in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
February 27, 2025
BY JOHN BUTLER — Lyn and Larry Mann have been travelling together for 53 years. They have a few nuggets of travel wisdom to share with the rest of us in their presentation entitled Travel Talk — Tips and Tricks that is the latest in a popular speaker series hosted by the Grey Highlands PROBUS Club, the Kimberley Community Association and the Grey Highlands Public Library. This free event, to which the public is invited, will be held on Wednesday March 12 at 2:00 pm at the Kimberley Community Hall, 235309 Grey Rd 13 in the village of Kimberley (doors open at 1:30 pm).
The couple met more than a half century ago while (not surprisingly) both of them were travelling separately through Europe. Greece was the meeting-place. Lyn had travelled a fair amount as a competitive swimmer in her early years, and after graduation she visited an aunt California. A year later, she and a friend decided to backpack through Europe.
Larry’s parents travelled extensively. Austrian by background, Larry and his parents had come to Canada from France when he was young, and trips back to Europe were part of his upbringing. And before 'adulting,' Larry decided to backpack through Europe.
The chance meeting in Greece led to a long marriage, two children and a host of travel adventures for the four of them — sailing, skiing and what Lyn calls “conventional travel.” And after their children grew up, the duo continued their travels as a couple.
While the amount of travelling they’ve done is exceptional, they both pointed out that much of it was done during annual weeks of vacation available to them while they worked for a living. It wasn’t necessary for them to become full-time nomads to pursue their passion for new places — they also had stable family and community lives (much of it in Oakville) when not travelling.
Each of them is able to describe moments of unforgettable awe that sprang for their travels.
Lyn’s unforgettable moment took place on Africa’s Serengeti Plain, travelling by Jeep. “At one point I looked around and in all directions, stretching to the horizon, were zebras,” says Lyn, “enveloped in clouds of dust kicked up by them and by migrating wildebeest that had come before them.” Their guide estimated the zebra herd was 250,000 strong.
Larry’s most vivid awe-striking moment took place in Egypt. They were in a hot air balloon at dawn over the Nile, and as the emerging sunlight crept slowly over the desert, it startlingly illuminated Queen Hatshepsut’s palace, a 3,500 year old cliff-side structure with lines as clean as if they had been erected just a few decades ago. “I was looking down on millennia of history,” says Larry, “and it put our own history in perspective.”
The couple point to positive changes that have taken place in travelling over the five decades since they first embarked on their wanderlust together. Google maps, WhatsApp, smart phones and digital cameras in these phones make it possible to navigate more easily and to stay connected to home and loved ones while travelling. The downside, they point out, is that travellers can become so obsessed with instantly communicating and recording that they are no longer 'in the moment,' not immersed in their newly discovered environment. They both point out the much greater access today to one’s money while travelling. “We aren’t as limited as we once were when American Express offices and travellers’ cheques were necessary when travelling,” says Lyn. And for travellers worried about the carbon footprint created by travel, there are now carbon offsets that can be purchased by travellers — these are essentially investments in environmental improvement programs such as tree-planting initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases in the environment.
Both of them still have dream places yet to visit. New Zealand is on their wish list, and so is the Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru, although Lyn admits that a visit to this Andean mountaintop site might be a bit too strenuous for them now. Says Larry, “We still have dreams, but like all travellers, we have to admit there are some places we just can’t get to.”
Based on their experiences visiting more than 50 countries, Lynn explains that there are a number of ways to get hooked into travel experiences in addition to self-organized travel or travel through tour organizers. Participating in a temporary home exchange is one way, she says. Volunteering at international events is another way, and working as travel escorts is yet another.
Larry and Lyn both assert with some passion that there is a difference between 'deep travelling' and tourism. Deep travellers, they say, embrace the culture they are visiting, and such travellers are free of unrealistic expectations (there won’t be a McDonalds in every village.) Deep travellers are 3,600 travellers, taking the time and making the effort to witness everything in their field of vision — pleasant and unpleasant, enduring and transitory. Says Lyn, “A tourist travels through a country, not into a country, and is focused on itinerary, not experience.” Says Larry with a smile, “We don’t ‘do’ countries — if anything, countries ‘do’ us, in the sense that we are transformed, made more attentive, more open and more informed by what we experience.”
Listening to Larry and Lyn on March 12 in Kimberley, you may be inspired to travel yourself — but don’t get up and start your journey until you’ve experienced their full presentation and stayed to enjoy the snacks and fellowship that are part of each PROBUS / Kimberley Community Association / Library event.
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