An unusual short Saturday blog, just a bit off topic. But yesterday I began to wonder if friends traveling with friends is everything it’s cut out to be.

For African tourism it seems absolutely essential to our survival! In fact, the idea of a “family trip” – now propagated throughout the industry – began in the 1970s with “family safaris.”

But yesterday as I was invited to a presentation at a local service organization of an African safari that one of the members took, I happened to have the most dissimulating thoughts.

Don’t we enjoy vacations in part because we can “get away?” And doesn’t “get away” mean from everything normal, all our normal responsibilities and social chores? Surely “getting away” doesn’t mean eating every single meal at the same table with someone important to your board or next fund raiser.

Or bringing along the kids that you had to kick out of bed for school and reprimand after their first drunk!

Or, for that matter, making sure that Mom or Dad eats a good enough breakfast.

This sounds heartless! It is! Personally, being a bonafide tour guide, there’s no vacation I can think of where I wouldn’t want my friends and family.

But not everyone is like that. Yesterday, I stood next to one of the nicest persons I’ve ever met, who with me was watching this wonderful presentation of a safari, in a packed room where we were just onlookers like everyone else.

And I remembered how “responsible” she had been during the trip to the group of friends she had organized. And I began to ask myself, Was that fair? Did she have any time at all to relax and absorb the wonder?

Saturday morning thoughts. Good with a strong cup of Kenyan tea.