I don’t believe in souvenirs. Useless trinkets with memories attached are still useless trinkets that take up valuable space. A few months ago, when moving for the third time in four years, I lugged with me, for the third time in four years, a bag full of Mardi Gras beads. I can assure you, as I attempted to shove them in the top of my closet (and, failing to do so, they rained down upon my head), I wasn’t thinking about how much I loved New Orleans.

I prefer more ethereal keepsakes. For example, I just got back from West Palm Beach yesterday. I brought back with me the following things: sand, a heavy depression, a sunburn and roasted cashews. The sand, for the most part, is spread liberally and with much spite across my apartment floor. Some people call this “taking a piece of Florida with you,” but there’s a reason Florida isn’t in New York and it’s because I can’t afford a maid.

The depression stems, of course, from going through “lazy withdrawal.” This is a diagnosed medical disorder wherein a normal, healthy, middle class person tastes briefly the deliciousness of a life completely unobserved and thinks, “I need this.” Then it is all taken away, just like that. I like to think of my vacations like whirlwind romances. For a few days, it was the best of times. Then I realize there is no legitimate future with her, so I pick up and leave. Once I get home, I drink for a few days and look at her pictures, cherishing memories. Then Lost comes on and I forget all about her. Needless to say, the last thing I need is for her to leave some of her things behind.

The sunburn, though, is the only lingering reminder. Like love, it hurts at first but then fades from irritant into a nice, flattering tan. And, just like girls, I can never avoid sunburns. Call me a romantic. The second my pale, New York skin steps off the plane in warmer climates, the primal urge to undress and bask in the skin-damaging UV rays is overwhelming. More, hotter, harder, faster. (What am I talking about again?) Even knowing the omnipresent dangers of skin cancer, I am utterly brainwashed by warmer climates. Put me on a beach chair and I can’t help but think, “A couple of wrinkles and I’ll look like George Clooney. Oh Dan, you sure are handsome! I’m hungry.” But I digress. The point is, even when I am already burned and resort to slathering myself with the only available moisturizer (baby lotion) my equally brainwashed girlfriend convinces me to forge ahead. “I’m a 28 year old woman,” she says. “The smell of baby lotion turns me on.”

Until all I’m left with is a small bag of roasted cashews, courtesy of JetBlue. Though even those, over the course of writing this article, have been consumed. I’m ready for my next vacation, with no baggage to check.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

I was thrilled to bag Andorra, my 62nd country. The Andorra stamp in my passport is one I’d been after for years. And there it was, plain as day, right on its own page in my passport.

Andorra is a mountain valley with 70,000 inhabitants, all of whom speak Spanish that’s spelled with a lot of Xs and Qs. Andorra is the only all-native Catalan-speaking country in the world. It’s a beautiful, refreshingly sophisticated country with architecture that reminds you of Switzerland, not Southern France. It seems a million miles from Toulouse. And it has over 3,000 stores.

Andorra is the duty-free capital of Europe – people flock here to shop from all over the continent. There are always lines at customs going in and out of the country. I pictured people buying cigarettes and alcohol, but I was wrong. They were buying every brand you’ve ever heard of.

It’s now 7pm. The stores are closing in 30 minutes. I need a pair of boxer shorts and a new t-shirt for tomorrow. I manage to get them just in time (Italians, by the way, don’t wear boxers, and few French men do; I don’t know about Spaniards). I head back to the hotel for a nice shower.

Then I go for dinner. It’s the usual cheeseless pizza, but this one was memorable. I’ve never had a thinner-crusted pizza. This pizza’s crust was about as thin as a piece of shirt cardboard and extremely tough. I had to use a steak knife and bear down on it to break the crust into small enough pieces to eat. Easily the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten, and I was starving. And I was upset, because I’d just dropped my camera.

I had been tired after a long day. I was wearing my clean underwear and my new t-shirt, and I was hungry and looking at restaurant after restaurant trying to find a place to eat. It got a bit chilly so I went to put on my sweater. My right hand thought it was giving my camera to my left hand, and my left hand though my right hand had it. I dropped the camera onto the hard sidewalk and glass shattered all over. I pick up the camera and notice that the lens was pretty much okay. I’d shattered the UV filter I had on the front to protect it.

My friend John landed in Japan yesterday (or today, depending on how much you believe in the conspiracy of time zones). After working for a certain financial firm for over five years, he was finally sent to Tokyo on his first business trip. I would be very happy for him, if I wasn’t so busy being jealous.

When other kids were growing up dreaming of being sports stars and fighter pilots, I dreamt of being a powerful businessman. This was long before I knew what business was or that capitalism was a term of questionable integrity. All I knew from watching TWA commercials and primetime television shows was that there existed a profession in which well dressed men got flown all over the world for free. They even sat in a different part of the plane, and while I wasn’t exactly sure what they did with all the women they met at the hotel bars, I assumed it was fun.

Unfortunately, my life took a different direction. Somewhere between “I like to read; I’ll major in English” and “You want me to be at work how early?” I made a wrong move. Or several. I settled into a small law firm where I learned to appreciate traveling to such exotic places as Midtown and, once, Staten Island. I got to take a ferry there. It was a pathetically exciting day.

I don’t regret any of my choices, but part of me still longs for the opportunity to use the phrase “in town on business” – to show up in a city you’ve never been to before, to meet people you normally wouldn’t meet, and do the same thing you’ve done every other day of your normal office life only with everyone around you going about their normal office life. It is a type of travel unlike any other – not for education or relaxation or celebration, but for a purpose. Where perhaps in other circumstances you might feel compelled to linger in front of David, when you are in town on business you cast only a sideways glance. You are busy, and have no time for the distractions provided by a change of scenery.

In a way, it is the most pure form of exploration – not a contrived trip to a museum or guided tour of an ancient battleground, but a rapid absorption of a new and strange place simply by being yourself. To not go out in search of the place, but to let the place come to you. And, of course, to get paid to do it.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame