily’s diverse history, she dubbed him “Martin the Spartan.”) “It’s like having a favorite teacher in grade school,” he said of her. 

He was also grateful for “the best salami I ever had” on a trip for lunch on a farm near Etna. The family there made all our food, including vats of ricotta, which we happily sampled.  

The high point (literally) for him was our walk in the snow on a crater on Mount Etna. We were prepared for this with a lecture by a noted volcanologist, Boris Behncke of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. 

Martin also loved the entertaining and voluble chef Massimo Tomarchio, who took us to the market to explain how to identify the freshest food, from the juiciest tomatoes to the choicest of fish. Another favorite for him was a pizzeria in Taormina where we ate seven courses. 

We also had free time so could check out restaurants on our own, explore Taormina’s byways or just relax.  

Group Travel vs. Exploring as a Duo 

Martin appreciated that the activities, restaurants and trips would have cost much more had we arranged everything on our own, as we did when we traveled onward after Sicily to Puglia and Basilicata. There we found our hotels and bed and breakfasts, rented a car and proceeded to explore. 

But while we had more freedom, we also spent more time navigating the highways and streets and looking for parking (and getting lost). I remember one evening when we couldn’t find a restaurant that was open and ended up eating packaged muffins at a café. And the GPS did not always work in the countryside and our Italian Siri did not let us know of recent construction work in Alberobello — so we were stuck on a small road and could not get out for what seemed like an hour.  

We wandered around the dramatic town of Matera in Basilicata but missed many of the fabulous old Sassi caves because we did not have a guide or transport to reach them in the rain. 

Martin’s Reasons to Travel with a Group 

This is what Martin the Spartan told me that he loved about group travel: 

1. Having an inspiring leader who was knowledgeable about history, culture, food and transportation (and finding things several of us left behind). 
2. Meeting people he never would have met, from a couple who lived in the city that we had moved from to chatting with people with whom he didn’t think he had anything in common but magically laughed and dined and shared good (and bad jokes) with. 
3. Hiking, because when we walk solo or together, we rarely break a sweat. He simply loved managing the topography of a crater on Mount Etna. Never in our lives would we have imagined doing it. 
4. Not getting lost (a daily occurrence when we drove around towns in Puglia on our own). 
5. Not having to figure out bills and tips; most of our meals and service were taken care of. 
6. Meeting people who lived in the community of our destination — and even eating at their homes. 
7. Getting help when needed. We managed to share what would have been an expensive ride to the airport with other travelers and a trusted driver. 
8. Having transportation when we needed it … and not worrying about parking or missing a train or plane. 
9. Having someone to tell us what we were seeing, which we appreciated almost every day, from walking through the ancient Greek theater in Taormina to wandering through the fish market in Catania. 

Some Reasons to Explore Alone 

That’s not to say that there were things he did miss while traveling with a group:  

• Tripping over a serendipitously fascinating discovery that inspires joy 
• Getting lost (sometimes not so bad) 
• Sleeping in late and eating when we felt like it 
• Being alone or exploring with just the two of us 

Eureka! We Can Do Both 

But I found that Martin understood that we can do both — travel with a group or take off with just the two of us. Or we can travel in a myriad of other ways — with family, friends or even solo.  

This trip to Sicily made me think back to 2019, when I wrote a blog for Road Scholar titled, “Eight Reasons Why I Travel Without My Husband.” One of the reasons I listed was that sometimes mates have different ideas of where or how to travel. Another one on the list was that absence makes the heart grow fonder … but so does traveling to gorgeous places without the pressure of where one will stay, eat or visit next. It’s a path that I believe we’ll happily be taking again soon.