In a new place, I look up an area of town and find a bookstore first—an independent bookstore. The people who work there always know the best things about a city: the cool cultural events that are happening in town, or a concert you might be interested in. And you can pick up a book [about the place] that you can read while you’re there. Back in the day, when I was a young actor going to different cities, I would look for independent record stores in the same way, but that’s changed a little bit over the years.
Traveling with kids can be eye-opening—for them, as much as for you.
Sometimes when people have kids, they’re afraid to travel with them. And I understand that, as you hear all kinds of horror stories. But my feeling has always been different. Every time we travel somewhere with our kids, even if it’s just two hours away, they make developmental leaps. Especially when they’re little, in the early years. From age 2 to 8- or 9-years-old, shaking up their routine a little bit is superinteresting. They see different things, learn different stuff, try different foods. You don’t have to go to Europe. You can go a short drive away, and they will have a whole new world exposed to them.
Don’t assume you’re limited to just one hot towel on any flight.
I work with Olay, so I have brand loyalty to that when I travel, and it produces a mask that’s really easy for traveling because it’s a stick—you just stick it on your face like you would sunscreen, then it’s easy to take off. And flight attendants will always give you a hot towel if you ask nicely and aren’t buggy. Don’t be afraid to do it. I rarely ask for anything on flights, even five-hour ones, so they’re more than happy to give me an extra towel or two.
Even road warriors should carve out time to travel for fun .
My friend Ed Droste is the lead singer of the band Grizzly Bear. He’s one of the best travelers I know. He’s traveled all over the world with his band, and he’s accrued so many miles—but he still takes advantage of lulls in his work and life schedule to travel. And I learned from him that sometimes the inclination when you travel so much for work is that when you get home, you just want to be home. But it’s really wonderful to reconnect with traveling for fun with your friends or partner or family. Because you’re not there for work, it takes the pressure off. You can really take your time.
The joys of being a shopaholic while traveling.
When I was a teenager, I took a summer trip to Europe—one of those ones where you went to 10 countries in two and a half weeks, and you come home and sleep for five days straight. This was the ’90s, the height of grunge, so I got two pairs of boots in London. I remember going back to school in Arizona that September, and even though it was 110 degrees, I was wearing those boots. I felt so worldly. My dad tells that story because he had given me his American Express card for emergency purposes only. And I called him from London, and I said, “I had an emergency dad. It was a shoe emergency.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.