Priya Pathiyan
Deputy Editor
Today, we bring to you a fresh batch of travel stories, piping hot from the TD oven. Of course, we like them all, but the one that gave me most pause for thought was the one on unusual types of tourism by our talented in-house scouter-outer Sushmita.
There are so many ways to gadabout and there is no one size fits all. Some go only where there are five-star hotels, and their loyalty points carry cachet. Others eschew the tried and tested for off-the-beaten track adventures where even homestays are few and far between. The motivation for travel is a subject that holds much fascination for me.
The idea of something as experimental as sagittatourism, where you pick a random point on a map and head there might sound outré to us today, who like to look at and book everything in advance. But it was probably how the first real global travellers viewed their voyages. It may be initially daunting, but how exciting to land in a place with no prior arrangements and just a blank slate to draw your vacation memories on!
I read recently of French journalist Joel Henry, who encouraged people to think of travel as a game back in the 1990s. He suggested a few mad ideas — from blindfolded tours to numerical adventures (where you pick a number, say 20, then travel on that date, by a train with 20 in its code, go down a street bearing that number and so on) — but left it up to us to come up with even more creative ones.
You could apply this playful approach to your passion for something as you travel, for example, always plan a cooking class or wine tasting everywhere you go. Or ride a yellow Vespa and only wear purple and eat green foods throughout your trip. Or take one upside down photo every single day you’re travelling and create a collection. What is life without a little whimsy, after all.