Months ago, I was speaking to a friend of mine, who happened to ask me about my recent trip to Budapest. I launched into a monologue. Of course. I spoke about the food, the people I had met, the castles, funny things that happened…only to be interrupted.

Him: Hm…yeahh…so what I meant by that was ‘How attractive are the women?’

Me: Please be kidding.

Him: I’m not.

I never told him what he wanted to hear. Of course. Truth be told, I almost forgot all about this conversation until I read “Essay: Chasing Beauty” in this month’s Travel + Leisure, where Guy Trebay admits that when he travels he hopes the locals will be hot. This is the point in this post where I’d like to differentiate between Guy Trebay and my friend: There is none. And I quote:

“…we also, secretly, want the strangers in the places we visit to give us something to look at. If not flat-out beautiful, we want them to be comely or stylish or to have something about that to please that most promiscuous of organs, the eye.”

“…getting to know inner beauty requires intimacy. And intimacy takes time to develop, and travelers generally have little time to spare.”

Saving grace, or what differentiates this New York Times writer from the likes of every straight male on Twitter when they heard Rio won the Olympic bid:

“This love is strictly platonic. You’d have to be a fool or a criminal to follow the lead of beauty hunters…who traveled with the idea of gratifying organs other than the optic ones and with faily predictable results.”

I’m almost afraid to ask how many people “chase beauty” while traveling. I mean, honestly, I’m starting to think that Guy Trebay is merely my friend’s nom de plume. Sigh.

xo

J. Justine

Travel + Leisure Magazine, October 2009, page 110.