Alastair Humphreys » Lists

The Ten Best Places I Have Never Been To

Al Humphreys — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:48:37 +0000

List blogs are generally an excuse for the author to show off about something or other. Today though I am writing more of a wish list or a To Do list: the places that I have not been to but which I really, really want to get to one day. We all have those exotic places we yearn for, our own personal Timbuktus. Here are mine.

The Australian Outback – inspired by John Muir’s epic walk there and tantalising routes such as the Canning Stock Route, I am desperate for that red earth and vast skies.
The Empty Quarter - another desert choice, but a very different desert. Spanning Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia, this is Thesiger’s desert. A harsh, beautiful proving ground.
Antarctica – the only continent I have not visited. Pristine (except for the massive American base and gift shop at the South Pole). Increasing numbers of cruise ships and adventure tourists, plus now being able to look at Antarctica on Google Street View mean that I need to get there (and away from the crowded spots there) before my dream landscape fades to disillusionment in my mind.
Mali, and West Africa in general. I have spent a couple of years in Africa but virtually none of that has been in West Africa which is so different to the rest of the continent.
Iran. I spent 6 weeks once trying to persuade Iranian border officials to let me in. They declined. So this gracious, beautiful country with such a critical geopolitical role to play in the next few years remains on my wish list.
Afghanistan. Years ago I set off on a journey to Afghanistan. Before I reached the border 9/11 happened and the world changed. One day, one day…
Norway. I love mountains, rivers, and fjords. But I’ve never been to Norway. This must change! It’s only a couple of hours away.
Easter Island. But only if I could arrive there by sailing boat. Flying to Easter Island seems to totally remove its aura of extraordinary isolation. The folly of man and thousands of miles of empty ocean all around.
The wide-open, empty parts of America. Kerouac and Steinbeck. Monument Valley dawns and deserted late-night roadside diners, stewed coffee and faded waitresses with life stories to tell.
oh, I’d quite like to go to Timbuktu as well.

What would be on your list?

This post originally appeared on the Wanderlust blog.

11 Travel Books for Bums

Al Humphreys — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:14:42 +0000

Here’s a book list for all the bums out there. For the vagabonds and hoboes. For the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles – exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

These are the travel books I read and re-read. I fold down corners and scribble notes. They remind me that, above everything else, the things that make me happiest in life are big skies, sunsets, sleeping on beaches, the potential of the open road, and the random exciting strangers you meet along that road.

Travels With Charley – John Steinbeck

Steinbeck travels round America with his dog, Charley.
“When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult.”

Also in this book is a paragraph I often think I’d like to have on my gravestone:
“For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”

Walden, or Life in the Woods – Henry David Thoreau

Over-read, over-worshipped and quite boring in parts. But the essence of it resonates loudly: a simple life, in tune with nature and with few possessions, is often a happy and rewarding one. “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…” and “The prospect of what is euphemistically termed “settling down”, like mud to the bottom of a pond, might perhaps be faced when it became inevitable, but not yet awhile.”
I also like his assertion that “What old people say you cannot do – try – and find that you can.” [A good extra piece about Thoreau here.]

Roughing It – Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn should feature in any list like this, but it’s so obvious that instead I’ve picked this lesser-known gem from Twain. You can read the book online here.

“It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science.”

On the Road – Jack Kerouac

I first read this book in San Francisco where I was bewitched by a hippy girl with long dreadlocks and shining eyes. I also had to pause a few weeks to watch a crunch football match on TV. It ended badly (the football match): Leeds were relegated. But hey, “I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night”. And I had discovered an author who, although mad and quite annoying at times, really managed to capture the zinging love for life of all good wandering souls, the mad ones I plagiarised in the opening paragraph. “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” And what more do we yearn for but “a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road”?

Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac

Kerouac gets two mentions in this piece as I conceived the idea for it whilst reading Dharma Bums in a drab business-hotel on an overnight stay to give a lecture. The grim irony was not lost on me. Kerouac’s fictional hero heads into the wild for a simple life and to find himself. I’m not struck on the religiose Buddhist side to the book but I love the young man heading up Matterhorn mountain, discovering the thrill of sleeping on mountains, drinking from ice cold creeks and turning his back on “middle class non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness”.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee

I don’t know how often I have eulogised this book. I do know that it’s my favourite piece of travel writing. Young man + violin, busking and walking his way across Spain. Cheap wine, dark-eyed girls, and sleeping under the stars. The life of a happy vagabond. “it was for this I had come: to look out on a world for which I had no words; to start at the beginning, speechless and without plan, in a place that still held no memories for me.”

A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor

Travelling on foot, sleeping in hayricks and castles “like a tramp, a pilgrim, or a wandering scholar”, Paddy Fermor’s walk across Europe inspired me to try to combine wandering with also using my brain and retaining my curiosity. He was expelled from school and I have long-loved a phrase from his school report that makes for a wonderful epitaph to work towards: “he is a dangerous mixture of sophistication and recklessness”.

The Happiest Man in the World – Poppa Neutrino

So bonkers was Poppa’s life that I felt sure I was reading a work of fiction until I checked him out on Google. Anyone who sails the Atlantic Ocean on a raft made of junk and also manages an obituary in the New York Times is clearly a fascinating person. From that piece: “A lifelong wanderer, he developed a philosophy that emphasized freedom, joy, creativity and antimaterialism, a creed expressed in the rafts he built from discarded materials.”

The Gentle Art of Tramping – Stephen Graham

The post I wrote about this book on my own blog clearly struck a chord – it was my most viewed post of the year. Dating back to 1927 it is a fabulous How-To guide to becoming a wanderer, a vagrant, a hobo.A brilliant addition to any vagabond’s library. A couple of snippets for you:

The less you carry the more you will see, the less you spend the more you will experience.
In tramping you are not earning a living, but earning a happiness.

Hopping Freight Trains in America – Duffy Littlejohn

I’ve always dreamed of hopping onto a freight train in America, rumbling thousands of miles from coast to coast, reading Kerouac and Huck Finn, hiding from cartoonish guards and learning the ropes from vagabonds.
This is a how-to book for dreamers. I don’t suppose now I actually will hop a train: the post-9/11 world makes it even harder than ever. So I suppose I’ll have to live with this stinging rebuke, “Sure, you can pay Amtrak to haul you across the country with a bunch of blue-haired old ladies. Or you can grow some balls and hop a train.”

The Way of the World – Nicolas Bouvier

The tale of two young Swiss men who take to the road, driving east to Afghanistan in the 1950s. They fund their search for new experiences by writing articles and painting. A beautifully written book. “Traveling outgrows it motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you.” “We denied ourselves every luxury except one, that of being slow.”
The book’s epigraph is an apt conclusion for this entire list of books,
“I shall be gone and live, or stay and die.”

What have I missed out? Please recommend and other great books in the comments below…

This post originally appeared on the howies blog

The 1000th Blog Post

Al Humphreys — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:17:05 +0000

Crikey, this is my 1000th blog post!

I was considering a gushing Oscar speech, but I’m meeting a mate for a training run shortly so instead I’m just going to thank you all for your support and thank the many, many people who have bought me a ‘virtual coffee’ over the last year (scroll down the right hand sidebar… *ahem*).

A quick look at my web stats brings up these posts as the most-popular from the last 1000. You can also see some general Good Stuff under my Best Bits category or the Encouragement page. I hope you enjoy these: I don’t think I’m going to be writing another 1000! Cheers.

The simplest way to follow my blog is through the newsletter which contains all the best bits. Just sign up below…

Ten Things I Learned While Cycling Round the World

Al Humphreys — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:26:11 +0000

Not including all the big, valuable lessons that long journeys in foreign land teach you (independence, humility, gratitude, sociability, flexibility, patience, self-confidence and so on), here are ten things I learned while cycling round the world:

The Middle East was one of the kindest, most welcoming regions I have visited. Not only do people consider it polite to share food with strangers, they actually give the guest all that he can eat before even beginning to think about themselves
This proved to me that preconceptions are dangerous. Most countries are not. Lay aside your preconceptions and go visit almost any place on Earth. You’ll be positively surprised
I would never go back to Egypt as a normal tourist: I found the tourist areas to be extremely annoying, whereas the non-touristy places were far more relaxing, genuine, and interesting
Being cold is worse than being hot. Unless you are too hot and therefore dreaming of snow. I think the real answer to this conundrum is that the preference lies in that which you are not currently enduring
“Mealie meal”, “pap”, “sadza”, “nsima”, “ugali”: call it what you wish, but the staple maize meal of Eastern and Southern Africa will never win a recipe contest
Georgian food, on the other hand, is wonderful. Arriving into Georgia after a grim few months of a Central Asian / Soviet diet of fat noodles and greasy lamb was a revelation! Khachapuri saved my soul
Communication is king. The single best thing about the year or so I spent in Latin America was getting good enough at Spanish (mas o menos) to be able to talk properly to people
America has a lot of critics, and for many good reasons. But spending 6 months there made me conclude that I would prefer to have an American hegemony than any of the other main candidates (China, Russia, India, the Ummah)
I love travelling through China, Russia, India, the Ummah. So don’t get mad at me for point number 8! In fact I could make a good argument for these four regions to be ranked as the most fascinating places in the world to visit
In Bulgaria nodding your head means “no” whilst shaking it from side to side means “yes”

This post first appeared on the As We Travel blog

9 Reasons why I love Independent Travel in Africa

Al Humphreys — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:57:39 +0000

I have spent a couple of years of my life in Africa. About half of that time I was travelling by bicycle. And that is definitely my favourite way of experiencing Africa. But there are great things about all different modes of independent travel in Africa.
Here are some snapshots that I hope will get the wanderlust flowing and encourage you to take a trip to Africa…

1. Laughter: A loud, belly-deep, thigh-slapping laughter heard in markets, bus stations and villages across Africa. I have never met a happier person than a laughing African.

2. Smoky dawns: Early morning roosters, the smoke of a million cooking fires, slender girls fetching water from village pumps, all lit with the golden light of sunrise.

3. Sugar cane: Snapping off mouthfuls of sugar cane, chewing the sweet juice, and spitting the woody waste out of the window of the loud, crowded minibus taxi.

4. Cute kids: Big shining eyes, massive grins, and a wonderful innocence: everywhere I travel in the world little kids seem to find me as weird and funny as a clown. I rarely discourage this, and love playing the fool to a big crowd of laughing African children.

5. Big skies: The huge canopy of blue above you, bluer and bigger than anywhere else I have ever been. The road stretching off ahead of you, towards the next adventure beneath this crazy big sky. Africa is big, bold, beautiful, and overflowing with adventurous potential.

6. Sunsets: Cheesy as you like, but nowhere -and I mean nowhere- can beat Africa for the wonderful cliche of a massive golden sunset.

7. Barbecued corn: Frustrated by delays, incompetence, wrong information, too-loud music, the heat, flies, and all the annoying stuff that goes with travel in Africa, I can always be placated by the aroma of barbecued corn-on-the cob: the constant comfort food of my travels in southern Africa.

8. Variety: Are the skyscrapers of Jo’Burg, the mosques of Cairo, Lalibela’s churches, Zanzibar’s beaches, Kili’s snowy summit, the Sahara and the Congo really all part of the same continent? Africa is many things, but ‘boring’ is not one of them.

9. Ouagadougou: the coolest name imaginable for a capital city.

What are you waiting for? There’s over 50 countries in Africa. Pick one. Go.

This post originally appeared on Wanderstruck.