GADABOUT

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” — Gustave Flaubert

I have a deep, almost pathological, wanderlust. It started when I was a kid hitchhiking and riding freight trains around the country, hitting some 45 states by the time I was 21. One of the great things about freight-hopping was that I never really knew where I was going. I could see that the track was heading east or west, but I never knew when the train I was on might veer north or south. And even now, my favorite way to travel is without an itinerary or predetermined goal, the farther off the beaten path the better—nothing makes me happier than going to countries at the bottom of other people’s lists.

This map shows the countries I have been to so far:

I have collected some moments from my travels in my book Drinking Mare’s Milk on the  Roof of the World and in And the Monkey Learned Nothing.  I am completing a third volume, The Kindness of Strangers, and have started on a fourth, more targeted volume, The Aridity Line. Research for this last will continue during my sabbatical year in 2020–2021, with travel to many countries in West and Central Africa, to Mongolia, and to many countries in the Middle and Near East.