Come spring, and the Call of the World sounds across the land. Never before have the multitudes been quite so willing—or so able—to respond.
More than 15 million Americans went abroad in 1966, and this year that figure may go up by as much as another 2,000,000. Why now? Says Travel Guide Temple Fielding: "The big story this season is the enormous increase in mass—v. class—tourism." Adds San Francisco Travel Agent Boyan Ribnikar: "With those group air fares, how can you afford to stay home?"
Indeed, the main reasons for the big summer exodus from America this year are that the new low-fare airline deals for groups (as little as $230 round trip to London) and the go-cheap package tours ($398 for 15 days visiting London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Nürnberg, Innsbruck, Venice, Florence, Rome, Lucerne and Paris). Such prices are within the range of almost everyone—from $90-a-week secretaries to $7,500-a-year family men. And already the big international airlines—TWA, Pan Am, BOAC —are booked solid for their 21-day trips throughout July and early August.
Still, pick a spot—any spot—and the chances are good that there is a way to get there. Most popular are the traditional stopovers—London, Paris, Rome—though many of the bargain spots of yesteryear are now hopelessly overcrowded. Out this season, says Fielding, are Torremolinos on Spain's Costa del Sol ("It has been overrun by the beats and the yé-yés; there are five different sexes there at least"), the French Riviera ("fading fast"), Italy's Adriatic coast below Venice ("absolutely overrun with Germans"), the islands of Ibiza and Majorca ("This stabs me in my left ventricle and in the right one too; we make our home there"), and Lucerne ("It's a madhouse; more than 30,000 people visit the city daily").
For 5,500,000 Americans, the summer's travel will be a relatively short-range junket to Canada's Expo 67, the greatest show on earth this year. But for the millions more who want to wander farther afield, there is encouraging news that abroad better basic accommodations, more imaginative frills and a warmer welcome await them.
IRELAND is celebrating the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's birth and offers a $100, eight-day "literature" tour that goes to Dublin's Trinity College, Celbridge Abbey and Kilkenny City. The old sod expects a record year, including visits from Jacqueline Kennedy and 31 members of Chicago's Grandmothers' Club. Awaiting them will be everything from a $95-a-week "floatel" on the River Shannon to an army of newly popular pub balladeers and manorial dinners which will be served in medieval castles.
ENGLAND, accustomed to the annual American demand to see Windsor Castle and the Shakespeare country, will spice up the trip with a bit of 18th century sophistication. For $150, travelers can take a three-day tour in a 17-seater coach-and-four; the package includes meals and rooms at medieval inns along the way. Scotland beckons with the Edinburgh Festival. Newly popular: such far-north Highland hideouts as Aviemor, 30 miles from Inverness.