No more adventure?

Where to travel for an adventure?

We were reminiscing our trips abroad with hubby dearest. Those were the days -style.

"Do you remember how we chose the destination by reading a travel agency's printed brochure?" he asked.

"Yes, and the only information we had about the location was what was written there. Or a travel guide bought from the bookstore," I replied.

It really was. Those were the days when we had no computer. And there really was no internet in common use as it is today. Really.

"These days you go to Google Streetview and walk around the neighborhood without lifting your hinies off the chair," hubby said.

We had done that too. On our last trip to Turin / Torino we checked the surroundings of the hotels we were interested in and one criteria for booking the hotel we did was that it was in a nice neighborhood. All through the online street view.

Another factor were the reviews other travelers were sharing online. I spent two evenings reading the comments about different hotels. So you could say the element of surprise was at its smallest when we arrived to our destination.

This made me feel a bit sad. In the past you traveled to experience new things, to have a bit of an adventure. Where can you travel like that these days?

Well, of course you can just not check the above mentioned things but I know myself - if there is information to be learned, I want to know about it. I don't go overboard with the checking, but I do want to know I am not spending my money to something I don't enjoy spending it on.

So where can you find an element of adventure and surprise anymore?

And the answer popped into my head almost immediately: in books, of course! What better way to travel than reading? You can travel our known world and and the unknown worlds created by the imagination of talented writers around the globe.

The plot of a book does not even need to happen in any exotic place. It is enough that the story pulls you into the minds and emotions of the characters in a book, and you find yourself looking at the world in a different way.

So go on. Go to your bookshelf, your local bookstore or an online bookseller. Choose a story and travel away to the world of adventure!

(Here's a picture of my favorite source of adventure books - almost all my Egyptology books - the number is nearing 250 now. Much needed when I write my books.)