David Bear’s Traveler’s Journal transports your armchair
by Andy Newman *

“People tell my wife that they enjoy waking up with her husband in the morning,” says David Bear.

As well they should. After all, Bear has a reputation for taking people places they’ve never been.

Dynamo? Nope.
Radio? Yup.

Bear is the voice of "The Traveler's Journal", a two-minute feature heard on more than 50 public-radio stations across the U.S. and Armed Forces Radio Network Stations around the world. Here in Pittsburgh, Bear is heard on WDUQ (90.5 FM), where the program airs weekdays at 7:33 a.m. and 6:59 p.m.

A Pittsburgh native, Bear began on ‘DUQ in 1992 and aired only a few months before other stations started – as his wife’s corny pals might put it – picking him up. His vignettes, from the U.S. and abroad, tend to focus on quirky excursions. This Valentine’s Day, for example, he recommended a helicopter ride to Magdalen Island where tourists can nuzzle with seals; two days later, Bear described how to take gondolier lessons in Venice. He’s done shows on nude destinations, bird watching and roller coaster tours.

“I think of these as audio postcards,” says Bear. “They’re for armchair traveler’s as much as people who get up and go.”

At times Bear is no-frills, practical, advising how to scam on cheap plane tickets or avoid getting beat by cabbies.

Other times Bear turns into Travel Philosopher or Travel Shrink. Last November, he urged those without partners to consider traveling alone. “There’s an art to solo travel,” he said. “One trick is to take conscious pleasure in your solitude. Use the time to get reacquainted with yourself. To solve your own problems. To forget your problems.” Later, Bear suggested: “Open yourself up to chance encounters and meeting new people” by staying in bed and breakfasts rather than hotels, by taking public transportation rather than renting cars. If all else fails, “A long walk is a good tonic for restless and lonely travelers.”

A good tonic is what Bear wants the show itself to be. “For that two minutes you can vacate whatever place you were mentally,” he says. “It’s an interlude in the stream of audio consciousness –“ Bear catches himself, smiles self consciously. “But it’s dangerous to get too philosophical.”

If Bear waxes poetic at times, he attributes it to being a writer – he had a novel published in the late ‘70s and his articles have appeared in regional and national publications.

"The Traveler's Journal" is a decided contrast to the affectation of some travel magazines; his appeal is his aw-shucks, earnest approach.

“I’m not a travel gourmet,” he says. “There are people who dream about going to the best places and eating the finest foods and having an extravagant experience. That's fine, but I also have an appreciation for travel that is less glitzy and more affordable. Besides, if it was me listening, if it was ‘Here I am on a sailboat in the Aegean,’ day after day, I’d find it offensive. I'd prefer for people to think about travel not just as a state on the map but as a state of mind."

* Reprinted with modifications from In Pittsburgh Newsweekly

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