Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 5, 1995                   TAG: 9506060023
SECTION: EDITORIALS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRAVEL TIPS

If we're very, very lucky, she may offer a few fashion tips, as well.

Dear Ms. Cellany: What would you say is the most important preparation for successful travel?

Signed: A.A.A., Prater, Va.

Itinerary! Itinerary! Itinerary!

Ms. Cellany is appalled, simply appalled, by the numbers of vacationers, sojourners, travellers, pilgrims, wanderers and tour groups that set out without itineraries!

How, Ms. Cellany wants to know, do these unprepared nomads find lodgings for the night? How do they find rest when they're weary, food when they're hungry, solace when they're sore?

By chance! By fortuitous happenstance! Haphazardly and unwittingly, that's how!

Ms. Cellany is appalled.

But, Dear Ms. Cellany: Once an itinerary has been established, what's the next most important element of successful travel?

Signed: B.B., Mendota, Va.

Ah, dear friend B.B., this is so simple! So, like all truths, self-evident.

Spontaneity! Spontaneity, spontaneity! What would a vacation be without spontaneity? That wonderful freedom! That blithe spirit! That luscious liberty from all constraints!

"Luscious liberty," Ms. Cellany? Did we hear you right?

Signed: CeCe C., Keokee, Va.

Ms. Cellany has never used the word "luscious" in her life. In any context. She's appalled at the suggestion.

Dear Ms. Cellany: Could you give us a few of those promised tips now?

Signed: DeeDee D., Deel, Va.

Ms. Cellany is not of the opinion that standards of dress should drop merely because one is out of sight of one's contemporaries, peers, colleagues or mother.

No, Ms. Cellany believes firmly that vacation dress should conform to the highest standards of one's standard dress, even on holiday.

For instance, Ms. Cellany does not approve garish purple tee-shirts boldly printed "South of the Border." Nor does she approve matching T-shirts, in any color, stamped "I'm With Stupid" and "Stupid."

Certainly, Ms. Cellany cannot countenance shirts that proclaim, "My Mama Went to Myrtle Beach and All She Brought Me Was This Stupid Shirt."

On the other hand, Ms. Cellany does understand the value and comfort of wrinkle-free, cotton-and-polyester blends. She merely suggests that vacationers use discretion in choosing prints.

Quotations from Shakespeare might be appropriate, for instance. As would nature art, clever National Public Radio references, New Yorker cartoons, or almost any design related to cats.

And for the rest of the wardrobe? What would Ms. Cellany suggest?

Signed: E.E.E., Fremont, Va.

Adequate sizing.

Ms. Cellany is sorry to have to report that most out-of-town laundromats are woefully inadequate. Vacation clothes invariably shrink with every wash.

Indeed, it's been Ms. Cellany's unfortunate experience to lose the use of every pair of newly purchased holiday slacks after only one week of delicious restaurant fare, luscious front-seat snacks, "Dairy Queen" milkshakes, and other assorted savory samples tasted along unfamiliar roads.

It's appalling, really, what out-of-town laundromats do to vacation clothes.

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke-Times & World-News columnist.