Media Coverage
NEWS GAZETTE
(Lexington, VA)

Americans are traveling more these days. But despite that many Americans are geographically illiterate about the country, a 1988 National Geographic survey found. And two women are trying to do something about it.

Juanita Huson Sylvest, 47, and her mother, Malva Huson Brown, 74, have embarked on an 18-month 50-state trip in their motor home writing travel letters to entertain and instruct their subscribers of all ages.

Starting in June from Baton Rouge, La., their home, they have visited nine of the 50 states. And they have put out a travel letter every two weeks along the way.

Although they plan to cover Virginia in November and December, they've recently taken an unofficial detour to Rockbridge County to see Sylvest’s daughter, Tasha Walsh and her husband, David Walsh.

For a week their 28-foot motor home was parked beside the Walshes' two connected 1804 log cabins on a narrow gravel road (Va. 629) between Kerrs Creek and Collierstown.

The mother-daughter team is recreating an adventure of 1946 when their family traveled throughout the 48 existing states and wrote travel letters to subscribing children. Both mother and daughter have journalistic experience and other skills they bring to this project.

Brown and her husband owned four newspapers in Louisiana for which she wrote and edited. After her husband's death she became a librarian and was the director of a regional library system. Sylvest started her journalistic career at age 10 writing a weekly column that ran for 13 years. She also has been a travel industry executive for 12 years.

Why are they doing this?

“For one thing, it's a personal dream fulfilled," answers Sylvest. "Since I was the 4 or 5 year old on the original trip (in 1946-47), all my life I've wanted to do it again at an age when I could enjoy it more at a different level. I've always loved to travel. It's just in my blood."

Second, when Sylvest's middle daughter, a student in college, placed Vermont next to Colorado on a map of the United States she made in her cultural geography class - thinking they were both places to ski Sylvest had personal verification that America's youths don't know geography.

"It's not the fact that kids don't get information, because they have easy access to plenty," says Sylvest. "But they don't have a connected understanding of the country. That's been demonstrated on adult levels too. By traveling with us throughout the U.S. for 18 months, people can get a feeling for what a diverse country it is in a more connected fashion."

How can the travel letters help?

"Every child enjoys getting mail," says Sylvest. "Children will read mail much more eagerly than a textbook. We're kind of like an aunt and grandmother on the road who write to the kids every two weeks about what we're doing and what we've learned. It's done in a very chatty manner. It's something they can enjoy yet subtly teaches them a lot about the cultural and physical geography as well as the history and ecology of the country."

Ecology wasn't addressed in the original letters because it wasn't a concern in the '40s, notes Sylvest.

More than just emphasis on ecology has changed since the 40s, says Brown. “A lot more people are traveling now," she says. "Accommodations and modes of travel are different than what they were.”

"On the first trip we did the whole thing in a converted four-door Ford car which we slept in most of the time. You could stop most anywhere along the side of the road, because the land wasn't posted like it is now. When we got ready to do a letter we would find a tourist court where we'd set up our typewriter and ditto machine. Now we travel with a word processor and printer."

The journey is not just a pleasure trip it's work too, they say. Before the trip began, they did a lot of research, including writing directors of education and travel services in every state. explaining their intentions and asking for suggestions, they were inundated with information, Sylvest says.

Is there a pattern to their travels?

They spend about 10 days in each state -- less in some of the smaller Eastern states and more in the bigger Western ones. And generally they aren't in one area for more than two or three nights.

"We always visit the capital city because we want the kids to know what it's like, and we pick two or three other places in the state, choosing things that are characteristic of the state or region to write about," says Sylvest.

"One of the fun things we like to do when we go to cities is to catch a city bus and ride it to the end of its route and back," says Sylvest. "We find it a wonderful way to get a feel for the city, because you're mixing with the people. You see their neighborhoods, you see their comings and goings, and you hear their conversations. They find out you're a visitor and everybody becomes a tour guide."

Their September visit here coincided with the Mountain Music Festival at Glen Maury Park, which they attended. "We had a blast at that," says Sylvest. We loved the mixture of people who came. "

Although the travel letters are a one-way correspondence, the women have gotten some response "One entire seventh-grade class from California wrote us after they got our first letter," says Sylvest. "Their letters were wonderful - full of questions and curiosity. We hope to go visit the classrooms of some of our subscribers."

For more information about the travel letter series, write Huson Travel Letters, c/o Color-Art Inc. 10300 Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO, 63127.

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