Extraordinary Traveler Profile
Peter Greenberg
August 2024
Q: How old were you when you began to dream of and imagine extraordinary adventures?
Peter: It was the very first flight I remember (not my very first flight). I was six years old. my mother dressed me up and — I remember it distinctly — I never kept my seat belt on, and wandered up to the cockpit, where I proceeded to ask the pilots all sorts of questions. Before I knew it, the flight attendant had gently strapped me into the jump seat and I stayed up there the entire flight, including the landing. I was hooked.
Q. What is one of the more extraordinary travel experiences that you have had?
Peter: I can’t just give you one. It ranges from diving the rock islands of Micronesia to getting a security clearance to ride on an attack nuclear submarine on a still classified mission; traveling by longboat to the Lau Archipelago in Fiji; from exploring and camping the Wadi Rum with the King of Jordan; to climbing the Southern Alps of New Zealand. rafting the Nile in Uganda; skygazing and interpreting dreams with the Aboriginals in Australia; exploring still uncharted islands in the Antarctic…and I’m just getting started.
Q: Have you had a close call while traveling, and if so, did it motivate a re-assessment or change in behavior?
Peter: I’ve had a number. In Iraq war 1, I flew in on the first Kuwait Airlines flight to Baghdad, and ended up on the road of death. My car then got stuck in an unseen pool of hot oil (from the burning rigs in the desert), and thankfully the Red Adair firefighters quickly hooked up a large earthmover to my car and yanked me out, just before everything exploded. In the middle of the war in the Sudan, I was able to escape Khartoum within five minutes of the airport being shot by the army, which apparently was looking…for me. And I’ve had more than a few emergency landings. But it did NOT motivate a re-assessment or a change in behavior, because I was not in control of any of those close calls, and the only available choice after the fact would have been to make a decision never to return. But I have always returned.
Q. Who are extraordinary travelers whom you admire? If you could sit down and speak with any extraordinary traveler, living or dead, who would it be?
Peter: It would be Mark Twain. Most people know him as an author of legendary American fiction, but I highly recommend a lesser-known work: The Innocents Abroad, about his trip around the world and his amazing adventures, experiences, and observations. The other traveler: Somerset Maugham. I also recommend one of his books that most people don’t know, A Writers Notebook. He just kept a notebook and wrote down his thoughts on every destination — and person – he met during his travels. Brilliant.
Q. What mindset do you adopt, or have naturally, when you venture out into the world?
Peter: Never to take a “No” from someone who is not empowered to give me a “Yes” in the first place.
Q. What characteristics do you like to find in your travel companions?
Peter: There’s just one: the ability to adjust, to adjust quickly, intelligently and with sensitivity. The worst five letter word: “plans.” A great traveler is one who looks at plans as only a point of departure, not a goal.
Q. What is something you dream of doing – or a place that you dream of exploring?
Peter: There’s one goal — a dream — that I’ve had for a while, but don’t think I can attain. Sitting right seat or back seat for a night carrier landing. But I have no regrets if I don’t get to do that. There are roughly 196 countries in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to have been to 152 of them. That leaves 44. That’s actually 151 more countries than most Americans have ever seen (embarrassingly, only 44 per cent of Americans even own a passport!). But I hope people will remember that this country count doesn’t represent a race. It’s not about ticking off boxes. There are no prizes.
I may never get to all the countries, and if my life ended tomorrow, I have enough memories to fuel my dreams for three lifetimes.
