If you like post industrial, instrumental rock, this is a great album.

When I travel, I’m usually a pretty organized planner. Though, I been finding myself planning less and less on trips over the past several years. I usually don’t read travel essay type books. But doing some research for a trip at my local Barnes and Noble, I caught a book that took a more anti-planning approach. So, I picked up a copy. I’d say the heart of the book is to just slow down when traveling and enjoy your surroundings. It’s really targeted to folks who want to do long term travel (3+ months at a time). I found it helpful for thinking about even shorter trips. The 10 day turbo trip across Europe? Ridiculous. How about 10 days in a single city? The other thing I liked about the book is the emphasis on traveling on the cheap. I remember the $10 dollar a night hotels I’ve stayed in. Not the $250. Finally, the author spends a lot of time making the point that there’s no need to wait to travel. Along those lines, this passage stood out the most for me:

...we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.”

Last January after I saw Into the Wild, the movie left me wanting to learn more about the main character, Chris McCanless, and motives for his adventure. His death in the Alaskan wilderness seemed completely unnecessary and stupid. I’m not sure I learned much more about his motives other than to experience life in a more raw way than many of us do. Here’s one of my favorite passages in the book, written by McCandless:

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirt within a man than a secure future.

I can still remember watching this film for the first time when I was growing up. I thought the cinematography was fantastic and still do. It’s a very well crafted film. I’m looking forward to Carroll Ballard’s newest releasing soon. At the end of the film, there’s a great passage: “I think over again my small adventures. My fears. Those small ones that seemed so big. For all the vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing. The only thing. To live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world. ~Old Inuit Song”