On the Road

By way of explanation..

Road Junky is a site that provokes. It’s meant to. The articles are meant to challenge conventional wisdom, shatter platitudes, make people laugh, inspire travelers, reveal new worlds, undermine bigotry, defend the poor and oppressed, keep alive the torch of liberty and… well, you get the point.

Although based on extensive first-hand experience and an almost sage-like understanding of the planet we live on, Road Junky is also occasionally on the flippant side. Sometimes we come down on something pretty hard to balance the scales a little but there are three sides to every coin and we claim no monopoly on the truth.

The editorial policy of_ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ was that a good read was always more important than exact facts. Hence an entry about a planet with flying dragons and nymphomaniac maidens was allowed to stand, despite the fact that these days the traveler would only find dragon burger bars and strip joints.

Douglas Adams has influenced the mischievous elements of the Road Junky style as much as the gonzo work of Hunter Thompson and so we try to blend raw journalism with a dedication to not take ourselves or anything else too seriously. In the end, we’re probably all just chimps with attitude problems.

So if you’ve been offended by something you read on Road Junky (and the hate mail is spectacular sometimes), just take a chill pill. If you happen to be miffed, for instance, about what we’ve said about your country, it’s simply that we agree with Dr Johnson that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’. Borders and tribal divisions maintain conflict, in our view, and we’ll undermine them every chance we get.

If you spot something that’s just plain inaccurate on Road Junky by all means write in and let us know. We’re not paid nearly enough to check all our facts and rely upon the likes of you to point out that uh, Kiev is actually in the Ukraine, not Russia…

If you like what you read on Road Junky and want to be part of it, even better. We’re always looking for writing talent for articles, we need travel experts to jump-start our new Reporter’s Project and we could always do with people to spread the word about our articles on Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook and the like.

Net journalism is changing the way we read about the world. No longer is writing confined to the narrow channels of the printed elite, indeed, conventional newspapers and magazines, increasingly look like they’re doomed. Instead a couple of slackers with a net connection can read 6 figure audiences each month and there’s not a thing anyone can do to stop it!

While we’re unlikely to be the ones who save the world, we do believe that – like every one else – we have the potential to change it. Each time someone gets inspired from reading an article on Road Junky, learns something or looks at things in a new way, then a world has been changed. A personal one.

And that’s always where change begins.

Follow Road Junky on Twitter for live updates @roadjunky

Back to Top - More On the Road Articles - Print this page