Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel

Great book, a little quirky with some of it's ideas but that's it's appeal. You hardly have to leave your armchair to have a new adventure!

Anyone who says this book is just about "silly games" has completely missed the point. It is completely different from any other travel book. It doesn't provide a destination, how to get there, and what to do once you're there. It gives unique ways to explore any destination, no matter how banal the destination is. It's a great way to discover a town and the people in it. You can even use these techniques to explore your own town and find things about it you never knew before. Some of the suggested explorations include: -Spend 24 hours in an airport. Don't use an airport as a way to get to your destination; use it AS your destination. -Make an online post suggesting that travelers in a town should all wear an easily identifiable token, such as a red carnation. Wander the town, find the red carnation, and meet the people who read your post. -Start out at any bar. Ask the bartender to suggest a bar and a drink. Go to that bar, order that drink, and repeat the process until it's time to call it a night. -Find a dog, and let the dog take YOU on a walk. Let the canine be your guide. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes unique ways to discover a town instead of just a list of museums and tourist traps that are "must see." If it's adventure you want, read Robert Young Pelton's "The World's Most Dangerous Places."

With travel packages so commonplace as to be its own worst enemy when it comes to the throngs of tourists who concentrate on high-profile destinations, it's a treat to read about the quirky, somewhat off-kilter ideas that author Joel Henry (along with Lonely Planet staff writers Rachael Antony and Andrew Dean Nystrom) provides in this nifty little tome. A middle-aged television writer from Strasbourg, France and now the Director of Latourex, the Laboratory of Experimental Tourism, Henry elaborates on an alternative way of travel that he has been developing for over fifteen years, experimental travel. The idea is to choose destinations not for their logistical convenience, historic importance, climate appeal or overall popularity. Rather, a trip is built around a sense of chance, perhaps humor and hopefully serendipity in order to discover the unexpected and find a personal meaning in such travel. Henry breaks down his ideas into categories that can come across as creative, flip and sometimes both. For example, in a situation similar to the set-up of Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal", the author discusses "aerotourism", which means spending a day wholly within an airport, using the various facilities meant for on-the-go travelers. This sounds almost reasonable if the airport is as elaborately designed as the ones in Amsterdam's Schiphol and Singapore's Changi, but I assume it could be most challenging in more remote locales. There appears to be greater possibilities with "nyctalotourism" (only visiting tourist attractions between dusk and dawn); "contretourism" (visiting a famous site but then only taking photographs once you turn your back to the site); or the most romantic idea, the aptly named "erotourism" (a couple travels separately to a destination and then each tries to find the other without any contact). Other ideas don't have such high-concept-sounding names, such as touring your own hometown by staying in the local youth hostel or bringing a personal memento (the Orbitz gnome comes to mind) with you and photographing everything you see with the memento constantly in the picture. He has about forty ideas for you to consider, but I have to admit many of the ideas seem way too random for me to consider. At the same time, this is a nice book for the fertile imagination of the armchair traveler. I think Henry has the right idea in going against the predictable to find one's soul in traveling. It's a concept that Alain De Botton describes with panache in his book, "The Art of Travel", and Henry, for all his quirky notions, seems to be a kindred spirit.

For a fine armchair read as well as a different approach to tourism, pick up The Lonely Planet Guide To Experimental Travel and depart from package trips. Lack money or time to travel? Incorporate these potential 'disasters' into your very trip schedule and come up with something different! From exploring song lyrics to testing etiquette by being outrageous, contributors to The Lonely Planet Guide To Experimental Travel offer some 40 experiments to expand the concept of 'adventure'.

There are so many places I want to explore that I never thought of arranging my travel around quirky games. Maybe this book is for those who travel constantly and want a fresh way to explore a destination. The book gives ideas like exploring a city by song lyrics or chess moves. Then it reports on actual travelers who have tried it. Maybe this book would suit my friend who wears Groucho glasses/nose to meet visitors at the airport. I give the book four stars since Lonely Planet breaks ground with its travel books. Deducted one star, because I think the audience is pretty limited for travel this specialized.