First things first. I didn??t actually read The Geography of Bliss.
I wanted to, and I wanted to like it; I really did. The simplicity and crisp color of the cover drew me in when I first saw it in the bookstore, as did the author??s premise.
He would spend a year traveling to ten countries in search of something that was, for him, as elusive as the Fountain of Youth: happiness.
Joyce Majors has accomplished one of the things I??ve been dreaming about my whole life (well, two if you count the whole writing a book thing).
This intrepid woman rented her house, quit her job and took off for a year of volunteer tourism around the world.
Majors’ travels provided a much-needed break from the rigors of ???real life??? and eventually provided fodder for her book Smiling at the World, which chronicles her year abroad and the experiences she encountered in her search for adventure and love.
Note: Read to the end for your chance at a fabulous prize!
Maybe it??s because I??m female. Or maybe it??s because I??m a prude, or, who knows what it is, but I always find it troubling when sex tourism gets treated more with irony than outrage.
Gonzo travel guys seem to visit these places and merely raise an ironic eyebrow over their tourist priced beer while not being particularly bothered one way or the other about the fate of underaged prostitutes or women who make money by writing banners with markers stuffed in ??¦ oh, you get it.
Tags: Book, Review, Smile, When, You, Lying
The return home rarely transports the traveler back to the place where his journey first began. To travel full-circle would entail the total absence of a journey. It would be the result of never venturing anywhere new.
The essence of a journey is this strange process of return??where one travels beyond the expected destination and learns to embrace change; its strange faces and cultures and unspoken encounters with fate.
Tags: Book, Review, Three, Cups, Tea
Picture yourself sitting in a train station, airport, ferry dock, or somewhere similar, with hordes of people going about their business. They’re boarding, disembarking, buzzing, or like you, they’re waiting. Endlessly waiting.
One of the travel realities that’s rarely revealed is the amount of waiting that accompanies every type of journey.
Tags: Review, Kill, Boring, Travel, Periods, With, The, Nintendo