Mapping out dreams of travel
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Columnist
Once Honolulu's Rand McNally store could give you the world. During its final days, it was take my country, Belize.
The store, which closed last week after an eight-year run at Ala Moana Center, was a place for travelers, both real and armchair variety.
If you were headed to China or Corsica, you could count on the store having a couple of handbooks and street maps to help make your trip a little easier. If you were just daydreaming about Antarctica or Argentina, the store's assortment of globes and guidebooks could fuel your fantasies.
In Hawai'i, where most of us are grounded by jobs, family commitments, two-week vacation windows and soaring airline prices, we look forward to our trips all year — maybe longer. Out of necessity, planning a trip becomes half the fun. That's where the Rand McNally store came in handy.
By the time I heard about the store's lost-its-lease sale, all the globes, luggage, global positioning devices and other really cool stuff were gone. By the time I got there Friday, only an odd assortment of guides, maps and electrical converters was left.
The leftovers, selling for as much as 80 percent off, presented a pretty good indication of the places where Hawai'i residents don't usually go.
There were street guides of Houston, Nashville and Pittsburgh. There were road maps for Iceland, Budapest and Western Turkey. Two dozen copies of a traveler's map to the Western Balkans, selling for 10 cents each, went untouched. A map of the hiking trails in Sussex County, N.J., was looking for a good home.
The language books for France, Spain and Japan were gone. But for half-price you could still get little phrase books for Hebrew, German, Lao, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Indonesian and Romanian.
There were dozens of little electrical converters that would let you plug in an American iron or alarm clock in India, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Israel, Great Britain or Singapore. One last cigarette lighter adapter "suitable for overseas use" was available, too.
Most of the big countries were gone, but for 75 cents you could buy a small flag of Saudi Arabia, the Comoro or Marshall islands, Bosnia, Belize, Bahamas and the European Union.
For the island traveler, there were U.S. Geological Survey section maps for Kuloa Point, Napili and Ka'u Desert. Ten cents each.
The travel books were pretty picked over, but you could still get "147 Fun Things to Do in Houston, Millennium Edition" (No. 38: Livestock auction; No. 65: The George Bush Presidential Library;) Fodor's "Pocket Buenos Aires," or the "Lonely Planet Guide to Vanuatu."
In the end, I bought a map of the Greek Islands and a Slovenia guidebook. I'm not planning on going to either one soon, but you never know. There's no statute of limitations on travel dreams.
Mike Leidemann's columns appear Thursdays and Saturdays in the Advertiser. He can be reached at 525-5460, or at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
