A Sunday Escape #5

The nostalgia edition – plus, a special offer

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A Sunday Escape #5

Hilary (O’Donoghue) Exelby, somewhere on the Karakorum Highway in Pakistan, 1986. Photo © Hilary Exelby

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Busy day? Take a listen to this post – read by me (with the neighbour’s puppies and our garden’s birds popping in to say hi)

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Dear NE-One

Twenty-two years ago today I woke up just before dawn in Egypt’s Western Desert. I’d slept under the stars and woke feeling a little chilly, but exhilarated – and, rather smug. I had a secret, you see: it was my birthday. I was travelling with a handful of strangers and we were completely disconnected from the rest of the world. Nobody around me knew the significance of that day, nobody I knew could contact me, and for the entire day – and about a week afterwards – I revelled in the anonymity of secretly turning 25.

I was mulling over that day this morning, thinking back to what being on the road was like before the internet made us contactable almost anywhere, any time. When my brother Roan set off on his gap year in early 1996, my uncle Jeremy had “this thing called email” – and with written instructions that detailed what that email address probably was, Roan set out into the world. Somehow, miraculously, we received one brief letter that arrived who-knows-how from somewhere in Europe, via a computer. Roan also sent a few postcards (some homemade, written on beer coasters) and some letters written on those thin blue aerograms; my parents gathered them – and, later, ones from me and then my sister – carefully in an old wooden box and while it’s many years since I sifted through it, I know it contains so many special memories.

With this nostalgia wrapping itself around me, I wanted to share a few things for you to look through….

…if you have time for a quick scroll

A glimpse into José Naranja’s notebooks – from his Instagram page.

Spaniard José Naranja is an aeronautical engineer turned full-time traveller who documents his journeys in exquisite notebooks. He uses books he’s made himself, and their pages are packed with beautiful drawings, notes and mementos. Scroll through his Instagram account here – he has two books up for sale, and if you feel inspired to create your own, you can do a course with him here. It’s free, but you’ll need to be an Atlas Obscura member to take part (which you can take out via that link).

…if you have 12 minutes

What was solo travel like in the days before smartphones and Google Maps? It’s a question I asked the four women* I interviewed for a Conde Nast Traveler feature. Stories of human connection define my journeys, I was told. Life was a day-by-day adventure, a Dutch photographer recalled. My most profound memory, one woman said wistfully, is the simplicity of life. You can read that feature – and the stories of these women’s journeys, here.

* One of the women I interviewed is my crazy aunt Hilary (that’s her, in the photo above), who is married to Jeremy (he with the email address). They’re currently living in Cairo, and document their adventures on their YouTube channel, here.

…if you have 19 minutes

This year marks five decades since the very first Lonely Planet guide book was published. It was a 96-page hand-stapled book called Across Asia on the Cheap, and was written by Maureen and Tony Wheeler on a borrowed typewriter at a small, round kitchen table in Sydney. It sold in Australia for $1.80 a copy – and was the forerunner to the thousands of books (one of which I’m currently working on) that have shaped millions upon millions of journeys over the past 50 years. In this TED Talk video Tony Wheeler explains what his and Maureen’s very first trip entailed, and how they ended up founding the guidebook empire that Lonely Planet became. This piece, published in The Times a few months back, fills in the (more interesting) gaps.

As you read this I’ll be at my computer (still), writing my contribution to the 19^th edition of Lonely Planet’s Bali guide. Mark and I are still on the island, and will be here until early November, when we leave for South Africa. The coming summer months will be busy. I’ll be wrapping up the Bali book, then planning, researching and writing for an upcoming edition of Lonely Planet’s South Africa and Lesotho guide. Mark is currently writing the manuscript for Vagabond (which is based on his 1225km walk across Spain, which I told early NE Where readers about here) which will be released by a major UK-based publisher in July next year.

Our noses are in our computers a lot these days, but we have a big adventure planned for once our book deadlines have been met. I’ll share more details in the coming months… it involves living life simply with a small backpack, a hammock and the open road.

Until next weekend

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