Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel (Travel Literature) (v. 1)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With travel packages so commonplace as to be its own worst enemy when it comes to the throngs of tourists who concentrate on high-profile destinations, it's a treat to read about the quirky, somewhat off-kilter ideas that author Joel Henry (along with Lonely Planet staff writers Rachael Antony and Andrew Dean Nystrom) provides in this nifty little tome. A middle-aged television writer from Strasbourg, France and now the Director of Latourex, the Laboratory of Experimental Tourism, Henry elaborates on an alternative way of travel that he has been developing for over fifteen years, experimental travel. The idea is to choose destinations not for their logistical convenience, historic importance, climate appeal or overall popularity. Rather, a trip is built around a sense of chance, perhaps humor and hopefully serendipity in order to discover the unexpected and find a personal meaning in such travel.

Henry breaks down his ideas into categories that can come across as creative, flip and sometimes both. For example, in a situation similar to the set-up of Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal", the author discusses "aerotourism", which means spending a day wholly within an airport, using the various facilities meant for on-the-go travelers. This sounds almost reasonable if the airport is as elaborately designed as the ones in Amsterdam's Schiphol and Singapore's Changi, but I assume it could be most challenging in more remote locales. There appears to be greater possibilities with "nyctalotourism" (only visiting tourist attractions between dusk and dawn); "contretourism" (visiting a famous site but then only taking photographs once you turn your back to the site); or the most romantic idea, the aptly named "erotourism" (a couple travels separately to a destination and then each tries to find the other without any contact).

Other ideas don't have such high-concept-sounding names, such as touring your own hometown by staying in the local youth hostel or bringing a personal memento (the Orbitz gnome comes to mind) with you and photographing everything you see with the memento constantly in the picture. He has about forty ideas for you to consider, but I have to admit many of the ideas seem way too random for me to consider. At the same time, this is a nice book for the fertile imagination of the armchair traveler. I think Henry has the right idea in going against the predictable to find one's soul in traveling. It's a concept that Alain De Botton describes with panache in his book, "The Art of Travel", and Henry, for all his quirky notions, seems to be a kindred spirit.

Almost everyone begins to tire of the city they live in after a few years. "There's just nothing to do here" and "God, this place is boring" start to become regular utterances to friends and family. What to do?

Well, Lonely Planet has put out this book. It consists of a collection of travel 'experiments', which are actually just games, to make your travels at home and away a bit more enjoyable. I'm not going to lie. Some of these games seem boring and stupid, but there are enough good ideas here to warrant reading the book.

The only quibble I have is the excessive pretension on the part of the authors. Instead of just presenting these games as they are, theyt insist on cloaking their actions in metaphysical double-speak and an excessive amount of self-importance. I really could have done without that.

On the whole though, this is a decent book, and I'm glad to see Lonely Planet is branching out.

There are so many places I want to explore that I never thought of arranging my travel around quirky games. Maybe this book is for those who travel constantly and want a fresh way to explore a destination.
The book gives ideas like exploring a city by song lyrics or chess moves. Then it reports on actual travelers who have tried it. Maybe this book would suit my friend who wears Groucho glasses/nose to meet visitors at the airport.
I give the book four stars since Lonely Planet breaks ground with its travel books. Deducted one star, because I think the audience is pretty limited for travel this specialized.

For a fine armchair read as well as a different approach to tourism, pick up The Lonely Planet Guide To Experimental Travel and depart from package trips. Lack money or time to travel? Incorporate these potential 'disasters' into your very trip schedule and come up with something different! From exploring song lyrics to testing etiquette by being outrageous, contributors to The Lonely Planet Guide To Experimental Travel offer some 40 experiments to expand the concept of 'adventure'.

This is a book that might help you see the world in new ways.
If you're not sure what Experimental Travel is, the book begins with a short description and a history. In brief Experimental Travel is described as a playful way of travelling, where the journey's methodology is clear, but the destination is unknown.

This may be an unfamiliar description of travel,however I think that the definition best describes the nature of our lives. We can't know the destinations we will pass through, but we can control the way in which we travel.

Thus the book is at first glance an interesting distraction from mundane travel by habit, and also provides insights that may be valuable at a much deeper level.

The body of the book comprises 40 such playful ways of taking a journey. Each is described by a hypothesis, apparatus required and the method supported by short introductory notes. These are sufficient for you to set off on a journey and have a go. In addition each of the 40 ways has what are described as Laboratory Results. In a nutshell these are reports of the experience of travellers who have followed the instructions.

The suggestions for experiments range from quite simple exercises, to those which would require a fair degree of preparation, Each invites you to see your world through new eyes by in some way switching your perspective. For example suggestion 18 `Expedition to K2' invites you not to climb the Himalayan peak, but to see a new aspect of your home town by visiting and exploring map grid square K2. Suggestion 39 '12 Travel' invites you to travel noting the number 12. Catch bus number 12, get off at the 12th stop, walk across 12 junctions before examining building number 12, for example Or perhaps suggestion 15 `Dog's Leg Travel' If you don't normally walk a dog, take one for a walk and be led by what interests the dog.

You get the idea. It's simple, but as the Laboratory Results and your own experience will soon reveal, it's a very powerful idea. Not convinced? Just try spending the next ten minutes walking around the room you are currently in, looking for every green object. I guarantee you'll find far more than you expected and will learn something new about your room, a room you've probably seen many times, but never really seen.

This is a great book full of ideas that can make journeys a whole lot more interesting, even journeys you have to make every day, and the ideas will have an impact much more broadly on your outlook and the ways in which you see and see differently.

Great book, a little quirky with some of it's ideas but that's it's appeal. You hardly have to leave your armchair to have a new adventure!

Okay, so some of the ideas are rather silly, but it does really expand the notion of "what is travel." That does sound pretentious, but the book is genuinely better than that. Here's my suggestion, there are inexpensive used copies. Buy one, write a positive, or scathing, review and then resell it if you're not happy with it. Then read up on the town that you'll be sending the book to...

Anyone who says this book is just about "silly games" has completely missed the point. It is completely different from any other travel book. It doesn't provide a destination, how to get there, and what to do once you're there. It gives unique ways to explore any destination, no matter how banal the destination is. It's a great way to discover a town and the people in it. You can even use these techniques to explore your own town and find things about it you never knew before.
Some of the suggested explorations include:
-Spend 24 hours in an airport. Don't use an airport as a way to get to your destination; use it AS your destination.
-Make an online post suggesting that travelers in a town should all wear an easily identifiable token, such as a red carnation. Wander the town, find the red carnation, and meet the people who read your post.
-Start out at any bar. Ask the bartender to suggest a bar and a drink. Go to that bar, order that drink, and repeat the process until it's time to call it a night.
-Find a dog, and let the dog take YOU on a walk. Let the canine be your guide.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes unique ways to discover a town instead of just a list of museums and tourist traps that are "must see."
If it's adventure you want, read Robert Young Pelton's "The World's Most Dangerous Places."

Like many workaholics, I don't really travel as much as I would like to so I compensate by reading about travelling. This book is neat in that it gives you strange ideas and unique perspectives without actually limiting you to a location to do it, which makes the daydreaming involved boundless. It's more about what you do when you get somewhere to make your own fun rather than depending on the place to be fun. So some of the suggestions I could see trying out in my home town or when I go on 'vacation' to visit family. In places I've already been or inherently aren't that interesting.
If you're lookign at this as things to do on real vacations, many of the suggestions to "spice up" your travel are a probably a little too over the top for the average person. Ex. go to a romantic city with your lover, but keep it a secret when exactly and where you'll be and see if fate lets you bump into eachother. Things like that I would never really want to do, I mean if I can go on a romantic vacation I want to spend it with someone. Not lookign for them in a game of the gods. But it's still fun to read about. Many of the experiements felt this way. You can tell the editors had fun coming up with them and they are a lot of fun to read about, but probably not something the average person/traveller would really want to try themselves.

I'm a fan of Lonely Planet guidebooks, love to travel and am interested in social experimentation. So I thought this book would be right up my alley. But instead it presents a series of "travel games" which would probably be quite boring in implementation. For example, one game suggests for the person to walk out of their house and then alternate right and left turns until reaching a dead end. Ooh, how exciting! Another involved a guy who spent a day at the mall without spending any money, basically just copying those broke teenyboppers we all know as "mall rats". Needeless to say, his recounting of the "experiment" sounded just as boring as you would expect. I was hoping to find at least a couple of fun ideas that my wife and me could try out together. But not one seemed worth the time and effort.

All this would be just mere tedium. But the authors insist on adding a ridiculously thick layer of pretension to it all. They do this by attempting to relate their dopey games to the ideas of the Surrealists, the dadaists, Freud, Marx and, well, you get the idea. There is nothing radical, revolutionary or even rebellious about these games. So I have no idea why the authors insist on such intellectual grandstanding.

I'm giving it an extra star because I am glad that Lonely Planet is expanding from doing only guidebooks to other travel related writings. But why LP chose this book of boring nonsense as worthy of publication I have no idea. Hey people, save up your money for an actual trip rather than waste it on this junk.