Great Journeys, Pilgrimages and Trips Guide
By
Tom Thumb, Posted Dec 10, 2006
Follow in the footsteps of the ancients… or blaze your own trail.
A journey takes you from a to z but the intervening letters can spell absolutely anything for the traveler – a rite of passage, a pilgrimage or just a mind blowing trip that ensures you’ll never be the same again.
As the world gradually sheds the legacy of tradition and ritual we’re left with few ways to mark the stages of our life other than to travel. Well, that and taking out a mortgage (literally ‘a debt unto death’)…
For too many, travel is all about jumping on a plane, dumping the bags at the hotel and heading out with the camera to see the sights. Even the more conscious backpacker will tend to bum around hostels, follow the same old tired traveler route and spend more time in internet cafes than really putting himself out there.
Making a great journey is really committing to changing a part of yourself (but why change perfection?). Journeying can be tough going, rough on the body and the soul and full of inexplicable delays and obstacles. It encourages faith in the unbeliever, strength in the weak and a sense of mystery and magic in the cynic.
What’s more, it helps you get laid when you finally reach those backpacker cafes at the end of it all…
Here’s ten ideas for making a great voyage of discovery – so what if thousands made it before, your journey will be unique. Grab a flag and some beads with you just in case you need to trade with the natives…
So here’s ten ideas for making a great voyage of discovery – so what if thousands made it before, your journey will be unique – so take a flag and some beads with you just in case you need to trade with the natives…
Tom has been traveling non-stop since the age of 18 and co-founded Road Junky in 2004. Follow him @tomglaister
He’s the author of Hand to Mouth to India, an account of hitchhiking from England to India with no money and which will soon be rereleased by Road Junky Books.
Tales of a Road Junky featuring tales of breaking people out of jail in Delhi, selling fake Rolexes in Japan and other adventures in Israel and Brazil will be out later this year.
He also writes fiction for anyone who never really grew up and his latest novel is Bozo and the Storyteller – download the audio book for free or even buy a copy…
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