Prologue ...
A record of random observations, thoughts and experiences sourced from many years of idle wanderings and wonderings.
An earlier title for this introductory post was, ‘Confessions of a Flâneur.’ I first came across the term via Edmund White’s book, ‘The Flâneur: A Stroll Though the Paradoxes of Paris.’ I had to look up the meaning, and I liked what I found.
Flâneur, French noun referring to a person, literally meaning "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer", but with some nuanced additional meanings, according to Wikipedia, like the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street.
That’s what I did: wandering and wondering around the planet whenever budget and circumstances allowed. But I’m no Edmund White, so couldn’t really put myself in his company by borrowing that word. Instead, a more descriptive and accessible term makes sense; prologue.
These days, I’m based in Sydney, Australia. For now. But at various stages, ‘home’ has been somewhere in Europe, including London, Amsterdam, a little town west of Florence in Italy, Val d'Isère in the Savoie Alps, and Berlin, among others.
Then there was the time I picked up work in Egypt, as an extra for a BBC television production. This extended for many months, so in between ‘filming’ in the Sinai Desert, I ventured into Jordan, Israel and other parts of the Middle East.
This has been the way of things for me when ‘on the road’. That is, be open to experience and opportunity because you never know what may unfold. I certainly did not set out on this wayward path. A chance trip to Paris in my mid-20s initiated a passion for wanderlust that thankfully hasn’t diminished.
Fast forward a few decades to 2019. I’d returned to Sydney following a 4-month odyssey traversing Central and Latin America just before Covid-19 changed everything, when a freelance travel writer colleague asked: “How many countries you been to?”
It got me thinking. I had no idea. So I grabbed a world map, dug into my memory banks and started counting. About 76 countries was my best guess. With a few ‘territories and principalities’ on top of that. (Not sure they count?). Seems like a lot. But maybe not? I never set out to achieve any particular number. I simply packed a bag and went wandering whenever finances and circumstances allowed.
And that, dear friends, has been going on for quite a few years since that chance French encounter. And hopefully with more sojourns on the way. Maybe hitting the 100-country visited list could happen one day? We’ll see.
In the meantime, I plan to share ‘idle tidings’ and long-form thoughts gathered along the way. I hope you can stay to share the journey.