Seth Kugel
During his time as The Frugal Traveler columnist for The New York Times, Seth Kugel traveled across the world on a quest for authentic travel experiences. His passion for immersive travel first formulated when he lived with local families abroad: in Kenya during high school, in Paris during college; and in the Dominican Republic just after college. Through these formative experiences, Seth experienced local culture through the lens of his host families. And during his semester in France while traveling with a classmate, Seth realized the many cultural and linguistic benefits of traveling to small towns and the opportunity to really get to know the people. A proponent of frugal and authentic travel experiences, being invited into someone’s home is one of his top goals when traveling. He recently retired as the Frugal Traveler to pursue other projects. In our interview, Seth reflects on his study abroad experiences and his views on travel and shares what he is working on today.
IES Abroad: Why did you choose to study abroad in Paris?
SK: I was studying French, and I thought that being in a big city was appealing. If I could do it again, I would have gone to Nantes because I now appreciate the value of being in a small town in terms of language learning. But Paris is exciting! My mother loved Paris, and I guess that rubbed off on me. If somebody had said, “You can study French in Senegal,” I might have gone. Another reason is that I was a political science major, and I could take classes at the local university and earn credits that would count toward my major. Also, I was just really into French. I love languages. I was a very good French student.
IES Abroad: What is one of your best memories from your time in Paris?
SK: In Paris, it was my homestay. I was very lucky. IES Abroad put me with a very traditional French couple. They were grandparents. The woman stayed at home and took care of their granddaughter. The man was a lawyer. They were extremely gracious. They weren’t doing anything special for us, but they had very French dinners: small portions of things I had never had before, that the woman made in her small kitchen. Their granddaughter was adorable. She was probably seven years old. We became buddies. One thing I remember is that I wowed her with my ability to write in reverse, mirror image, with my left hand. I showed her that if you held it up to the mirror, you could read it. She learned how to do it. It was like we had a secret language, the mirror language. We called it ‘la langue de la glace.’
At one point I had a little romance with one of the other members of the class. It was all rather innocent, actually, nothing untoward going on. One time my French parents went away for the weekend and I decided to have her over. They came back early. My bedroom had a balcony and we were standing out on the balcony. We were in no form of undress whatsoever, in any way, I stress, overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. They had completely forbidden anyone to come over. No one could come over. We heard them come in, so I told her that she had to stay on the balcony and hide from the window. I said “Hi, your home early!” and they said, “Who was that girl on the balcony?” I said, “What are you talking about?” Then I realized they had me, so I said, “Oh, she just left. Didn’t you see her as you were coming up?” There was an elevator and there were stairs, so theoretically, they could have missed each other. Meanwhile, I have her out on the balcony. They said, “Well, you shouldn’t have had someone over.” They went to bed, so I actually put her on my back and walked her to the door so they wouldn’t hear two sets of footsteps. It was absurd. It didn’t harm my relationship with the family. We were in touch for quite a number of years by letter.
IES Abroad: What was your favorite field trip?
SK: What I remember most were the trips I took with a classmate named David. We could have gone with one of the bigger groups, but when he and I traveled, we spoke only French together. We were both very motivated. The best trip was when we went to Perigord in southwest France. That was an experience of learning the value of going to a small town. Parisians are mean in a cultural way. No one is actually mean, but it is not the warmest place. I really didn’t make any friends in Paris except for my homestay family. When we went to other parts of France, we made friends. I remember being in a cool old restaurant and talking with the owners for a long, long time and feeling like, “Whoa, this is small town France!” I travel for a living and try to go to smaller towns that are not very touristy. When they are not used to foreigners, they are genuinely more interested in you – “What are you doing here? Who are you? Tell me about life in New York.” There is almost a rule: the fewer the tourists, the happier they are to see tourists. For pure language learning purposes, I recommend going to small towns where people will really want to talk with you. It was going on these small trips around France that I began to realize that.
IES Abroad: What was it like to view French culture from an American perspective?
SK: It was fascinating to see how American culture manifests itself in other countries. The gameshow Family Feud, was on TV. I just loved it! Family Feud is the kind show where they survey the public, and then you have to guess how the public answered the questions. It is not only trivia, but it is about how people think in a particular place. It was very hard to answer because a hundred French people had been surveyed. “What is something you do right after breakfast?” Americans might answer, “Brush your teeth,” while the French might answer, “Go to the cheese shop and buy something for lunch.” It was completely different, which was quite fascinating. In a classic American way, I said to classmates, you guys have got to watch Family Feud in French! One of the IES Abroad professors got wind of this and arranged for us to be in the studio audience. A dozen of us went. I had never been in a studio audience before, so that was an experience. They let us go up on stage and take pictures pretending to be competing. My French family thought that it was peculiar that I had this interest, but a year or two after I returned from France, my host family sent me a newspaper clipping that Patrick Roy, the host of Family Feud in France, had died of cancer.
IES Abroad: What lessons in travel did you learn from your time in Paris that influenced your work as a travel writer?
SK: There are lessons in just being in the house of a real person. Living with the family in France wasn’t the first time I had done that. When I was in high school, I went on an exchange program and stayed with a family in rural Kenya. Then, I lived with a family in Paris on the IES Abroad program, and right after college, I taught in a Teach for America program and went with one of my immigrant students and his family to the Dominican Republic for the summer. That is three formative experiences between the ages of 15 and 23 in which I had lived in the house with a family while abroad. The more interesting part of any trip is not so much the museums or even landmarks and cute little streets, it is inside people’s houses where you see the real differences. The best thing that ever happens to me when I’m on a trip is to be invited into somebody’s house. That, in a way, is my number one goal in travel. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it is always very memorable. I wasn’t really aware of the value of staying in locals’ houses until later when I had to stay in hotels.
Certainly, I also learned the value of picking your travel companions. I really enjoyed traveling with David because of our similar desires to really dive in and travel. One thing I remember about him was that he was a serious practicing Catholic. He always went to church on Sunday. We traveled on weekends a lot, often in some town in France or in Germany. He would go to church and, of course, I’d go with him. To this day, I always go to church…I’m Jewish. I’m not even religious actually; I’m not a practicing Jew. But to this day, I always go to church wherever I go, if I can. It is almost like being in someone’s house. Religious services, especially Christian services – no one is going to turn you away from Sunday mass if you are not Catholic. No one is even going to look at you weirdly. They are going to shake your hand and even hug you. It is another way to get into a culture. It is also one of the easiest ways to meet people, especially after mass. People are typically in a warm, generous mood. I’ll often ask people at church for leads on great things to do. That lesson comes from traveling around with David from IES Abroad!
IES Abroad: You have traveled to many interesting places as the Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times. What places are still on your bucket list?
SK: There is some controversy over the term “bucket list” and whether that is a useful way to plan your travel. Of course, there are some places that I would like to visit that I haven’t, like Southeast Asia or India. But I have a different philosophy. I’d rather get to know a place really well than just be there for a few days and leave. Right now, what I want to do most is go back to Brazil, France, or the Dominican Republic. Those are three countries where I have spent the most time and where I feel pretty comfortable and speak all of those languages. To go to a slightly different part of France or Brazil, where I know I will feel completely at home but where it will be different and I can talk with people – for me, that’s more appealing than seeing a new place. The best part of travel is when you can actually feel at home in another country. Once you’ve got that, then I don’t see any reason not to go to that place again, or to a place that is quite similar.
IES Abroad: Why do you think frugal traveling leads to more meaningful travel experiences?
SK: A lot of times, people are scared of being socially unsafe versus actually be physically unsafe. I am completely in favor of doing things that are socially unsafe, things like talking to strangers and putting yourself in situations where you feel very uncomfortable. Those are things that we don’t automatically force ourselves to do. I see this as one of the problems with all kinds of travel today. Everything has been made so much easier to have a comfortable, sanitized experience abroad, and you don’t ever have to make yourself socially uncomfortable. I noticed this on my last trip. I did half luxury, half frugal trip to compare the two. I hired a guide. This is something I never do in my real life. He took me to a market in Quito, and I love markets. You go around and talk to all of the vendors, and even if you don’t speak their language, you can express “What is this?” But because I was with this guy, he did all of the talking to the vendors. I didn’t do this on purpose – I speak Spanish! It was just the structure of having the guide there. It impeded my interactions with the people. The parallel, of course, is life with a family. Make sure you are get out there and meet as many people as possible. Don’t travel in a big group. Travel with people like you who want to really speak the language.
IES Abroad: You recently retired as the Frugal Traveler columnist. What’s next for you?
SK: I’m a bit of a workaholic, and I had three projects going on at once. I needed to give some priority to my other projects. One of the projects is a travel book that I am writing that will talk about some of the things we talked about today. It will come out next year, hopefully. The other is a fairly popular YouTube channel I have that is directed at Brazilians visiting New York. Up until the Brazilian economic crisis, Brazilians were the third largest group of tourists coming to New York. We did a channel that basically helps them visit New York better. Although we give tourist advice, it is mostly about fitting into New York and the cultural differences between Brazilians and Americans. In a sense, it is my vision of travel, which has been evolving over all these years. It is definitely just as important to know how not to offend people as it is to know where to go and what to see. More importantly, it is important to understand that there can be different ways of thinking about things in the world. Take my host mother in Paris. She never put cheese in the refrigerator. That is shocking to a twenty year old American. It turns out that there are real reasons NOT to put cheese in a refrigerator. At the same time, there are reasons TO put cheese in a refrigerator. It kind of depends on what you want from that cheese. This is what we are trying to do for the Brazilians.
IES Abroad: What advice do you have for a student who is considering studying abroad today?
SK: It would be an incredibly dumb move not to study abroad. It is a unique time in everybody’s life, and it’s clearly beneficial to your education. There is no possible way that it wouldn’t be. I can’t imagine a better way to actually learn about the world in a far better way than you could possibly learn in your university. I guess that applies to working abroad as well as studying abroad. I feel like one of the more successful elements of my study abroad is that I did try to escape, to a certain extent, from the group of Americans who I was with. At the same time, I made some great friends while I was there. One of the dangers of study abroad is that it is easy to stay within the American group and not be adventurous or try to make local friends. I would just warn people that it is possible to go abroad and not really make the most of the experience. It is not automatic. You still need to work to have a great experience, even if you are given the opportunity to do this with a program as great as IES Abroad.