A new chapter, sort of.

I've been meaning to make this post for like five days, but life kept getting in the way. Well, I say life. I mean work. Anyway.

I read an article in the paper about Experimental travel, and loved the idea immensely. The soul and centre of it is that you travel (or walk or pub crawl) with a fairly odd and random set of rules in your head, and these rules allow you to see the area you’re in in a new way. It was apparently developed as a way to combat the sort of tourists who can take a Contiki bus tour of Europe, and then check it off their life-list and say “There. I’ve ‘done’ Europe. No more adventure for me!” I had first glommed onto the idea from Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul in which Dirk Gently performs the Zen method of asking for directions, most of which involves following someone who looks like they know what they’re doing (I‘ve done this. You end up in the oddest places). So anyway. The article refers to the Lonely Planet Guide which will come out in four weeks.

I waited patiently (well, patiently for me, which means I check every damn day I’m at work, but don’t tell anyone what I’m doing, similar to what I’m doing now for the Futurama Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection that’s been ‘in transit’ for two weeks) and borrowed the book. It was full of wonderful ideas, and things others had done, which I wanted to do.

Things like taking a train ride across Russia, and once an hour (when you're awake) taking a picture at the same angle out of the same window and writing down your thoughts at the time.

Or taking alternating directions (left, right, left, right) until you run out of places to walk.

Or Dog-Leg travel, where you Zen-ask-for-directions people walking their dogs, and whenever you meet another dog you must switch and follow them.

Or Ero-Tourism, where couples travel separately to a new city, make no arrangements to meet, then try to find one another (that one sounds dangerous, at least for me).

Or Barman's Knock. Go to your favourite pub and order your favourite drink. Ask the barperson where their favourite pub is and what they drink there. Go there and order their recommended drink, and then repeat the exercise with whoever serves you, and so on.

The easiest, at least for me, was Mascot Travel.

Mascot Travel:

Hypothesis: See the world through the eyes of a mascot.
Apparatus: A mascot of your choice and a camera.
Method: Pick a personal mascot and take it on your travels with you, eg a stuffed toy, pet rock or garden gnome. Take its picture outside famous landmarks and record its other experiences with a camera. On your return home, consider making a photo album of your mascot's travels. Show it to your friends. The album should look like you were never there.

Like Amelie and the garden gnome!

I chose my iPod as my mascot of choice. So far, I’ve only done one experiment, but more shall arrive soon. So anyway, here it is:

Travels with iPod: A Mascot Travel Experiment