Travel is not just seeing the world but understanding it...
THE BOOK
A Travel Guide to Connection...
The Spirit of Exploration
"The magic allowing us to travel derives from the balance between accepting our world as a place we call home, while witnessing that we are also passing through an unexplored place. When two beings meet, the formative connection should open pathways of such fascinating exploration that we live our lives in perpetual, empathic amazement."
An inquiry into encounter in its widest sense - between bodies and species, across objects and landscapes, through deep time and the edges of transcendence. It approaches the lived world not as background, but as uncharted territory waiting to be met.
Signposts - What does it mean to live among those who have different points of view?
"I love the smell of commuters in the morning. Smells like travelling... The static cram of a busy tube train yields time to observe and reflect, absorbing this moment in their world to try and see this journey through their eyes."
Terrain - A Time for First Impressions
“Rather than wonder,
‘Where would I like to go?’,
the traveller could ask ,
‘Where would I not like to go?’ and set off to that other place instead.
Travelling is the practice of leaving where you are, so avoid your usual comfort zones: go to the wrong pub”.
Perspectives - A Time of Adjustment
"We are each a boat made from water moving through an ocean of complex, connective currents - telling small, but significant, stories of our purpose and possibility. Nurture awareness of your location and how you are connected to the multiple histories that gathered you and your surroundings together."
Connections - A Time to Dive into Discovery
"Location is a gathering of histories, a nexus of many other locations. It is a transitory cluster formed from the detritus of prior clustering and dispersal. Through interconnection, we get to glimpse the wonder of our passing. Where I am and who I am are indistinguishable."
Contemplation - A Time for Self-Reflection
"Without the wisdom of kindness, intelligence is a dangerous capacity. Travel into other moral realms is an uncomfortable journey, but resist the temptation to retreat to your own clean, comfortable righteousness."
Onwards - A Time of Settling In
“Whenever I heard of an interesting location where anthropologists had traveled - for example, Ambition, Beds or Comedy - I put them into my imaginary museum. Looking through the museum catalogue, consider how to explore these places and their entangled trajectories of being."
A book to slip into a coat pocket.
Take it on trains, leave it on tables, keep it by the toilet, or open it at random to turn the ordinary day into an expedition.
A daily meditation on our strange, shared world.
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.”
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."
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.”
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.”
“Newman’s brilliant book is a fun, engaging invitation to see the world a fresh.With clarity and wit, it shows how an anthropological sensibility – meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment – 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 a fresh.With clarity and wit, it shows how an anthropological sensibility – meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment – 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 a fresh.With clarity and wit, it shows how an anthropological sensibility – meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment – 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 a fresh.With clarity and wit, it shows how an anthropological sensibility – meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment – is exactly what we need in a time of disconnection and division.”
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…”
