The difference is that, with travel, you plan everything. When you’re adventuring, you don’t, and Pam Gaitskill, 61, doesn’t necessarily like to have a plan. She and her husband John, retirees who have been married 40 years and live in Hendersonville, have traveled—or rather, adventured—to every continent except Antarctica.  

So how exactly do they travel without a plan? They pick a destination and figure out the rest when they get there, an approach they have taken since their first big trip to Europe in the early ‘70s. Pam took a break from her library job in Versailles, Kentucky, and John from his job with the Kentucky State Department of Natural Resources. They dropped off their five-year-old son with his grandmother and headed to Germany, first staying with a friend in the Hunsruck Mountains. Then they borrowed camping equipment from a military base, rented a car and drove to Italy in search of the small town of Monza and its world-renowned racetrack. When they arrived, the track’s pit toilets were in terrible shape, and worse, she had to pay a few liras to use them. There were dead chickens hanging up in stalls. “I had only ever been to the Bahamas,” Pam says. “It was a shock.”  

They didn’t speak Italian, had a rudimentary map and couldn’t read the traffic signs. Still, they made it to Monza, stayed a few days and somehow made it back to Kentucky. Pam and John moved to Chicago shortly after and Pam continued her library career at Prairie State College, but they kept an eye out for cheap flight fares, adventuring when they could find time and money. They flew to Paris and Dublin for long weekends when tickets were cheap. Then John got his pilot’s license and, in 1984, became part owner in a small plane, enabling them to explore North America at their leisure. Through connections with other pilots they met through the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, they explored other countries from the air, including a trip to Australia where they rented three planes with friends to explore the outback and Northern Coast. 

Their biggest adventures have been in Africa, where Pam has visited twice, John four times. Twice they rented a plane in South Africa and flew to nearby countries, including Zambia and Botswana and along the western coast, through Swaziland and into Cape Town. On those trips, Pam says, they were flying by themselves, negotiating for landing and customs clearance in every country, an adventure in itself. Near the Zambezi River Gorge, they stayed in a thatched-roof hut in a camp that has since burned down. From the showers in the camp, Pam remembers you could look out over the Zambezi River Gorge and Victoria Falls, a 360-foot waterfall that is one of the largest in the world. You can see spray from the falls, which rises more than 1,000 feet in the air, from 30 to 40 miles away. It was not unusual, Pam says, to see hippos in the Zambezi River below, or giraffes or elephants nearby.

In Africa, Pam and John made meaningful connections with local people and witnessed poverty far beyond anything they’d seen in the United States. At the Zambezi River camp, there was no running water, no indoor toilets, no electricity and, for the most part, no cars. Getting to a computer for email might mean a six-mile walk down a muddy road to catch a bus to a nearby town. While at this camp, Pam met and made a strong connection with Serafina Sikuvwaza, then a principal at the local school. They now keep in touch regularly through letters. 

Pam says that before she dies she must see the pyramids of Egypt, but in the meantime, the Gaitskills are headed for Scotland in mid-August. They like Celtic music and they’d like to see Loch Ness. Even if they don’t see a monster, they’re not doing much planning in advance, which means the trip will be not just be a trip but an adventure. –Janet Hurley 

Travel Talk The Gaitskills often give talks at the Henderson County Library’s Travel Club, which has programs at 3pm the first Monday of each month. Check this website for details and schedule changes: www.hendserson.lib.nc.us./travel_club.