“Third cities” and “Fourth towns”

“Everybody goes to the same handful of sites. If you just go to those sites, you’re going to have a trip that is shaped by crowds. Or you can break free from that and realize that you can study the options and choose sites that are best for you. You can go to alternative places that have that edge and that joy and that creative kind of love of life. ‘Second cities,’ I call them.”
”

— Rick Steves, Travel Guide Writer & TV Host, excerpted from The Atlantic

If you’re a parent or guardian of a teen for whom a trip to France would mean a first trip overseas, chances are good that that trip will be a seminal experience. So that prompts a question: what sort of experience should that ideally be? Nobody would suggest that first-time visitors to France shouldn’t try to see such must-see landmarks as the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, or Versailles. But during the summer, Paris is invaded by throngs of tourists. Visitors spend hours waiting in long lines and often have to jostle their way through the hoards, trying to keep from getting pickpocketed. It can be just as exhausting and frustrating as enriching. Many tourists can’t wait to get home.

A QBE expedition makes for a different type of European exposure. Most of our destinations are the “alternative places” Steves talks about—small ports where a traditional way of life still survives: folkways, local cuisine, architecture, even traditional languages: e.g., Breton in Brittany, Jèrriais (Jersey French) in Jersey, and Guernésiais (Guernsey French) in Guernsey. And that’s part of what makes a QBE expedition such a unique—even once-in-a-lifetime—adventure. Still, as we’ve suggested before, there’s no reason you can’t have your gâteau and eat it, too. Just tack on a few extra days to visit a cultural capital as well the provinces.

The potential impact of a new idea or experience

« ”Le pouvoir d'un livre” : retour sur cette très belle idée de l'artiste mexicain Jorge Méndez Blake pour présenter l'effet de la culture » 📕 (—From the Instagram feed of “Creapills,” a francophone marketing company that showcases innovative ideas, products, and projects on several social media platforms.)

Loosely translated—“‘The Power of a Book” [even just one book]: revisiting the very beautiful/ingenious idea of Mexican artist Jorge Méndez Blake to illustrate the effect of culture.”

We immediately connected the dots and noted the same artistic metaphor is apt for adventure travel, and perhaps particularly in the case of teenagers, youngsters whose minds are more malleable and open to new ideas and experiences.

Brocéliande

Brocéliande is a legendary forest situated around the village of Paimpont in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, about 17 miles west of Rennes and not too far from Saint-Malo. The forest’s ancient canopy consists largely of oak and beech trees, some of them impressively gnarled. Covering almost 35 square miles, it long has been associated with Arthurian legend and ancient schools of sorcery. Druids used to perform rites there (and maybe still do); the magician Merlin is rumored to have been buried there.

For centuries, Brocéliande has been a place where nature and supernature are said to mingle. English writer and poet Charles Williams noted that forests obscure the horizon—that distinct line where the earth and the heavens definably meet—and so ambiguity can dance in the shadows. Perhaps that’s why, in the imagination, enchanted forests are home to “unknown modes of being,” places of faerie, magic, and the black arts. It follows then that such places are believed to present immense possibilities as well as immense dangers. There are walking paths through Brocéliande. Maybe you’ll want to bring your hiking boots.

(Of course, if by chance you’re a fan of the long-running British TV crime show “Midsomer Murders,” you won’t want to go near a forest or copse; once you go in, you never come back out! That’s part of the “immense danger.”)

So, who sets the summer agenda these days?

Since we bought our boats a number of years ago, we’ve been trying to figure out how best to spread the word about our special expeditionary education courses. Among other things, we keep wondering, “Who really is our market, teens or their parents?” Just a few years ago the answer would have been “parents.” When your scribe went off to interview at a small Swiss boarding school years ago, the admissions director called my parents afterwards to inquire whether I would be enrolling. My mother responded by saying she would want to talk to me before making a decision. The admissions director then explained sternly that children DID NOT make school decisions. Parents did. Well!

But that was then and this is now. When we look through the marketing collateral of some other summer sailing options, we see ripped young men alongside attractive, bikini-clad young women having a grand time on the decks of sleek, modern boats. The only thing missing is a cooler full of beer. It looks to us like the collateral is meant to appeal to young participants more than their parents. After all, what 17-year-old wouldn’t want to crash that kind of fantasy island party?

But back to that boarding school—it turned out to be a wonderful place in a spectacular Alpine setting. A few students hated it, but most of us loved it. It was what you might call stylishly shabby, housed mostly in a few old converted hotels that oozed charm. It was reasonably comfortable, and it was warm in cold weather. We skied almost every day during the season, went on challenging hiking expeditions through the mountains, cycled around Lake Geneva in warm weather, and visited a number of European cultural capitals to see the sights and explore the museums. Will Sutherland, the QBE director, was our young sailing coach back in the day (we competed at Cowes Week). Most of us learned a lot on our mountain, became a family, and went on to lead interesting, fulfilling lives. Today that modest little school has a campus like a four-star hotel and costs a small fortune to attend. In fact, it is said to be one of the most expensive schools in the world. It certainly appears to be an entirely different place than the modest school my classmates and I attended.

Recently, I asked an advancement officer whether all the new bells and whistles were necessary; what did they bring to the table? I was informed that the school had to be competitive. Stylishly shabby would no longer cut it. The entire campus had to exude luxury to attract an extremely affluent, international clientele. There apparently is a fast-and-furious facilities arms-race going on worldwide, and especially in Switzerland. If you don’t keep up, you lose.

There is a group of us who think that’s a shame (nothing against a great computer or chemistry lab.) But there was something to be said for slightly dilapidated digs and students trekking through the mountains with a compass, a map, and a pair of old hiking boots. Roughing it a bit helps develop character, which is—or should be—one of the objectives of a good secondary education. “Old school” isn’t necessarily old hat. In fact, old school was, and still can be, transformative, not to mention useful in helping polish the æsthetic sensibilities of young adults—if that still matters.

Sean Connery as James Bond beside his Aston Martin DB5 on location in Switzerland.

QBE purposely uses classic boats with, for example, manually cranked winches. Our yachts don’t sail themselves like some modern boats (practically) do. Our cutters certainly aren’t shabby, au contraire. But they aren’t modern va-va voom. We’d call them old-school chic, much like James Bond’s iconic Aston Martin DB5. Anybody who liked that car will probably love our boats. And teens feel pretty special sailing them, not to mention a bit more special when they get home. In fact, it was the pilot cutters’ WOW! factor (along with QBE founder Will Sutherland’s rare teaching gifts) that helped persuade several of us to get involved in the project as investors and volunteers.

The question is, if teens are indeed making their own summer enrichment decisions, how do you convince them that, at least when it comes to small-yacht sailing, old school can be a spectacularly desirable thing?

The Case for Early International Exposure

In July 2018, Condé Nast Traveler published a piece entitled “How to Raise a Little Traveler.” They asked their young editors what they loved (and hated) about their childhood adventures: favorite memories, regrets, and rearview-mirror advice for their parents. Here’s what one wrote:

Start us young

I can clearly remember my first vacation abroad: I was five, and my parents and I were exploring the Irish countryside, driving through Co. Tipperary to see where my father’s family came from. We ate in pubs, hiked to castles, and saw a spectacularly large pig on a farm that made me question reality (seriously, this was the pig to end all pigs). Sure, I only ate chicken fingers and fries in said pubs, but I credit that trip with prompting little me to ask, constantly: Where am I going next? Curiosity was born [emphasis ours].
—Bridget Hallinan

We don’t take small children on our expeditions, but the point is well taken.

A tip

Why would a high school student not want to seize the opportunity to spend several weeks abroad on a great adventure? The surprising frequent answer: he or she doesn’t want to spend time away from a sweetheart. Now, we have no statistics on this, but we’ve heard it more than a few times. Here’s a bit of advice: don’t let any great opportunity slip through your fingers—grab it! You don’t want to look the word “regret” up in a dictionary one day only to see your picture. A few weeks apart is not a disaster.

It's Experience That Makes The Difference.

Albert Einstein once quipped that an education is what remains after you forget everything you learned in the classroom. At QBE (Qualified By Experience), we try to keep sailing instruction to a minimum and let crew members learn the ropes by themselves. That includes navigation. We teach participants how to do it, but then it’s up to them to chart their courses. Given a number of choices based on tides, wind, and weather, crew members decide where they want to go and how to get there. Sometimes, things go pear-shaped. For example, once in the Mediterranean, a crew set out for St-Tropez, in France, and wound up instead in Sanremo, in Italy. Mistakes happen. But everybody learned something about nautical navigation that day.

We use the boats we use because they are small enough for neophytes to sail without a lot of hands-on supervision. Of course, an instructor/skipper is always on hand to make sure the boat and crew are never in danger—and to answer questions—but our crew members are largely on their own after a few days of orientation. In fact, one of the biggest challenges we face is getting our skippers to shut up, stand back, and avoid the temptation to “over-teach.” When people learn by experience, they tend not to forget the lessons they learn.

Youth and Self-Confidence

In mid-January (2017), The Telegraph, a daily newspaper in the UK, ran an article under the headline "Half of young people have so many 'emotional problems' they cannot focus at school, study finds".

The following is an excerpt:

Professor Louise Arseneault, ESRC Mental Health Leadership Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, said: "Given the profound uncertainty surrounding recent political events and the fact that young people face the worst job prospects in decades, it's not surprising to read that one in four young people aged 16 to 25 don’t feel in control of their lives.

Professor Arseneault continued: “Although it’s obviously alarming that these concerns play on young minds, it’s encouraging to see that young people have an interest in actively shaping their own future.”

 Of those who do not feel they are in control of their lives, 61 per cent said they felt this was because they lack self-confidence [emphasis ours], and that this holds them back.

Sixty-one percent? Wow!

This blog is full of other posts, including links to news articles, that help identify the challenges of growing up in the modern world. Just scroll down. If you're looking for tried-and-true solutions, you have our coordinates.

Peter Thiel On Pushing Your Limits

Heuristic Learning In The Digital Age

Dave Snowden, founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge, and Joshua Cooper Ramo, co-CEO of Kissinger Associates and former senior editor of Time magazine, sat down in April 2016 at the New York Public Library for a conversation entitled "Edge Tools in a Digital Age: Social Processes in a Radically Contingent World."

At one point in the discussion, Mr. Snowden made an interesting comment about virtual reality (VR). He said, "If you don't engage the body in the (VR) game, you don't have a proper game. You haven't got stress, you haven't got chemical release...  [For example] Smell is an important determination of trust... It's the level of stimulus that concerns me. We are increasingly learning that things happen in the body chemically which influence consciousness, which has been vastly overlooked, and if you just rely on visual and auditory stimulus you're damaging human intelligence."

Adventure education is about heuristic learning—engaging all the senses in transformative trial-and-error experiences. When it comes to resilience, strong personal relationships, cultural fluency (and perhaps even cognitive acuity), there really is no satisfactory substitute for authenticity. We still learn best by taking on new challenges in the real world.

The more challenging the task...

—Jesse Itzler, excerpted from a video that appeared on the website Business Insider. Jesse, a highly successful serial entrepreneur, hired an ex-Navy SEAL to live with him in his NYC apartment for a month and teach him a few things about life. This is just one of his 'takeaways.'

Essential Skills for Tomorrow's World

In late February, 2016, GPS (CNN) host Fareed Zakaria interviewed Alec Ross, former senior adviser for innovation to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and author of a new book, The Industries of the Future. "It is a book written for recent graduates, predicting what the next 20 years will bring, which industries will boom, which jobs will grow, and perhaps most importantly, which skills will be necessary to compete." Here is an excerpt from that interview.

—ZAKARIA: So young people listening to this, parents listening to this, will wonder what should we do to prepare for this new world?

—ROSS: I have a 13-year-old son, an 11-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. And I really wrote this book to try to light a little path for them. Sixty-five percent of all jobs for children entering primary school today will go into job titles that don't presently exist. 

And so I have a chapter in the book called "The Most Important Job You'll Ever Have," which is parenting, which focuses on the skills and attributes that today's kids will need in tomorrow's world. 

And I point out two things, first: interdisciplinary learning. We've got to be able to take science, technology, engineering and mathematics and combine that with skills in the humanities focused on 65 percent of jobs go into jobs that don't exist. [...] I point out two things. first, interdisciplinary learning. We've got to be able to take science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and combine that with skills in the humanities focused on persuasion, teaching and other such things. 

The second thing I would say is language learning, foreign languages and computer languages. The world is growing more global. People who are prepared to work on a 196-country chessboard are going to be those who are best positioned [emphasis ours]—and computer coding because, if you are a competent coder, you basically have a few decades' worth of guaranteed employment in front of you. 

The drums are getting louder: early international exposure is becoming increasingly essential in the age of globalization. Just something to bear in mind when considering summer programs for teenagers.

The full transcript can be found here, near the bottom of the page:  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1602/14/fzgps.01.html

X Marks The Spot

"Here's the deal: I'll get us to this little island right... here. Then you have to figure out how to get us back home."