Why 'Journey without maps'?



It used to be the way I travelled - much to the initial annoyance of my wife.

It is the title of a Graham Greene Novel Journey Without Maps I read in my late teens.

This book gave me the itch for independent travel - at least to justify the way I travelled.

I would inter-rail and hitch-hike around Europe in 1988, take a bus across America 1999, test my nerve in Peru in 1990, and then take the backpacker trail around SE Asia in 1992

I then travelled across India by train, walked through Nepal into Tibet and China in early 1993.

Recuperating in Hong Kong, playing Bridge on a boat to Discovery Bay, I decided to fly back to Bangkok.

There, on a beach I met a traveler, whose tales of adventure and fortune in Cambodia led me on my own journey without maps.

Now, forty years on from reading the book, my journey is anything but without maps. 

Even 15 years ago we planned a meticulous train trip from HK to Scotland - see Traintripwithson

In my recent work trip to Ireland and the UK, I managed to plan a very detailed trip in between meetings, taking in Belfast, Stranraer, Largs and Glasgow.

But, overall, it is fair to say this site is also a journey without maps. It may meander across the floodplain of my life's second half. Dr Arthur Brooks of Harvard University refers to this as the 'Crystallised Intelligence' phase of life. More on that later.

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