Reflections of a Reckless Traveller

By Trevor Watson

Trevor Watson has been haunted and intoxicated by the idea of travel all his life. Reflections of a Reckless Traveller is a collection of essays written for his popular blog between 2017 and 2020, just before COVID changed the world and the way we could experience it. Delighting in every new idea, sight and culture he is introduced to, Trevor is the perfect guide through the kind of places we all put on our bucket lists but never get round to actually visiting.

For Trevor, the world is a huge museum, the ideal size that an energetic traveller can gain a degree of familiarity and affection for a variety of people and places. He describes our planet as a source of endless interest, beauty and wonder that would continue to provide incredible experiences even if he were to live to be a thousand years old.

Join Trevor in his tour to some of the most beautiful places in the world and enjoy his musings on people, nature and all things philosophical; this is the ideal book either for those wishing to follow in his footsteps, or anyone stuck at home wishing for a chance to go explore!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781837910311

Trevor Watson

Trevor Watson is a certified master personal trainer from Colorado. He has enriched and inspired countless clients both young and old to take on healthier dietary and fitness habits to improve their lives for the better. He is a co-author on "Sam's Six-Minute Schedule for Staying in Shape."

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Reflections of a Reckless Traveller

Introduction

This is a collection of essays I wrote for my blog, Reckless Traveller, between 2017 and 2020. Most of them are on the theme of travel. I have been haunted and intoxicated with the idea of travel all my life. I think if I lived a thousand years I would never tire of it. I am grateful that the world is the size that it is – just the right size so that an energetic traveller in a lifetime may gain a degree of familiarity, indeed affection, for many places and people. For me, the world is a huge museum, a source of endless interest, beauty and wonder. I do hope you enjoy these outings; they were great fun to put together.

I hope to see you on the road!

Part I: The Idea of Travel

Why Travel?

I published a book a few months ago called Straddling the ‘Hound – The Curious Charms of Long-Distance Bus Travel; some of my more polite readers have encouraged me to start a travel blog. Fair enough, says I… I’ll give it a try. I hope you enjoy it.

The focus will doubtless evolve as we go along, but I’d like to share with you some of the things I’ve learned in half a century rambling every kind of road you can think of, in every sort of conveyance, under a wide variety of circumstances – everything from going First-Class, to stowing away. Travel is truly a universe unto itself; it’s a jewel with any number of facets. As we travel along together, I plan to address topics as disparate as

my favorite journeys

great travel books, authors and movies

journeys of discovery

dream trips.

volunteer work

journeys of special interest

intrepid travellers

lunatic travellers

interesting vehicles and their development

travel tech

travel music

travel gear

the best and worst places in the world

the best and worst tour companies

best and worst airlines

bargains and rip-offs

health advice

anything else that pops up (I’m open to suggestions)

In short, I’d like to take you on an easy-going journey of exploration through the philosophy, psychology, art and science of travel. The possibilities are inexhaustible!

But first, on a philosophical note, let me pose the question, Why do we travel?

I can only answer for myself, but I’m sure every hardened road addict will understand. I am what has been termed a hodophile, a word derived from the ancient Greek meaning lover of the path.

It’s not an unpleasant condition – provided I spend a certain minimum of my time – say, 30% – on the road. If I spend more than 70% of my time at home, I start feeling like a migratory bird – a poor innocent little robin, maybe – tethered to a stake – left to languish. We’re talking house arrest here. It makes me short of breath to think of it.

As I say in my book, When I was a little boy, there was a world map on my wall, a Full Color Mercator Projection. I can remember wondering what it would be like to sail, say, between Celebes and Borneo, stopping here and there along the way to meet the locals. I’d heard the area was thick with pirates and I’d worked out a rough plan for dealing with them. The plan involved much derring-do on my part, leading to an uninterrupted series of victories. I find the idea thrilling, and still do.

My motive for travel is basically an inquiry into how people in different places view life: how they conduct their own lives, what they think about, what they consider worthy of spending their lives upon. After 40 years as a physician, I’ve never lost my sense of wonder in the human heart and mind; it’s an interest that continues to grow…

One of my favorite writers, John Steinbeck, wrote that whatever this travel affliction may be, it is altogether incurable. He spoke of the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye… four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

The travel affliction is a lust, a hunger, a thirst, an addiction, a yearning, a calling, an obsession, a compulsion, a demanding appetite that howls to be appeased. All attempts at appeasement have, so far, proved futile.

When I was young, my parents – neither of whom was so afflicted – said that my passion for travel was something that had to be simply gotten out of my system, presumably by travelling ad nauseam. In another sense the love of travel is like the love of music. To my mind, you can no more get the travel bug out of your system by travelling, than you can get music out of your heart by singing.

My first trip abroad (how I love that word) was in the spring of 1969, just before my 22nd birthday. I’d just graduated from Acadia University in Nova Scotia with a Bachelor of Science degree with a rather unorthodox double major – Psychology and Philosophy. Strange as it might seem with this academic background, I’d applied for medical school at Dalhousie University in Halifax, to begin in the Fall. I hadn’t heard if I’d been accepted or not, and was sick of worrying about it, so decided to put the matter out of my mind and go exploring.

My fiancee, Cynthia – now my wife of 46 years – had decided to do what has been called by others as a Grand Tour of Europe. In our case, this was an utter misnomer. Our guidebook was the marvelous, but decidedly ungrand Europe on $5 a Day, by Arthur Frommer. It had a plain yellow cover, and was, as I recall, about as thick and unwieldy as a New York City phone book.

Cynthia made her way to Lahr, Germany courtesy of the Royal Canadian Air Force, of which her father was a member. We were to rendezvous at my Uncle Ian’s house in Chislehurst, Kent. I left my parents – who were feeling pretty dubious about my prospects – at Dorval Airport in Montreal. I’d bought a ticket for Prestwick, in SW Scotland, which for me was the cheapest way to get across the Atlantic.

I was tired, of course, but exhilarated when I arrived. My heritage is Scottish and I fancied that the air in Prestwick contained a strong and mysterious tonic for a displaced native son such as I. Perhaps I caught a whiff of single malt from a nearby distillery.

My luggage consisted of a cheap, boxy but capacious backpack I’d recently bought at a military surplus store. I’d sewn a Canadian flag on the back of it to distinguish me from, it must be noted, an American. Demonstrations against the Vietnam War were going full-blast then, and Canadians, I was assured, were much more welcome in Europe than Americans. I’m certain this was true; I even heard of Americans sewing Canadian flags on their gear in order to make their way in Europe smoother. The influential novel The Ugly American had been published a few years before, and the expression was a popular slur by the time I’d hit the road.

In the airport I bought my parents a postcard. In those days, this was the cheapest way to keep in touch. This card had a picture of one of those gorgeous, shaggy, red, big-horned highland cattle on it. My mother has it still.

It was late afternoon, and I knew I’d better get going. Without delay I exited the terminal and spotted the nearest road, a highway. My plan was to hitchhike to London, about 300 miles south. I knew people drove on the left in the UK, so I picked the side of the road that seemed best, took a deep breath and stuck out my thumb. Much to my surprise, the driver of the one and only car in sight slammed on his brakes.

Where ye be goin’, laddie?

London, sir. It pays to be polite when asking a favor.

Hop in, boy, he said, I can take ye a wee way. I’m going to Carlisle tonight. I’d never heard of Carlisle, but if it was south, it sounded good to me. In I hopped.

I couldn’t believe my luck. I was off to a good start.

In Praise of Travel

My first experience with travel – the world outside my neighborhood – was vicarious, by way of books. I believe the first time I saw a map in a book, my heart leapt up; my eyes grew wide. You mean there are places other than where we live? How big is the world, anyway… how long would it take to go around it? Questions of this sort crowded my boyish mind.

When I was eight I subscribed to a publication – put out by National Geographic; it arrived monthly, and each magazine was devoted to some exotic place… Czechoslovakia, New Zealand, Japan, New Guinea, and so on. These were places I never knew existed, but they all looked plenty interesting to me. The magazine had stickers inside the front cover that I had to tear out, lick and stick in the right spots. I can still taste the glue. Those magazines kindled my imagination for exploration and made me want to go abroad, and see for myself. The fire burns brightly within me to this day.

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It won’t surprise you that I have great respect for certain authors, especially adventurous, unconventional ones. In any bookstore I’m drawn to the Literary Travel section. Ah… Literary Travel… the link between literature and travel… both are instructive, pleasurable & challenging. What could be more stimulating, more absorbing?

American philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) asked the rhetorical question, How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book? One might add: or a quotation.

Accordingly, I have gathered some quotations by distinguished authors whom I think capture the appeal of travel. I was stimulated to look into the lives of those whose observations I so admire. There is an ‘embarrassment of riches’ to be found in such snooping around; I’ll give you five of my absolute favorites, in historical order.

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.

—Seneca

Seneca (4 BC–65 AD) was a Roman statesman, philosopher and writer at the height of the Roman Empire. His travels were rather limited – from Spain to Rome, as a child. His main political efforts were to restrain the worst excesses of the Emperor Nero. He was eventually convicted in a conspiracy to assassinate Nero, and condemned to commit suicide. It is believed he was converted to Christianity by St. Paul.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.

—St. Augustine

St. Augustine (354–430), Christian theologian and writer, the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church. Raised in Carthage (present-day Tunisia), at thirty he travelled to Rome, whose empire was by that time crumbling. He later moved to Milan and was subsequently ordained, and eventually became bishop in Hippo, in present-day Algeria. He is the patron saint of, among other things, brewers.

The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.

—Sir Richard Burton

Sir Richard Burton (1821–1890), Ruffian Dick, English explorer, duelist, author, and one of my great heroes. He was a bright and aggressive fellow; predictably, he was expelled from Trinity College, Oxford for flouting the rules. Undeterred, he went out into the world, first to India. He became a prolific author on myriad subjects: psychology, fencing, falconry, exotic sexual practices and, of course, his travels – which took him to every continent. In 1853, in Muslim disguise – including his fresh circumcision – he risked death to become the first European to visit Mecca and Medina. He was also the co-discoverer of Lake Tanganyika. An extraordinary linguist, he knew 40 languages and translated the Kama Sutra, a task that allegedly amused him no end.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is to at last set foot on one`s own country as a foreign land.

—G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936), English writer, philosopher, orator, theologian, social critic and another one of my heroes. He was one of the intellectual giants of our civilization – a man Time magazine called a colossal genius, now sadly neglected. His literary output influenced many: C.S. Lewis, G.B. Shaw, M.K. Gandhi, Michael Collins. He is best-known nowadays for his lighter work, the Father Brown Stories, presently appearing on PBS. He could be serious and uproariously funny at the same time – quite a talent.

I think his quote is only half-true. Surely setting foot – and mind – in a foreign land has its own rewards, apart from, as he suggests, rediscovering one’s own land as a sort of ‘outsider’. As far as his travels went, all I know is that he was a great train traveller, mostly around London. One biographer said he habitually caught the wrong train, so he wrote a great deal in railway stations, waiting for the right one.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as though you`d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It`s more fantastic than any dream…

—Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012), Giant of US science-fiction. He was a great traveller-explorer in his fertile mind, but apparently not on our planet. I was shocked to learn he was visually impaired and never even had a driver’s license; he got around on a bicycle and on public transport. He lived at