Y’all know ther’s an entire travel logging industry worth countless millions of dollars and including so many books you practically trip over them at Barnes & Noble plus at least one entire dedicated cable channel, right?
2 Likes
I strongly recommend it. Haven’t reached Santiago yet, but I’ve done two sections of slightly over 100km each, taking about a week (5 days walking, a day travelling at each end) to do each one. Can’t wait to go back!
2 Likes
Cool. I’m thinking this may be for when I leave my current job and can have a significant amount of time off.
1 Like
Well, the old-fashioned way was to go on your trek, hopefully financed by a trekking equipment manufacturer (sales will really fly when people learn that I travelled to the source of the Umpopo River in a Stemming kayak), tinned food maker Spam!), scientific institution (I’m looking for the Nakahama Purple Butterfly), the Navy (anything really), or the Army (maps, old boy).
Then you’d write book about your travels and try and find a publisher.
Being a mere selection. They’re still done today, Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson being only the most lucrative I can immediately think of.
So:
Step 1: try to get some funding
Step 2: go on trek
Step 3: publish
Step 4: $$$ (or more realistically -$)
Now it’s:
Step 1: Crowdfund ($$$)
Step 2: Go on trek
Step 3: Publish
Step 4: -$
It’s just rearranging the order and you can now find out before you set off if anyone will buy your book.
1 Like
Hi guys, Peter Orosz here. The walking is, of course, free, and I pay for my own holidays, as we all do.
What I propose in the campaign is a field report on what rural depopulation looks like in an area where its effects are exaggerated by geography, culture, climate, and history. That I aim to accomplish this via a walking transect of a Japanese island is a question of epistemology. It has served me well on past projects.
Most of the funds will be spent on the physical production of the field report, a large printed artifact. We are aiming for book-quality work, and we need to pay for graphic design, cartography, editing, paper, printing, shipping, etc. The campaign is priced for break-even.
As @Pea_Hicks has pointed out, there is nothing heroic in this. The human body is built for long-distance walking. You don’t even necessarily need two good legs. The great Hungarian lingust Ármin Vámbéry only had one — the other was crippled by polio — and he walked from Istanbul to Samarkand in 1863, producing one of the first English-language reports on the closed cities of Central Asia.
Walking is a wonderful way to learn about the world, and I hope you will be inspired to go on your own walk for your own reasons. There are mountains everywhere.
Thank you all for supporting my work.
6 Likes
I think the endeavor is great, if anything i’m jealous as i have a big love for Japan and i’ve always wanted to explore the countryside. I got to visit for the first time ever this year, hoping in two years or so i can go again for a more involved trip/adventure
2 Likes
All of this sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Good luck! It seems like a great project.
1 Like
Sounds like fun!
Good luck but try to be nice to any cyclists you happen to meet:)
I’ll do my best!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
