Meet Our Editor Richard Bruce Turen
Richard is a graduate of an American Indian College with a major in History. He received an MBA in International Relations before pursuing a Doctoral program in Political Science at the University of Maryland. He has been a soda jerk, a nightclub bouncer, a stand-up comedian, a college instructor in Political Science, a teacher, the Founder and Headmaster of an American School in Tuscany, a syndicated travel and food columnist, host of a travel talk cable TV series that ran for fourteen years, a cruise line executive during the Love Boat years, author of three books on Travel and Restaurants, and a syndicated restaurant reviewer. He is currently the Senior Contributing Editor at Travel Weekly, the industry’s most respected travel industry publication. Richard and his wife Angela launched a new type of vacation planning firm, Churchill & Turen Ltd., in 1987. Since its launch, Churchill & Turen has won more “World’s Best Travel Specialists” Awards than any other travel firm in the United States. The Turen’s have been named “Top Worldwide Producers” for the $26 Billion Virtuoso Luxury Travel Group four times. They currently have clients in 48 states and seven countries who utilize their services to plan upscale cruise and tour vacations worldwide. Last year, 91% of their services were offered on a complimentary basis. Richard Turen can be contacted at rturen@traveltruth.com He can also be reached at Churchill & Turen Ltd. 630-717-7777
THE COMPLETE “REALITY CHECK” COLLECTION
These articles are not written by a travel freelancer. Richard was an executive with one of the world’s major cruise lines and then went on to design a unique worldwide vacation planning consultancy that has won numerous worldwide awards. He works every day helping clients in 46 States and six countries plan some of the most important moments in their lives. He is currently the Senior Contributing Editor at Travel Weekly magazine and writes the column “Reality Check”. The majority of the articles on this site originally appeared in Travel Weekly which is owned by Northstar Media. Articles from Travel Weekly are copyright protected and may not be used without authorization from Northstar. Quotations are permitted.
Richard is not a “travel writer”. He writes for a specific audience – cruise line, tour, and airline management and agency owners and advisors. He does not go on free press trips and come home with glowing reviews. It is important to know this as the wording and orientation of much of what he says will seem somewhat “insider” and geared toward those in the industry. To read Richard’s current articles simply Google his name. We should also mention that Richard, and his wife, Angela, have taken their annual overseas vacations for the past 29 years, accompanied by at least thirty clients from all over the country. You will often see references to these travels which offer the perspective of thirty or forty sets of eyes without the burden of being beholden to anyone providing anything for free. Enjoy your travels with Richard. His articles are, we are told, best enjoyed with a decent glass of Washington State Pinot Noir.
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RECORD CROWDS AND ARMS OUTSTRETECHED FOR SELFIES: THE NEW ITALAIN VACATION
After more than two years of dreams placed on hold, we are all back in the travel saddle again heading for lands with undulating hills embracing tranquil streams not far from whimsical villages where the locals line the roads welcoming back tourists from the States. It will all be magical again. I’ve read numerous surveys about where Americans want to go, but much of it is wasted on me. For the most part, everyone wants to go back to Italy or, perhaps, to explore it for the first time. When we talk about post-Covid bucket lists, there are the eternal…
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A FEW TRAVEL SHOTS ACROSS THE BOW
I have this feeling that our reading of media might be more accurate and more easily digested if columnists were allowed to simply state some opinions or biases upfront – without long explanations. “Travel planning overseas is easy. Skip the three-star Michelins and decide you are going to find the world’s best sandwiches. To begin with head to Florence and All’ Antico Vinaio. Then, spend a few weeks searching for “second best”. “For reasons I won’t go into at this time, I once flew home from Paris in coach where the movie shown was Les Miserables. It was interesting to…
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RULE # 1 – BEWARE FAKE REVIEWS ON ‘CRITIC’ SITES
I have been thinking of a brief moment from my early 20s. I was driving down St. Catherine Street in Montreal one lovely summer evening in my new gold Mustang convertible with a beautiful lady by my side. The top was down, and at the perfect moment, my favorite song by Charles Aznavour came on the radio. Since those days, I’ve yearned to return to Montreal with the goal of dining at its very best restaurant. I’ve always considered both Montreal and Quebec City to be “convenient” outposts of Paris, and I still can’t understand why more of my…
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BEDS I HAVE KNOWN AND SOME I HAVE LOVED
My family didn’t stay in hotels. They thought the concept was ridiculous if your home had a bedroom. Later, in my teens, the family took its first vacation to a resort in upstate New York, where I developed a crush on Natalie Wood, who was filming a movie on the property. I even had dinner with her twice. I took a liking to Southern fiction and kept imagining roadtrips filled with one-pumps, cicada swarms, Moon Pie emporiums and ivy-covered, magnolia-dripping small hotels of character. The thing about the writers I followed — folks like Lee Smith, William Faulkner, Harper…
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MY MOST LACKING TRAVEL SKILL: FAILING TO GIVE CLIENTS SMELL ADVICE WHEN THEY CROSS BORDERS
When I entered this industry, humpteen years ago, my goals were fairly straightforward. I needed to get people safely from place to place. Generally, they told me where they wanted to go and I knew which buttons to push to get them there. But then, along the way, something happened to my rather clear job description. Clients, I observed, were making a lot of wrong decisions, and I began to become uncomfortable with this whole “travel agent” thing. I didn’t like robotic reservations and I started to observe a whole new breed of travel agent. I would, I decided, get…
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A LETTER FROM AFGHANISTAN’S AMUSEMENT PARKS, BEIJING AIRPORT, AND THE OUTDOOR TERRACE OF THE GRITTI PALACE
Stories about the pandemic and those about the impact of Russia’s attack on Ukraine are, we can all agree, totally newsworthy. And each is affecting our professional lives in some dramatic ways. But as a “serious” travel columnist, I feel an obligation to talk with you today about some travel news stories that seem to have been missed by my competitors: Let’s begin with your leisure business to Afghanistan. Taliban fighters who have been embroiled in a 20-year insurgency now control the country. So now that they are in control, what do these fighters want to do most? Well, it turns out, they have…
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A LETTER FROM VENICE
I am, at the moment, seated at a café, on a side street, just behind the Church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice. But putting pen to paper is, for some very good reasons, a very daunting task. It is trip number eleven to this city and I still don’t have a handle on it. Why is it that we feel we have finally seen Rome and experienced Florence? But Venice, ahhh, that’s another story. It is a different city in the rain, a quaint Italian metropolis in the winter, a hot, crowded kaleidoscope of moving humanity framed by…
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A LETTER FROM TUSCANY
Dateline: Montefiridolphi, Italy The fox emerged from the olive groves, crossed the outdoor terrace, and slowly walked through the open door into the dining room where I was hosting my group’s arrival dinner just four nights ago. We are staying in a series of restored Tuscan farmhouses on the Åntonori family wine estate. The fox wasn’t on the itinerary. Our Italian hosts immediately walked up and fed him some rather good pappardelle with a bit of rabbit sauce. He took what he could, looked us over and preceded to walk back out to the terrace to sit in…
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THE MOST IMPORTANT TRIP OF MY LIFE
12.18.06 The man’s name is Mr. Wu. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but I did pause to read his letter. Mr. Wu thanked us for visiting his facility. He hoped we found our stay satisfactory. He explained that he took pride in his work and he asked us to contact him if there were any service problems of any kind. He listed two local mobile numbers. He wished us a wonderful stay in his country and, again, emphasized that we should call him if we need him. This is only interesting because Mr. Wu is the…
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BREAKFAST GRITS AND A TABLE FOR LUNCH
BREAKFAST GRITS AND A TABLE FOR LUNCH This road trip started out from our home in southwest Florida. Instead of driving the Interstate, we decided to do back roads pretty much all the way to our destination, Savannah. There, I would attempt to realize a long-term desire to have lunch at their most famous former boardinghouse. It is on my “bucket list”. The hours spent driving the back roads that wind up through central Florida make you realize that, yes indeed, parts of the state are really in the south. But it is the south without magnolias and wisteria.…
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IS THIS SOUTHERN CHARMER AMERICA’S FAVORITE CITY?
What does it take to edge out San Francisco as the second best city in the Country? What kind of upstart creeps up on the City by the Bay and overtakes it in the latest Travel + Leisure Poll? I left portions of my heart in San Francisco when I departed several decades ago. It is a city that makes its residents cry with joy during moments of quiet contemplation, I could stand in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge walkway, look out at the Marin headlands, and instantly realize that wherever my life’s journey might take me,…
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THE ‘OFFICIAL’ APOLOGY TO CANADA
SORRY ABOUT THAT! On behalf of all of those who work in travel, on behalf of all of the readers of this publication, and on behalf of the citizens of the United States, I feel compelled to say, Canada, I’m sorry we’ve been ignoring you. It’s just been an oversight. It won’t take me long to prove how little we know about Canada. Just stop at the first big box store near your home and ask the first three shoppers you encounter to name the current Canadian Prime Minister. I promise you, no one will know Stephen Harper’s name,…
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A LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA
There is a light breeze coming off the water and I sit at an outdoor table at Fish Frenzy, alongside the Elizabeth Street pier in Hobart, Tasmania. I am approaching the midpoint of a cruise that began in Sydney and will end in Auckland. With a few days tucked in at either end, I will be away from the office for three weeks, the longest I’ve been away in two decades. As is my, peculiar to some, habit, I am not vacationing alone. I’ve been joined by thirty clients, most of whom I call friends. But let me start…
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THE NEW CRUISE LINE FROM THE FOLKS WHO BROUGHT US THE HOTEL OF DOOM
“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company. “ Samuel Johnson More than a few eyes in the cruise industry industry are now focused on the development of new business in Asia and the Pacific Basin… Costa was the first line to recognize that potential, placing a ship in China in 2006.They’ve invested more than 50 million Euros in the…
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A FEW REASONS FOR HOLIDAY OPTIMISM
“Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store” Dr. Seuss As Christmas approaches, it is required that any journalist fortunate enough to reside over a column of opinion, will find a way to spread some Holiday warmth to his readers. That is certainly my purpose today, as I would like you to join me as we spend just a few moments contemplating the true meaning of this Holiday. My Christmas message begins, of course, in the United Arab Emirates. It is now clear that guests spending the Holidays at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi will…
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YOU ARE NEVER ALONE IN THIS ‘VACATION” SPOT
This vacation destination was not a location of my choosing. My family out-voted me and so we are here, enjoying the sunshine, the nearby town, and the animal life. It is supposed to be a relaxing sort of place and I am doing my best. There is a lake out back and beyond that savannah with flatlands punctuated by pockets of dense foliage controlled by early-morning teams of machete-bearing caretakers. They do their best to control the jungle growth. There are small sand dunes everywhere and I do, I suppose, appreciate the mingling of the grass, the trees, the…
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OFF THE SILK ROAD AND ON TO HIGHWAY 4 TOWARD ORLANDO
As a rule, I don’t do road trips. I’m not sure that my professional responsibilities are best served by driving along America’s backroads, when I could be checking out the price of a Bellini at Harry’s Bar in Venice. Having been birthed in Brooklyn, educated at an American Indian college in the south, employed in Washington D.C. and voluntarily ensconced in Northern California, I felt that I had been exposed to what I needed to see in the United States. Just to be certain, I drove coast to coast a few times. There is mostly nothing there. Brooklyn was…
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IN DEFENSE OF GREECE: AND WHY THE FINANCIAL PRESS GOT IT WRONG
It became clear to me that Greece would become my adopted homeland about three hours into my first visit to the home of my future in-laws. I remember nervously pulling up outside their small house on Chicago’s South side. I think I already knew I would be asking for their daughter’s hand, so getting along with the “Greek family” was rather important. There weren’t any parking spaces in front of the house, and the driveway had seven or eight cars squeezed together. Strange, I thought. After parking half a mile away, I walked to the front door and entered…
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FUN FOR THE KIDS
When you enter a life of travel, you accept that one of the shining beacons on the immediate Horizon is the Disney Empire. It is an aspect of our working life that you ignore at your peril. Disney is packaged American wholesomeness, strung together like a chain of goodie two-shoe pearls along the travel landscape. Now, more than ever, it is a collection of travel products that brings equal measure of feel-good satisfaction to those who book the products and the company’s loyal cult of end users. There is some sense of comfort in the fact that Disney still…
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A ‘LOVE’ LETTER FROM IRELAND
As the Delta 757 touched down on the runway at Dublin Airport, the sound of “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” filled the cabin. The song is not new and this was an older version. And, to be perfectly honest, my travels to Ireland in the past have not always been in the best of times. There were the “troubles” and the economic downturn of past visits. But these days, Irish eyes really are smiling as the streets in Dublin and the villages I visited are filled with locals who exude a sense of optimism and appreciation for both the…
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MEET THE LARGEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD – FROM A DISTANCE
Las Vegas has become a city of superlatives, not the least of which is the steady growth of its room count. Somehow, Malaysia’s First World Hotel became the world’s second largest hotel property with 6,118 rooms, but four of the top five mega-hotels on earth are located along the same desert strip. The MGM is the largest hotel on earth with ninety more rooms than the First World. Las Vegas still holds the record. Even the fifth largest hotel on earth, the Venetian comes in at over 4,000 bedrooms. Each of the top five hotels is propelled by night life…
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AN EPIC BATTLE IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES
This is a story, a fairy tale really, set in a magical landscape filled with castle’s, the remnants of Norman conquests, a sheriff or two, and a fellow who thinks he’s David taking on Goliath. The villain is a giant from the west, Massachusetts, to be precise. Our story takes place in the tiny village of Uig, a sheltered bay with a village attached, created by the confluence of the rivers Rha and Conan in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides islands. Certainly, tiny Uig and its 363 residents would not expect that one of theirs might make news by attempting to take…
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HAVE I FOUND THE WORLD’S SAFEST PLACE?
The news was starting to get to me. Too much negativity. The world seems to be in a knot, a twisted, convoluted series of pressure points, any one of which can explode at any moment. My clients have concerns. I have concerns for them as they travel the globe. I needed to get away with the family, away to the safest place I could find on this angry planet of ours. So we packed up and flew fourteen hours on a new Airbus 360 to a place where I knew we would be safe and where I hoped we would…
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THE TUREN’S DO ALPINE EUROPE ON A MULTI-GENERATIONAL TOUR WiTH 21 KIDS – ONE OF WHICH IS OURS
This is a travel experiment that can go horribly wrong. For the first time in my life, I am taking a trip expressly designed for families traveling with children. As I walk into the lounge of the Hotel Schweizerhof in Lucerne at the cocktail hour to meet my fellow guests for the first time, I do so with a fair bit of trepidation. I scan the room. Everyone is there and I count 21 children, only one of whom is mine. Reality sets in quickly. My family will be spending an actual vacation without the company of several dozen clients.…
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FOLLOWING THE RULES IN SINGAPORE
Singapore: Well I’ll say this for the Singaporeans during this visit; no one asked me, just how many Americans are in prison. I’ve always been asked that in the past, usually on the way into the city from the airport. The question is important because you have to ask back and then they can explain that they have about thirty-seven folks in prison because they have “good order.” In Singapore, there is a price to pay for having “Good Order”. You’ve probably heard about the ban on chewing gum. In fact, you can chew gum in the city and…
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TAKING THE ROMAN FOODIE ARMY SOUTH TO SICILY: A TALE IN THREE PARTS
“The beauty of Rome is that you can wander into a pizzeria just about anywhere and get a real Italian pizza that’s thankfully worlds away from the Super Supreme I used to order at Pizza Hut as a kid” – Ed Stoppard Rome: For the twenty-fourth year in a row, my wife and I, along with our daughter, are taking our annual “vacation” in the company of two dozen clients from around the country. This year’s trip should be memorable, but it will not be particularly profitable. The planning has taken far too much of my time. Seeing Italy…
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THE ROOM BEHIND THE BLACK DOOR: A LETTER FROM REYKJAVIK
Landing in Reykjavik brought back a surge of sudden memories. This is how I had traveled in the distant past, saving my money for the Icelandic flights to Europe with a few hours on the return to spend in the world’s top-rated duty-free shop. The 757 had headrest covers with patriotic sayings. Mine read “The most amazing thing about Iceland is not Vatnjaokull, the largest glacier in Europe or that Iceland uses 99% renewable energy. It is the fact that the most popular restaurant in Iceland is a hot dog stand.” This time I am not passing through Iceland in…
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LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER IN PRAGUE
The streets here are mostly dark, with mounted torchlights on the older buildings and cobblestone streets reflecting writing in an undecipherable language off the facades of storefronts. As I walk at night I see spies in the alleyways and I sense ghosts above and behind me. You know if you are being followed as the only sound except for the occasional heavy metal coming from basement bars is the sound of the person walking behind you or, if you are lucky, toward you clomping along on the uneven stones. But I am wonderfully safe here despite the blocks of Soviet…
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SITTING DOWN IN THE DESERT
I rode a bit of bike and did some swimming in preparation for my yearly one week marathon race inside the still incomparable Bellagio in Las Vegas. Actually, I sat through most of the marathon except for those times I stood up at cocktail parties, where no one ever speaks to me for fear their words might end up here. It was our annual consortium gathering, a meeting that allows me to combine my career and my hobby into one giant conversation fest with virtually everyone I need to talk with professionally. The statistics this year were amazing. There…
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SWEET FIFTEEN AND A DAY AT THE BEACH
In large portions of Latin America, the celebration of a young girl’s fifteenth birthday is called Quinceanera. This birthday is significant, often taking on religious overtones, as it symbolizes the passage from childhood to young womanhood. The celebration is marked differently in the countries of central and South America, but the symbolism of the number fifteen is always sacred. There are fifteen candles, or fourteen friends and the Quinceanera recipient. In Brazil it is called the Festa de Debutante. This ritual of womanhood is generally unknown outside Latin cultures. But it is pervasive, both religious and celebratory, it is…
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A Letter from Vienna
The Austrian actor Erich von Stroheim once said, “If I speak of Vienna, it must be in the past tense, as a man speaks of a woman he has loved and who is dead.” In truth, however, based on what I observed during this visit, Vienna is very much alive. It is Mr. von Stroheim who is, in fact, dead. Long thought of as the gateway to Eastern Europe, a land of spies and sachertorte, Vienna has to be, for Americans at least, one of Europe’s most underappreciated cities. It took me just an afternoon to figure out what…
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OUR FOOD SOLDIERS TRAVEL SOUTH TO THE REAL SICILY
“Unni mancianu dvi. mancianu tri” “Sicilian proverb meaning “There’s always room for one more.” After beginning our culinary march throughsouthern Italy in Rome, we landed in Catania, the tip of the Italian boot, with views of Mt. Etna in the background the Mediterranean and the Ionian Sea forming suitable backdrops to a seemingly endless collection of historic leftovers from the conquering Greeks and Romans. Our first stop was to be the most odiferous in Sicily, the colorful, grimy, and superbly smelly main fishmarket. Two people in our group regrettably wore sandals, carefully stepping over fish debris that has missed the…
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A LETTER FROM ATHENS
“We approached Athens from the north in early twilight, climbing a hill. When we reached its peak, we were dazzled to look down and see the Acropolis struck by one beam of the setting sun, as if posing for a picture.” Donald Hall This was always illegal – but now it isn’t. The Greek government had passed a law that only Greek flagged ships could sail round-trip from the country. As there were no truly upscale Greek passenger lines, this was hurting the economy and was quite a boost for Istanbul. Over the years, so-called cruises to the Greek Islands…
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MY PERSONAL FAVORITE WORLDWIDE DESTINATION
MY PERSONAL FAVORITE WORLDWIDE DESTINATION (Reprinted by the Post Bulletin Rochester, Minnesota) Originally Appearing in As the Fokker 110 landed on the barren runway in a light snowstorm, it appeared I finally arrived in Siberia. There was one other plane on the ground. The dark gravel runway was nearly invisible as the plane finally slowed on the ice and pulled up gingerly to the gate. The wind chill of 30 below hit me as I stepped out of the small terminal to get into the beat-up taxi for the ride into town. This was not Siberia. It was Rochester, Minn.,…
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MEET THE REAL MR. CHURCHILL
It occurs to me, dear friends, that Angela and I have not yet formally introduced you to our business partner, Churchill. Actually, his name is William Sheffield Churchill, but we have never heard anyone call him anything but Churchill. He is certainly not a “Bill.” We first met when he was my agent during the time I was living in Tuscany in the late ’70s. His small travel agency was located on a narrow cobblestone street just off Via Guicciardini in Florence. He had moved to Italy from Devon, England, and we became friends. He was world-weary back…
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A LETTER FROM TONGA
Vava’u, Tonga: I am jotting this down in the midst of our annual family vacation. On this trip, as I have for twenty-six of the past twenty-eight years, I am being accompanied by more than 30 clients. This one should be easy. We’re sailing the Paul Gauguin on a rather incredible itinerary from Fiji to Tonga and the Cook Islands, heading northeast to the Society Islands on a 12-night journey. As sometimes happens, one of the trip highlights occurred before I ever boarded our ten a half hour Fiji Airways flight to Nadi. After two-stopping from our home in…
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AUSTRALIA BY SEA: IF THIS IS THE KIND OF PLACE CREATED BY EX-CONVICTS – WHY DON’T WE EMPTY OUR PRISONS?
There is a light breeze coming off the water and I sit at an outdoor table at Fish Frenzy, alongside the Elizabeth Street pier in Hobart, Tasmania. I am approaching the midpoint of a cruise that began in Sydney and will end in Auckland. With a few days tucked in at either end, I will be away from the office for three weeks, the longest I’ve been away in two decades. As is my, peculiar to some, habit, I am not vacationing alone. I’ve been joined by thirty clients, most of whom I call friends. But let me start…
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NOTES FROM RICHARD’S PARISIAN JOURNAL
American Airlines sent apology that I did not have lie-flat seat and placed 25,000 miles in my Advantage account. And I had never complained to anyone at AA. I sat next to both a French woman who makes her living teaching Etiquette and Manners to people in the States. She picked our flight because she loved the service she received from a Haitian gentleman who has been flying with AA for 27 years. He formally introduced himself and I shook hands. My traveling companion told me that the most important rule of good manners is to immediately extend one’s…
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A LETTER FROM SANTORINI: TRAVELS WITH MY GREEK FAMILY
This is my third return to Santorini and the small village of Oia on the northern tip of a volcanic mountain. The first time I visited the island I was under the command of a rather mad sea captain who dropped anchor a few hundred meters off the shoreline to announce over the ships P.A. system that he was going to be speaking directly with Zeus. And that is precisely what he began to do. Unfortunately, Zeus never answered. Once again, I was arriving by sea. We were quickly whisked away from the small harbor to begin the…
