Best and worst travel sayings

October 2005

When you fly into a new destination, you often hear some saying about it. It could be a motto, like “The Windy City” for Chicago, or a sly turn of phrase, like “City of Lost Wages” for Las Vegas. Here are some of my favorite travel sayings: good, bad and ugly.

Let’s start with some sayings that have grown old to me.

If you haven’t heard them before, enjoy. If you have, then groan along with me.

• Denver. “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” Cute and true, but three hundred times? Enough already. Besides, I’ve heard it said about half a dozen other places.

• San Francisco. “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Besides being confusing, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Mark Twain, the alleged commentator, must have been nipping at his brandy when he uttered that famous remark.

• Phoenix, Arizona. “But it’s a dry heat.” Phoenix certainly lies in a hot region. So hot, in fact, that the average temperature in the summer is over 100 degrees. If I open my eyes and the air singes my eyeballs, I don’t give a crap if it is a “dry heat”—it’s still bloody hot! In Alaska, do they excuse their cold weather with, “But it’s a dry cold”?

• Australia. “The toilet water flushes in the reverse direction because it is south of the equator.” Whether it’s true or not isn’t the point. It’s hard to find a toilet in Australia that flushes in a swirling motion to begin with. And then when I do, I always forget which way it swirls back in the States. So there I stand, feeling stupid, hunched over a toilet watching the direction of the whirlpool. “G’day, mate!”

• Singapore. “It’s a fine city.” There are fines for littering, spitting and even chewing gum in public. I like Singapore, but I find the lack of diversity boring. To me, it is a fine but sterile city.

• Greenland. It’s not. And Iceland isn’t, either. Every time I fly over these two places, I figure the Vikings just mixed up the two on their maps.

Now here are some state and city mottoes that puzzle me:

• New Jersey: “The Garden State.” I have to admit I haven’t seen many gardens in New Jersey. Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough.

• Florida: “The Sunshine State.” What a crock. It rains more there than anywhere in America, except Seattle. “The Sunshine State?” More like “The Soggy State.”

• Beaver, Oklahoma: “Cow Chip Capital.” Is this a good thing? Careful where you step?

• Reno, Nevada: “The Biggest Little City in the World.” I get confused every time I think about it. And how did Reno qualify for the title, anyway? • San Francisco: “Baghdad by the Bay.” Who knew that one would come back to haunt them?

• Oregon City, Oregon: “The End Is Just the Beginning.” It sounds like someone has been smoking the plants over there.

• Buffalo, New York: “It’s Good for You.” What? Six feet of snow?

• Austin, Minnesota: “Spamtown, U.S.A.” So that’s where all those Viagra pushers live.

• Fredericksburg, Virginia: “Where History Never Gets Old.” Actually, I like this one.

In my search for state mottoes, I stumbled upon some humorous ones. I mention them here in fun, with no intent to offend.

• California: “Se habla espanol.”

• Connecticut: “The “C” Is Silent. No, the Other One.”

• Florida: “The Gunshine State.”

• Idaho: “Cogito Ergo Spud: I Think, Therefore I Yam.”

• Kentucky: “Tobacco Is a Vegetable.”

• Missouri: “Missouri Loves Company.”

• Montana: “More Cows than People.”

• Ohio: “Don't Judge Us by Cleveland.”

• South Carolina: “Just South of North Carolina.”

• South Dakota: “Closer than North Dakota.”

• Vermont: “Bet You Can’t Name Two of Our Cities.”

• Washington: “Come for the Protests, Stay for the Coffee!”

• West Virginia: “It’s All Relative.”

• Wisconsin: “Cutting the Cheese Since 1848.”

There are many more but I am sure that I have offended enough people by now. And just so you’ll know I’m not a heartless cynic, here are my favorite travel sayings, the ones that I never get tired of:

1. “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

2. “A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”

3. “He who runs fastest doesn’t always arrive first.”

4. “The most difficult step of any journey is the first.”

5. “The best journeys are not always in straight lines.”

6. “One time seen is better than one hundred times heard about.” (Czech saying)

7. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” (John Steinbeck)

8. "I'm not lost, I've just temporarily lost sight of my destination."

9. “Not all who wander are lost.” (J. R. R. Tolkien)

10. And my personal favorite: “When traveling, he who laughs, lasts.”

OK, readers, chime in. What are your favorite travel sayings? Which ones annoy you the most?  There are prizes for the top responses.

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