Life

Magician David Blaine talks the best airplane card games, his packing list, and his new travel show, “David Blaine: Don’t Try.”

Magician David Blaine has scuba-dived for a week in a spherical water tank at New York’s Lincoln Center, fasted for 44 days over London’s Thames, and even floated 24,900 feet above Page, Arizona, on 52 weather balloons. But his biggest stunt? Blazing through airport traffic with free parking.

“I’m always late, so I strap my suitcase to my motorcycle and bypass traffic so there aren’t any delays,” the 52-year-old adventurer told Travel & Leisure on a Zoom call last month.

Blaine, who has Enduro motorcycles on both the East and West Coasts, takes advantage of the little-known free motorcycle parking at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). He takes photos from both sides of his motorcycle so he can remember exactly where he parked it. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years—and it’s always been good,” he said.

Blaine’s airport commutes prove that for him, there’s always a way to overcome obstacles through careful observation, strategizing, and constant practice. He kept that philosophy in mind as he traveled 105,240 miles and visited 33 airports in 11 countries on five continents for the six-part National Geographic documentary David Blaine: Do Not Attempt, which premieres April 6.

Shot over three years, the series follows the New Yorker as he explores cultures around the world, from Southeast Asia to Brazil. Along the way, he meets local adventurous people and learns about their adventurous skills. He also tries a series of novel stunts, such as kissing a deadly snake, covering his body with 59 scorpions, and inserting a knife into his nose.

“Everyone we met along the way was a master,” he says. “They put in thousands of hours of hard work, sweat, tears, injuries, failures, and starting over to make what they do look like magic.”

Each of Blaine’s journeys is filled with surprises and joy. Obsessed with the Swami Mantra since childhood, he learned how to push boundaries during his time in India. “Most people we met acted based on their beliefs, so there were no limits because everything was rooted in a greater power,” he says of his visits to Kurukshetra, Rishikesh and Jaipur. “I went to India to perform magic in the past. This time, I went to India to learn, to be a different kind of magician.”

In South Africa, he was amazed by a man named Neville, from KwaZulu-Natal. Neville performed a calming meditation around a black mamba, demonstrating that the snake’s safety lies in keeping calm. He also visited the School of Magic in Cape Town, which has been teaching magic to all kinds of children for decades and even challenged apartheid laws during apartheid South Africa.

For Brian, one of the highlights of his trip was learning about the whirligig, in which cars spin “out of control but with extreme precision.” Brian says he was stunned when he saw Samkeliso ‘Sam Sam’ Thubane perform a Houdini-like stunt by disappearing from a car, and when he witnessed Kayla Oliphant do a “suicide slide” by leaning out of a car, holding herself up on her toes.

In Japan, he met hot dog eating champion Takeshi Kobayashi. He was surprised to find that some of the techniques Kobayashi used in competitions were the same ones Brian used in his magic shows. “He looked at his stomach like he was playing Tetris and put food in it,” Brian says.
But if there’s one place he recommends to all travelers, it’s the Arctic Circle. “We found a lot of people who use the surrounding environment, the climate and the extreme conditions to turn the Arctic Circle into a playground,” Brian says. “I was under the ice looking up at these ice-free divers holding their breath, dancing upside down, and suddenly you forget you’re in this extreme environment and you forget the cold. It feels like you’re in another world.”

But there was a lot that wasn’t captured—Brian says the entire crew was so moved by what they saw that they were moved to tears. “Everywhere we went, it was a new exploration of these amazing people who were working so hard to learn these skills,” he says. “It was so different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I was watching a magic show for the first time.”

Brian’s reality-defying behavior was accompanied by precision and planning, which he applies to his daily life and planning. For example, he showed us the packing list he uses for every trip: he took photos of 23 travel essentials, cropped them into mini icons, and screenshotted them into a visual list.

His must-haves include a passport, charger, toiletries, eye drops, Apple Watch, sunglasses, reading glasses, notebook, and markers. His outfit is fairly simple—black jeans, black T-shirt, underwear, socks, swimsuit, and baseball cap. What’s the most essential? A few decks of playing cards.
“It’s about the same on every trip, but if I’m traveling longer, I go through more decks per day,” he says. Blaine says the cards he uses are specially designed to feel good in the hand—and they also have magic powers. In fact, he went through 624 decks during the making of his latest series.

After traveling the globe to learn from other death-defying people, Blaine is preparing to return to Las Vegas for his “David Blaine: Live in Las Vegas” show at the Wynn Hotel through November.

Blaine says he loves Las Vegas because it’s “a little corner of the desert with all the excitement from all over the world.” But his favorite thing about Sin City is that it’s home to so many fellow magicians. “After every show, I always get to brainstorm and hang out with the magicians,” he says.

That’s a lesson he learned from the various risk-takers he met while traveling the globe to film Don’t Try.

“They’re all masters in their field, but what they all have in common is that they’re all students,” Blaine says. “They always work hard to learn and strive for excellence. Their passion is what drives them, and they do so well that nothing can stop them.”

Apparently, nothing can stop Brian.

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