“Most travelling people have a superficial vision of the countries they cross over. Passive travellers, they got a feeling of duliness. For them, all landscapes are the same, except maybe those which are pointed out by a mark on their travel guide. They are unable to detect the incredible diversity of landscapes and especially the complex system of human lives in each country.
How to discover the deeper life of a country and acquire an explorer’s soul able to recognize the particularities of a landscape and understand its background? This is what we will be searching for while travelling with an alert mind.”
(Pierre Deffontaines, Petit Guide du Voyageur Actif, Presses d’Ile de France.)
Because we are able to travel faster and faster, we become passive “travellers”. Let’s try to be active explorers keen to learn and understand, documented, trained and well equipped before the departure.
As Pierre DEFFONTAINES proposed it, let’s train ourselves to “travelling from the feet to the mind“.
Active travelling begins with the desire to find out what things are like elsewhere, to break out of one’s routine, to open up one’s eyes, ears and heart to the world and to mankind. Some carry their world with them, they move but don’t travel, they don’t change their ways or venture off the beaten track, whereas others draw water from the spring of the world.
Getting in touch with : a landscape by glancing down from a higher place , with a town by walking across it or going all over a tramway or bus line , with a particular space (beach, market, industrial estate) by observing how it functions.
Exploring methodically : according to one’s objectives or interests, by planning from one-hour to several days tours…
Making contacts : breaking ice by asking for information or requesting an authorization, looking for a dialogue (without imposing oneself), making the most of unforeseen situations, talking about one’s country as well, explaining why we want to take a picture, etc.
Fields of observation
- The setting : type of landscape, names of villages and places, a land that farmers have built into a country.
- The relief : flat, with hills, montaneous, with particular aspects …
- The coast : indented or not, beaches or cliffs, tides, estuaries …
- The soil : colour, consistency, variations …
- The climate : its consequences on how people live …
- The distribution of water : lakes, valleys, ponds, marshes, springs …
- Flora and faun.
Human life
- Habitat : rural, urban, ancient , modern, etc. and what it says about how people live.
- Settlement : how the villages and cities are settled, what visible changes along the time, what does this say about relationships between people …
- The key areas within the city or the village : castle, church, cemetery, war memorial, city-centre, schools, market, commercial area, industrial estate, recreational area …
- The local typical “characters” : fisher or farmer ? particular activity …
- Traditions and food …
- Major communication routes and means of communication
Human labour
Obviously very different according to the place … However what can we observe from what we know about the geographical, economic and demographic situation …
Changes and fights …
The landscape keeps tracks or scars from geological, human, historical changes. These tracks tells about land’s and human life.
An exciting project
Active travelling is therefore both a state of mind and a method of observation. We can get this ”grid” fairly quickly and it becomes a reflex attitude enriching our travel.
Lived in this perspective, a travel can be an exciting adventure and project aimed at discovering new horizons and different cultures. You can be willing to reach the extremity of the earth but it can be as exciting to explore a region of your country that you have never visited. Active travelling can be adapted to every budget because it requires slow and inexpensive means of transport: walking or biking. Crossing over a country by plane or driving on a highway at high speed are the surest ways to see nothing. True discovery requires the slow rate of walking or biking, which directly gets us in touch with nature and opens up opportunities for meeting people.
Active travelling is often the first step for a development education process : the one where we explore reality. If the exploration has been successful, we come back wit many discoveries which enrich our way of considering and understanding the reality. Then, a second step starts: reflecting and analysing … The step where we develop a feeling of empathy and involvement. We feel ourselves close to the people we have met and who are fighting for a better life : these young people from an African shantytown trying to create a small business or these farmers from a remote area working on a difficult land. We ask ourselves how we could help them; then an idea comes naturally which could contribute to solve some discovered problems.
Now the active learning cycle is opening : Exploring, Responding, Taking Action. Here starts the true adventure: active travelling is the door opening to dozens of other prokects in the fields of environment, culture and expression, social service, international solidarity, entreprise and employment, advocacy and political engagement.
In order to prepare your active travelling project, you can download the following handouts from the Toolbox:
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