Prepare for Departure: Interview with the Author, Mark Chesnut
Mark Chesnut and Meagan Drillinger on location in San Miguel de Allende
I’ve always said that the best parts of travel are the people you meet along the way. I have been blessed many times over with meeting incredible people from all over the world. But once in a lifetime you meet someone who just….gets you. And who you know will be in your life for its duration. One of those people, for me, has been my dear friend, Mark Chesnut.
If you follow me on social media then you definitely know Mark. He’s the gentleman who I’m often with in Mexico. You have seen us jumping on its many beaches, jumping out of fire ant hills, and sneaking out of large social events so we can get to bed early. He’s one of my favorite people to travel with. He’s also just as passionate about Mexico, and probably even more knowledgeable about it than I am. He most definitely speaks better Spanish than I do. And he makes someone like me, who has always felt a little odd, feel a little less alone in the world.
Mark Chesnut, author of Prepare for Departure, jumping on the beaches of Los Cabos
Mark also happens to be a remarkable writer and storyteller, and with all of this in mind, he recently published his very first memoir — Prepare for Departure: Notes on a single mother, a misfit son, inevitable mortality and the enduring allure of frequent flyer miles.
The book is brilliant. It’s one of those non-fiction travel books that will stay with you. It is funny, poignant, deeply personal, and highly relatable. Mark draws you into this beautiful world that he created as a child, in a place where he often felt friendless. It was a world built around travel and it was encouraged by the love and support of his mother, who helped ignite his passion for travel. The book travels back and forth between vignettes from his childhood and the final days of his mother’s life as he relocates her to a nursing home in Queens, NY.
Prepare for Departure, by Mark Chesnut
Anyway, you need to read the book for yourself. In the meantime, Mark was kind enough to do a Q&A with me, which you can read below. Happy reading and please get to know one of my best friends a bit closer. You’ll love him.
Q: Who does Prepare for Departure speak to? What will people find relatable about it?
MC: I’ve found that the book is appealing to a variety of readers — people who’ve dealt with aging parents and the loss of a parent, people who grew up feeling like misfits and have had to find their own way to acceptance, people interested in LGBTQ issues, and also people who love travel and who dream of following their passions. While the book focuses on my relationship with my mother over the course of our lives, it touches on a lot of very relatable topics that seem to resonate with people.
Q: Your mother helped shape so much of how you see the world and how you travel. Do you notice anything has shifted in your perspective since her passing? In other words, have you taken any greater meaning out of the travel experience now?
MC: Since my mother’s passing, I’ve developed a broader, longer-range view about a lot of things, including the importance of family and relationships and the importance of living in the moment, doing things while you still can — and also trying to accept the imperfections of our fellow humans. In terms of travel, this perspective means that I’ve been thinking more about how to balance travel while maintaining relationships with friends and family. We all have a natural balance that works for our lives, and like everyone else, mine is always evolving.
Q: For those who have not yet read the book, what was your earliest travel memory? How did that help mold the type of traveler you are today?
MC: I started flying and taking road trips with my family when I was a baby, so I can’t remember the very first experiences — and if I did it would be embarrassing because I was probably pooping in my diaper in the presence of disgusted American Airlines flight attendants. What I do recall is the overall feeling of excitement that travel has always brought me. As a little kid, it was exciting to smell the jet fuel on a cold winter tarmac as we boarded a plane to see my grandparents in Kentucky. I also loved our long road trips between Western New York State and Western Kentucky. Plopping down in the back seat for those trips meant setting off on new adventures — even more adventurous, of course, because back then we didn’t wear seat belts in the back seat.
Q: What are the destinations you are most drawn to? Why?
MC: As a kid, I was strictly a domestic traveler: Kentucky to see family and then additional family trips to Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona and California. And oh yeah, Canada, because I grew up an hour from the border with Ontario. Honestly, I still love retracing the routes of my childhood travel experiences. It’s a way to reconnect with who you are. But as a grownup I quickly fell in love with Latin America. I studied Spanish and love the fact that one language can allow you to connect with people in so many diverse countries, and each country is so unique. But I’m a true travel addict and I honestly love going just about anywhere. In addition to favorite places like Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, some of my happiest travel experiences as an adult have been in South Africa, Morocco, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic and England. In the United States, I’m in love with New Orleans and San Francisco. But basically, if you give me a ticket, I will go and find something to love!
Q: For those of us who grew up as "misfits," did travel play a positive role in shaping your identity? A negative role? No role at all?
MC: Travel played a HUGE role in my childhood and adolescence. It helped me to cope with being a misfit at school in what I now recognize as my beautiful hometown of Brockport, New York. I sucked at sports, I walked “like a girl” according to some kids and I had painfully inadequate social skills when dealing with most kids my own age. Who wouldn’t want to travel to get away from that? As soon as I jumped into my mother’s giant Ford Galaxie 500 and she pointed it toward my extended family in Kentucky, I knew I was headed to a place where I didn’t have to worry about what other kids thought of me. It was just me, my family and the excitement of travel. That has influenced my entire life. Of course, the first time I ever puked was on a Paducah-bound Ozark Air Lines DC-9, but hey, it was still worth it. I’m willing to puke if it means I can travel.
Q: Being a traveler your entire life, what keeps you going? Do you see yourself slowing down anytime soon? What keeps you so hooked on the experience?
MC: You and I have so much in common when it comes to travel that I love your questions; it’s like we know what’s in each other’s head! What keeps me traveling is the never-ending array of new experiences, people and places that are out there. Like you, I travel more than a lot of people, but there is always more of the world that I have yet to see, more things I want to do. I usually try to take one month off from travel every year, but it almost never happens, because there’s almost always some exciting new opportunity that I can’t resist.
I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon, but I do think my approach to travel continues to evolve. I used to go out to nightclubs a lot when I traveled in earlier years, for example. Now, I don’t care about that as much — although I still sometimes go out when I travel, to research nightlife for my articles. But I definitely need more recovery time the following day than I used to.
Q: You have made a wonderful life for yourself as an adult, but I get the feeling life as a child may have been lonely growing up in the environment you grew up in, feeling unable to really express and be who you were. How has travel changed that? How has your mother's influence on the way you travel changed that?
MC: I felt guilty about traveling during the final months of my mother’s life and didn’t leave home as much. My work as a travel writer, however, does require that I’m on the road sometimes, and my husband Angel and my sister both encouraged me to take a few short trips during that time period. Those brief breaks did give me some emotional space to destress a bit. After she passed away, my husband and I started taking longer vacations together again, and those trips were super important because they allowed more time for Angel and I to relax and reconnect with each other after such a difficult time.
Author Mark Chesnut lounging it up in Merida, Mexico.
Q: What is the message you hope to convey through the book? What feeling do you want readers to walk away with?
MC: I’ve been getting some really wonderful feedback from readers so far. I now realize that there are more people out there who can relate to this story than I originally thought, and it’s wonderful to feel that connection with people. Many readers have had similar experiences. In some cases, it’s feeling like they didn’t fit in when they were a kid and having to navigate their way to where they are now. For others, it’s having to deal with the illness and death of a parent or other loved one and having to find their own path to deal psychologically and emotionally with that difficult situation. And some people just love the whole travel addict/wanderlust angle.
I hope my book is giving a voice to these types of experiences. I’ve aimed to tell a story that people can relate to, laugh and cry about and ultimately feel like they’ve connected with someone who understands part of their story, too. Our personal stories are worth sharing and we can learn from each other. It can be cathartic to go deeper and share our emotions and I love hearing other people’s stories, too. But it can also be therapeutic to distract ourselves with travel. So now you must forgive me; I have to select a seat for my upcoming flight to Mexico City. Should I choose window or aisle?
Well, I think I’ve made my point. Mark is an incredible guy, who wrote an incredible book. You can get it here. You won’t be sorry!