Travel is not just seeing the world but understanding it...
A Travel Guide to Connection
Just Released
About the Author Jonathan Newman
Social anthropologist, researcher, author and podcaster dedicated to revealing the hidden human layers of our world.
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In this contemplation on the human experience, I explore humankind's connections through the lens of travel.
Equal parts humorous reflection, thoughtful study, and carefully crafted travel guide, I map out how we can embrace the traveler in us all to deepen our connection with the vast world around us.
Dr. Jonathan Newman, Social Anthropologist & Author of A Travel Guide to Connection
A daily meditation on the art of looking closer - and turning the ordinary world delightfully upside down.
On Objects:
"Without luggage, the traveller is someone else. Without the traveller, luggage is just a random bunch of things in a bag."
On Everyday Life:
"You are truly on the move once you begin to feel like a stranger in your own home."
On Destinations:
"Rather than ask 'Where would I like to go?', what happens when a traveller asks 'Where would I NOT like to go?' and sets off to that other place instead?"
On Perspective:
"The wise Homo sapien has achieved so much... yet ask a daffodil or a whale; they remain unimpressed.”
On Human Nature:
"We are all tightrope walkers walking along the thin line of the day with different bodies, different clothes, and different experiences of falling off."
On Locations:
"I can neither know myself without knowing the world, nor know the world without knowing myself. Existence is a shared experience bathed in formative histories"
Travel book for the genuinely curious
Stop asking where to go. Start rethinking how you see.
REVIEWS
"An anthropological sensibility is exactly what we need
in a time of disconnection and division"
“Newman’s brilliant book is a fun, engaging invitation to see the world afresh. With clarity and wit, it shows how we can meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment.”
Gwen Burnyeat, University of Oxford
"This exceptional book fundamentally shifts how we experience the ordinary"
“It takes us on a journey of connection with what we thought we knew. This changes everything. Few books so powerfully transform how we perceive the world around us. It is a must-read."
Steffi Bednarek, Centre for Climate Psychology
"Eye-Opening!"
Professor Takamitsu Jimura
Tourism and Heritage
Musashi University
"Curiosity can light the way and kindness guides our steps"
"A reality check to wake the inner self, avoid the trap of the mundane, and recognise that we are all connected, from the smallest microbe to the largest animal. Thank you for this wonderful travel guide.”
Dr. Juliano Riano, Univeristy of Brighton
"Once read, you will see the world differently and it will never leave you"
“This book is brilliant: humorous, thought-provoking, sensitive and surprising. It makes you think differently and challenges prejudices you may not even have realised you held. It invites you to imagine how the dragonfly perceives the world, the messages a chair sends out and what it must be like to exist using only a sense of smell…”
Katherine Richards, Designer
"The perfect antidote to painting by TripAdvisor reviews"
“This enjoyable book has inspired me to go on adventures to unusual places, taking off-the-beaten-track to new levels. Reminds me of Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital.”
"Existential joy"
“I spent the last week at the hospital with my Dad, Your book does make it more interesting there."
"Oblique strategies for anthropologists"
Dr D. Rubyan Ling
"I’m at a 3-day wedding. I have your book with me so I'm occasionally trying to merge into the landscape! " John McCooke
"We were hugely the better for the book during our holiday, and ever since"
"With immense humility, genuine curiosity and true open-mindedness, it encourages us to see everything afresh, take nothing for granted, and above all to listen to the locals we encounter - to see the world through their eyes - instead of stereotyping and demeaning them. This book could definitely make the world a better place"
Carol Stobbie, ADHD Coach, North Berwick
