On the Road Again? Pack These Two Things to Save Your Back

(Bloomberg) -- At Bloomberg Pursuits, we love to travel. And we always want to make sure we’re doing it right. So we’re talking to globe-trotters in all of our luxury fields—food, wine, fashion, cars, real estate—to learn about their high-end hacks, tips, and off-the-wall experiences. These are the Distinguished Travel Hackers.

Stephen Burks is one of the world’s foremost interior designers, operating his New York-based studio, Stephen Burks Man Made. He has worked on a range of brands, from consumer products to retail interiors (past clients include Harry Winston and Capellini), and recently served as Expert-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab in Boston. His latest project is a small storefront project space in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Dumbo neighborhood, wittily dubbed Contemporaries, where he will showcase the work of his most creative pals.

Traditionally, Burks has logged at least 100,000 miles in the air each year—although his mileage will be far lower in 2020—and he counts Delta as his favorite airline, thanks to its generous tiers of status: “I became a Diamond member a couple of years ago, and they lock you in with the rewards program.” 

Burks lives in Brooklyn with his partner Malika Leiper, an urban planner with whom he collaborates regularly, and his 15-year old son, Anwar. Here’s what he’s learned after years on the road.

The pandemic hasn’t deterred him from flying, but safety—and style—come first.

We’ve already taken four trips during Covid: Mexico City, Kentucky, Maine, and then we flew to Chicago for a week. On the flight out [to Mexico], it was horrible because it was packed, and no one took our temperature, for example, and there was no contact tracing. That might have been because it was early July, and these were the first flights. But coming back, it was surprisingly well-organized: Everyone at the airport had their temperature taken, they had dispensers everywhere with sanitizer—all the staff with gloves and masks.

I love wearing a handkerchief now, a pocket square, because every time you have to take your mask off, or perhaps you have to grab something you don’t want to touch, you’ve got the handkerchief readily available. It’s so useful right now, but traditional and chic at the same time. I have a box of old, vintage, silk pocket squares, and I use them right now.

Every plane ride should start with one conversation.

I’m from Chicago, and there, because so many African-Americans migrated North from the South, there’s a real sort of Southern hospitality at work, so we say hello to strangers. So I always greet my row mates with, “Hey, it’s no problem if you want to get up”—I like to sit in the aisle. I think it’s always good to be gracious on a plane. If I can help someone who’s shorter put their luggage away, an older woman, etc., I’m always helpful in that regard.It’s about being empathetic and observant—and understanding that you’ve got hour next to this person, so it’s better to have them as your friend than your enemy. I think it’s really important to acknowledge people and make everyone feel like you’re on the same team.

An ideal destination for minority travelers has a surprising reason.

My first trip out of the U.S. was to Osaka, Japan. As a person of color, it was an interesting place to visit. In Japan, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re European or if you’re African American, you’re still never going to be Japanese. So in their eyes, we all get the same sort of blanket label: gaijin. They didn’t look at us as “Black people” but as part of the gaijin, which I guess translates to “alien” or “foreigner.” That was somehow comforting.

I was 21 years old and had a friend from Ohio who was working there as a model, and she bought me a ticket. We also went to Kyoto and walked up a mountain, and our tears mixed with the rain. It was just so romantic. To go from the South Side of Chicago to Osaka and Kyoto? The big takeaway for me was that the world is so much bigger than we think it is, and there are always options.

The perils of sleeping pills, especially from strangers. 

Never take Ambien or other sleep-inducing drugs, especially not for the first time from a stranger, like I did. Within the first 10 minutes of meeting my neighbor on a 16-hour flight to Tokyo, she casually convinced me to pop an Ambien. You’re in this very intimate position somehow when you sit so closely next to someone that you don’t know, and we started chatting and she seemed like a pro [at traveling] Had I not seen her also take one, I probably wouldn’t have gone for it.

As I immediately dozed off to sleep, I knew I was in trouble. It’s true, I regained consciousness upon touchdown, but I had no idea who I was, where I was, or why. All I remember is chitchatting, and the next thing I knew, we were landing. It took me two full days to fully “wake up,” so I attended half my meetings like a zombie, and two days later, I did it all over again on the way back. Proof the hard way that you just can’t cheat Mother Nature’s biorhythms without consequences.

The charms of Montreal can’t be overstated. 

The area around Rue Saint-Paul in the old town of Montreal is a fantastic old world shopping street. You have the impression it’s been there forever, and they have everything: fashion, home furnishings, accessories, great little restaurants. and bars. I love Ssense, which always has a great selection of Dries van Noten I can’t find in New York; it has a great buyer. I also love Michel Brisson. For lunch, try Olive et Gourmando or Un Po Di Piu.

Habitat 67 is in Montreal, too, which is one of the world’s most influential housing projects, designed by Moshe Safdie. What he managed to do was to treat every single unit as its own building, and then stack the buildings in such a way that everyone has a garden, and everyone has windows on—I think—four sides: revolutionary. It’s Brutalist, but it’s also a kind of timeless, futuristic utopian vision of what housing could be. I’d love to buy an apartment there.

And don’t miss the Bota Bota Spa Sur l’Eau, which is an outdoor hot bath on a [repurposed] ferryboat in the river. It can be snowing, but you’re wearing nothing but your swimsuit and walking outside, having drinks with all of these beautiful people.

How to show a traveling loved one how much you care.

There isn’t so much you can do as an individual to make your travel partners feel more comfortable traveling, especially at this moment. But if you, as a frequent traveler, get an upgrade, give it to the person who doesn’t have that opportunity all the time. I did it with my son on a trip this summer. My partner and I ended up in Comfort-Plus, and he was in first class. It comes with the illusion of grandeur and much better service, and it goes a long way toward making the whole trip better. It’s a great gift for someone—and it’s free. Just make sure you’re on the same reservation, buying the tickets at the same time, or you might not be able to do it so easily.

The two things that turn an ordinary hotel room into a world-class one.

I don’t need a huge bathroom, because I’m only coming and going. Herzog & deMeuron worked with Ian Schrager on the Public Hotel in New York, and literally flew the entire hotel room over from Italy—everything was made there, and installed in New York. It’s so efficiently designed: You walk through the bathroom [as you enter], but when the front door is closed, it doesn’t matter that you’re standing in the bathroom.

What you do need are need multiple lighting options, like four different fixtures that are dimmable. Lots of ambient lighting is important because there are certain moods you want to be in, whether it’s work mode or romantic mode, right? And at a certain caliber, do away with the carpet altogether and provide nice slippers. We just stayed at the Circulo Mexicano in Mexico City, and the leather slippers were so nice that my partner bought them and took them home.

You can travel with a lumbar pillow without actually traveling with a pillow.

I always travel with my glass-and-silicone water bottle and a wool scarf. I can’t stand the fact that they’re constantly throwing away little bottles of bad, filtered Dasani, and I prefer drinking from glass if possible. And every time I traveled without a scarf, I would get cold from the AC. They each serve a separate obvious function—hydration and warmth—but can be combined to create the perfect lumbar pillow for lower back support on long flights. I’ve had back problems since—I don’t know—since I turned 40.

Now, I actually bring two scarves, one wool and one silk. The silk scarf is good to help me avoid a cold, but the wool scarf needs to be thick enough to wrap around my water bottle as well. My fashion brand of choice is always Dries van Noten, but the wool scarf I’ve used quite a lot over the past two years was by Raf Simons, like a varsity scarf with a big leather R on it.

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