Greenfire wrote:
please tell me stories of where you have gone with your whistle? Mountain climbing? Middle of the ocean? To pubs all around the land? Planes, trains and automobiles? What are some of your fave travel stories?
Our most common vehicular situation here is playing on boats at sea. I live close to the Pacific and a local industry is doing cruises, bay cruises or cruises that venture a bit out into the open water. People here hire boats for their special events.
On a number of occasions our Irish trio has played for wedding cruises. They're weddings where no-one can be late, and no-one can leave early! Everybody is stuck on the boat the whole ceremony and reception.
As a solo piper I've done quite a few weddings and also many funerals, where they scatter the ashes at sea.
The most memorable piping boat gig sticks in the memory for all the wrong reasons. We have a tradition here, around Christmas everybody covers their boats with Christmas lights and cruises around the harbour. There must be thousands of boats from huge multimilliondollar yachts to kayaks.

One year a boat owner hired me to stand at the prow of his boat and play the pipes as we circled the harbour in a vortex of festive craft.
I did two unfortunate things: 1) I noticed that his boat was named Wings 2) I mentioned to the boat owner that there is a pipe tune named Wings.
The owner got all excited that there was such a pipe tune, and requested that I play it...and play it...and play it...
It was the only thing I played the rest of the gig.
Had Mr Gumby played Cliffs Of Moher at the Cliffs Of Moher, and word of the tune's title spread among the crowds of tourists, he might have endured a similar fate. But he wisely kept his whistle in his pocket.
As far as travel goes, I played at a number of events with a pipe band in Scotland and did a tour with an Irish trad group in Japan.
Here we are playing in George Square, Glasgow.

I did bring a whistle, and played at a couple trad sessions there in Glasgow.
When I've travelled to Scotland or Ireland purely as a tourist on holiday I've left my instruments at home.