In a few minutes the funeral mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy will begin. I am blogging while listening and occasionally watching the TV coverage of this event, this end of an era, a time that many of us mark our years by the joys and tragedies that befell the Kennedy family.

 

Chris Matthews attributed a quote to Tim Russert, "Why go to other people's funerals? They won't come to yours." I Googled that comment and the closest one I found (the subject line of this post) was attributed to Clarence Day, who authored Life with Father, and a variation to Yogi Berra.

 

The next Clarence Day quote on the site I visited was: "Information's pretty thin stuff, unless mixed with experience."

 

That quote describes one of the reasons I created Great Getaways. I'll explain:

 

My father, an importer of screws, nuts and bolts, began traveling around the world in the early 1950's. He found a way to combine a career and an avocation, his love of travel. In fact, my parents' honeymoon was a cruise—in 1939—wow! Back to my story: Dad and Mom often took my brother, sister, and me on family vacations, thus passing the wanderlust from parents to children.

 

As a toddler I had been to Wisconsin and Florida; as a preschooler, back to Florida, Wisconsin, and add a dash of California; in elementary school, I added many other US States, a freighter cruise from Toronto to Montreal, and a two week cruise to the Caribbean. Junior High years saw the addition of more US states and Washington, DC, London, Paris, Rome, and Israel. High school included lots more travel–more cruises, 2 weeks in Hawaii, many more visits to Florida and California, and a month and 1/2 in Israel.

 

I won't bore you with a laundry list of all the places I've visited since then. Suffice to say, I loved to travel—it was escape, it was adventure, it was living history—the stuff that made my life complete.

 

Over the years as I sought advice on planning my next adventure, I found that the best advice received was not by people who claimed to know about a destination, but from those who had EXPERIENCED the destination. Please don't read to me from a glossy brochure or fancy website—that only proves that your first grade teacher taught you to read. Talk to me, relate with me, discuss with me your personal experience—what you discovered, what you recommend to do as well as what to avoid.

 

17 years ago armed with a wealth of travel experience and no knowledge about how to operate this type of business, I began my company, Great Getaways. What I quickly learned (aside from the awkward DOS programs of airline software) was that as much as I had traveled, it was but a small dent in the many options available in the world. So, how to I keep to my belief that experience always trumps information?

 

Call it luck (when preparation meets opportunity), I was invited to become a member of Virtuoso (www.virtuoso.com), "a network of the world’s finest travel agencies with knowledgeable advisors who draw upon first-hand experience to craft the perfect vacation for you." Now, I have partners around the world who can offer you EXPERIENCE about any place in the world—and even in Space (you do know I'm an Accredited Space Agent for Virgin Galactic, don't you?)

 

So, who knew that one of the gifts I would receive today as I watch the final tribute to Teddy Kennedy would be validation by Clarence Day of the foundation of my company, that "Information's pretty thin stuff, unless mixed with experience."