I saw this written on the back of an Indian bus once, and it really sums up how I think about travel. It’s not so much the going someplace as the getting there that I enjoy. Call me a maschocist, but I’d very happily spend 24 hours on a bus going nowhere fast. My bum might not thank me, but watching a country unfold before you slowly is my idea of a good time. And I’ve been lucky enough to endure some real monsters: five days across the Northern Territory and Queensland in an old Toyota camper on its last legs, 36 hours from Istanbul to Aleppo in Syria on the one car “Toros Express”, 33 hours up into the Himalaya during the monsoon.
Powering through Wadi Rum, Jordan
All good fun. Though the pleasure of the Indian experience was almost undone by the Israeli constantly kicking the back of my seat. Once you’ve lived through such journeys, you’ll never complain about the delayed Virgin 19:30 to Manchester again.
Incidentally, The Journey Is The Destination is also the title of one of my favourite books, by the late, great, photojournalist Dan Eldon. But that’s another story.