How I Travel: Author Mary H.K. Choi Psychoanalyzes Everyone Around Her at Airports

If it feels like you’ve aged rapidly during the pandemic, Mary H.K. Choi’s newest novel might be exactly what you need. The YA author has a knack for capturing the frenetic, vibrating voices and perspectives of young people as they enter and navigate the world; her latest book, Yolk, is out March 2 and follows two sisters brought together by a potentially fatal illness against the backdrop of a glittering New York City.

Choi, who grew up in Hong Kong and Texas, has also spent this time hunkered down in New York, releasing episodes of her podcasts Hey, Cool Job! and Hey, Cool Life! and dreaming of foreign airports and fried anchovies. She chatted with Condé Nast Traveler about the charms of Switzerland, the importance of hotel kettles, and an unforgettable trip to Corsica.

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What she misses about traveling:

I miss landing in a place where nothing has anything to do with me. I love arriving and having that moment of everything being so indifferent to my arrival, if that makes sense. I love landing and hearing the airport, just the noise of it, and adjusting or not adjusting if there’s a time difference, having the hardest reset. It’s like deleting every app on your phone in one moment, and I really love that.

How she remembers her last trip before the pandemic:

Profoundly and often. With my whole body. Right after I finished a long tour for my second book, I went with my partner to Corsica. I’d never been before, and we have a family friend who has a house there. It was just such a beautiful place and the view, it was like being on the captain’s deck of a spaceship. I read, and we grilled octopus. The food was incredible, the cheese and the cured meats and the fact that Corsicans all carry a little knife to help themselves to charcuterie. We did a little day trip to this medieval cliff-top fortress called Bonifacio. You know what a Viennetta ice cream dessert is? When you cut into it and it’s layered and all the chocolate has shattered? It was like that, with a fortress on top and a town attached to it. We went to a seafood restaurant and they had these succulent whole fried anchovies and you pop them, like I am a giant and I’m eating a whole fish. It’s spritzed with lemon, and the whole thing of it: the yellow of the lemon with the blue sky, the turquoise Mediterranean, and the air. I was immediately resentful. Like, "How dare people not bring me here [sooner]?” It’s like Sardinia to Italy, it has both nothing and everything to do with France. It feels like this wholly separate place, and that adds to the magic around it.

On her pre-travel routine:

I am a nightmare human, insofar as I pack a week early. All of my things are packed away and I'm using secondary things I don't like because all my good stuff is inside the suitcase and hermetically sealed. I use packing cubes and I'm really anxious. It never occurs to [me] that they also have things where I'm going. Also I arrive at the airport two hours early. I have TSA PreCheck, I have all the things that people have, and yet I am that person. I also like to board as early as possible. I'm the person who stands and mills, and the blast radius of their anxiety then affects other people. My partner is not. I used to get on as soon as humanly possible, jockeying for position. My partner is usually the last person on the plane. Both in the pandemic and throughout life, the statement we say most frequently to each other is, Thank you for your patience and continued support.

The most important aspect of flight prep:

I prepare my food before I travel. I have a box lunch for myself. I usually like having Tupperware with me, reusable, rewashable, and chopsticks in a little case. Part of it is that I have an eating disorder, and disordered eating is a huge part of my life, so I need to be really diligent and really mindful about meals. If I get hangry, then my anxiety kicks up and then it’s just, Look at me, making so many decisions I will regret. There's something about flying, especially work travel, where you're in a position where you have to eat something that is not in your control. To mitigate some of the recycled air and flying in a tin can feeling—and I have no anxiety around flying itself, it's more just being in the box—sometimes I have to eat a piece of fruit or a raw, fresh vegetable just to be like, Look, there's life still out here. You'll be okay.

On her go-to flying outfit:

I love a crew neck in life, but I like a hoodie in the air for the kangaroo pocket and the hood itself. The second I arrive in an airport, I have earplugs in. I like not to be thinking about my body and so a sweatsuit is nice, having pockets is nice. If it’s a little colder, I will travel with a Uniqlo puffer vest over the top of my hoodie because there’s extra interior pockets. And really comfortable socks—if it’s a flight longer than three hours, compression socks. So it has nothing to do with style. It’s all about what will be the most comfortable.

On the weird intimacy of airports: 
I think everyone is a little bit anxious in an airport. It's either that they're anxious about traveling or they're anxious about having to wait or they're impatient. If you actually look around in an airport, and I tend to notice this more when I have earplugs in, it's like being in a huge playpen or something. Everyone's self-soothing mechanism is clearly on display, whether it's playing video games or FaceTiming someone or eating a movie-sized thing of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or drinking at 10:45 in the morning, martini shit. It’s intimate but so overwhelming. There’s not enough space for everyone, and I already live in New York. New York airports are so specific, the most demoralizing spaces. I can’t believe we’ve been calling these weird bowling alleys “airports” for so long.

How she spends flying time:

I love writing on planes. There’s never Boingo hotspotting. I just treat it like I'm in detention. So I really write, and it makes the time go so fast. I tend to travel with one airline, and so by a certain point you've just seen all the movies. I don't even know if it's quality work, but I find that really a wonderful mechanism to while away the hours.

The place she could go a million times and never be sick of it:

Italy. There's something so essential about Italy. Like, oh, of course this tomato is the best tomato. Of course this olive oil was made by that guy, whose family's been around here for hundreds of years. There's so much excellence that's right there, and so accessible. It's one of those trips where you're like, I need to live more like this, or, I'm going to start canning things or making cheese with my hand. It's that shift in thinking, even though the vibe doesn't last longer than like a week when you get home. Everything looks like that Miyazaki movie—that cloud is the perfect cloud.

A destination she feels is underrated:

I’m just going to shout out my partner’s hometown. My husband is Swiss and anytime you tell someone that they're like, "Oh yeah, your husband's Swedish?" People have no idea what Switzerland is, beyond chocolate and banks and being fucked up in World War II. Silence is violence, you mean that Switzerland? But there's something so lovely about it. I don't know if I would have ever gone if I didn't have family there. Their grocery store chain is Migros and everything there is just incredible. Even pre-packaged, processed food only has like four ingredients. It's a strangely wonderful place. Bern specifically is so old-school. The whole town, especially the old town, looks like Christmas. It's cobblestoned, and there's an old clock tower. As an Asian person who grew up in Hong Kong and lives in New York, I didn't know you could go inside this land. It's like living in a little snow globe. It's like an advent calendar. And the chocolate there is outrageous, truly outrageous. I feel a lot of tenderness for that place.

Her favorite hotel amenity:

If there isn't a kettle in my room and I can't order a kettle from the front desk, I lose my shit a little bit. It throws my whole thing off because I usually travel with a grip of tea, little microwaveable, pre-cooked rice packs, little tins of smoked trout, and miso packets, just so I can have a breakfast that I can just rely on. I also travel with my own slippers, either with those L.L. Bean moccasins that look like baked potatoes or I bring these little silk shoe-socks like Korean people travel with. Because I can't deal with the hotel room floor and I don't wear shoes inside.