Michael Brein’s Travel Tales Monthly Bookazine Issue No. 9 for March 2015 contains among the best travel stories from Michael’s huge collection of about 10,000 travel tales that he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of travel to more than 125 countries throughout the world. Why not laugh yourself silly with this collection of funny, hilarious, gut-wrenching, LOL (laugh out loud) travel humor. Oh yeah, we do our fair share of ridiculous, raucous, belly-achingly funny things when we travel. And, I ask you: is this NOT one of the most important goals of travel—to laugh ourselves stupid? Thank God, the funny happens more than the horrific; the ludicrous more than the lame—travel is never boring and never lacking in wonderful, memorable funny causes célèbre that stay with us for the rest of our lives. Whether falling through someone's roof on a horse in Afghanistan; whether getting soaked by taunting the ‘fountain gods’ on a lawn at a castle; whether being thrown out of a restaurant in Buenos Aires for dancing on the tops of tables; whether chilling your wine in a bidet, the funniest travel moments that make you laugh are a welcome counter to those rare horrible travel events that make you cry. And it is also these memorable stories that remain with us, isn’t it, after all is said and done, in our travels? Feel free to laugh out loud with these travel tales of humor presented here in this current issue of Travel Tales Monthly. For many people, life is all about getting laid, lauded or loaded, but for many of us, it is more about sampling the lives, the cultures, the oddities, the sights, the sounds, the foods, the drinks, and the humor of the peoples of other lands. For me, it is all of the above, but it is also about laughter. I like to laugh much of the time, and probably would ALL the time if I could. Laughing abroad is what makes travel especially memorable. Of course, we remember the times that we cry; but we do, indeed, also remember the times that we laugh. Introduction to Travel Tales of Humor: Funny Stories. Part 1 Travel Tales of Humor: Funny Stories is divided into two parts simply because there is so much material. Part 1 appears here in the current Travel Tales Monthly issue No. 9 Mar 2015 and serves as a general introduction to this subject matter. Part 2 The unabridged, expanded forthcoming ebook Travel Tales of Humor: Funny Stories, part of The Travel Psychologist Travel Tales Series, is a larger volume and includes both Parts 1 and 2. The travel stories in Part 1 consist mainly of the funniest personal travel tales of Michael Brein (me), the author. The travel stories in Part 2 are, largely, the funniest stories of world travelers and adventurers whom I’ve encountered and interviewed throughout my travels over the last four decades to 125 countries. Mostly, your travels will typically be exciting and interesting, but funny things can and do happen to you at almost any turn along the way. The freedom from the typical constraints of home that travel offers us allows us to act and behave in ways that are often atypical and different from how we normally behave at home. Thus, in travel, we can take a few more risks and chances and do a few more silly and funny things that we might not ordinarily do at home. With this expanded propensity for more silliness, of course, comes the opportunity for more funny times, more laughs, and more great memories. For me, I’ve found that I’ve reveled in acting out the ‘Fool’ or the ‘Clown’ in my travels, very often making people laugh at my own expense. It is all in good fun. I’m not typically like this at home but more so in my travels. I hope laughable events happen to you a lot. I sincerely hope that the funny travel tales of humor that appear in these pages make you laugh and give you a hint of what lies in store for you in your own travels.
