In the best travel, disconnection is a necessity

“In the best travel, disconnection is a necessity. Concentrate on where you are; do no back-home business; take no assignments; remain incommunicado; be scarce. It is a good thing that people don’t know where you are or how to find you. Keep in mind the country you are in. That’s the theory.”
–Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008)

Posted by | Comments (8)  | August 1, 2011
Category: Travel Quote of the Day


8 Responses to “In the best travel, disconnection is a necessity”

  1. Ric Says:

    That is all good and well in theory – enjoy and submerse yourself in the country’s culture, people and events. But what if something goes awry? I believe that I would want to know that someone has a general idea where I am in case something goes wrong.

  2. Davis Says:

    If something goes awry in the jungle, by the time your friends back home realize it and are able to get the authorities moving, assuming they realize they ought to do something and figure out what, it will be a matter of comparing dental records.

    If you are going someplace dicey, you should have talked to the American consul and alerted your most highly-placed local contacts and been very careful yourself because you are the person responsible for your own safety, and to do this well you will need to be totally present; i.e., not distracted by keeping in touch with friends back home unless they are peculiarly informed of conditions on the ground.

    A distracted person is a target, and as strangers in a strange land we are targets enough.

  3. GypsyGirl Says:

    Cheers to the uncertainty of living, and the grace of misadventure! @Davis–Speaking of the jungle; did you read The Lost City of Z?

  4. Rudolph Aspirant Says:

    I personally don’t think Mr. Theroux was thinking so drastically in the sense of “advising” that one should keep one’s whereabouts or destinationa totally secret ! I think he was referring more to the need of immersing oneself in the local culture & society of the place you are visting. I actually sometimes do that by buying a couple of local newspapers, and sitting in a cafe or a park and browsing through them, while letting the sounds of the local language spoken by passers-by just “wash” over my ears…even if I don’t know the language, I can still look at the pictures in the newspaper, and I can still integrate in a way the “mood” of the sounds I hear with the most important news of the day. I really like doing that, but I have never actually met a person who ever told me they do it quite like this…this is actually one of the reasons why I am posting this on-line…out of curiosity…has anyone else out there tried this before ?!

  5. Davis Says:

    Rudolph: I don’t think Theroux was advocating going into deep cover, but just being where you were to the extent you were able, as you were apparently doing, given a language barrier. And before you go, study the language. The language barrier may not turn out as impenetrable as it looks.

    Gypsy Girl: Haven’t read Lost City of Z, but did read River of Doubt, about TR’s expedition. Maybe in a few months I will get to Brasil stories on my blog.

    Speaking of Brasil and the language barrier, I found spoken Portuguese impenetrable but was able to read it and communicate by using basic Spanish. And by watching Brasilian TV I did not learn a word of the language, but I did discover Xuxa, which I think is a fine and sufficient argument for cultural immersion.

  6. Nicolaï Says:

    Disagree with this. What if the world ends without me?

    Kidding. Why bother leaving if you don’t wanna be there?