Have Horse Head, Will Travel

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) The shrinking of our horizons is perhaps the most common trope of modern travel writing — and no wonder. The Antarctic ice is traversed by tour groups; permanent guide ropes help you up a litter-strewn Everest; and even space travel (if Sir Richard Branson’s recently unveiled ambitions are anything to go by) will one day be within the financial grasp of the average tourist. But before you allow this to plunge you into existential despair, take note of a marvelous new book. The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel, out this month, is the guidebook publisher’s attempt to make us see ordinary places in extraordinary ways, thereby revealing the new horizons that beckon right under our noses.

“Experimental travel” is the clever invention of Joel Henry, a French journalist who, in 1990, began devising amusing ways of liberating himself and his friends from the often unfulfilling experiences of conventional tourism. His methods involve the imposition of arbitrary — and often absurd — constraints that turn mundane travel into a fascinating series of games. In Fly by Night, readers are invited to arrive at a destination at dusk, explore through the night, and leave before dawn. Barman’s Knock involves going to your favorite bar, downing your favorite drink, asking the bartender what his favorite bar and drink are, then going there, downing that drink, and repeating the process. Then there’s Monopoly Travel, which consists of exploring a city using only the streets and places featured on the local edition of the iconic board game.

“One of my favorites is Ero Tourism,” says Henry. “My wife and I travel separately to the same foreign city by different modes of transport, and then try to find each other. We have done it and met six times. The moment we meet is always fantastic.”

Experimental travel has been slow to take root outside of a small circle of devotees. According to Latourex (or the Laboratory of Experimental Travel, established by Henry), there are currently 1,000 experimental travelers worldwide. But with the publication of the Lonely Planet book — which presents 40 of Henry’s best experiments along with a potted history of his exploits — all that could change, so the streets may soon be full of people wearing horse heads (Horse Head Adventure) or riding penny-farthings (Anachronistic Travel).

“Experimental travel gives a fantastic sensation of freedom and the possibility of loving places generally considered to be mundane,” says Henry. Unsurprisingly, he cites the Dada movement and surrealism among his influences. For those of us bored with a world reduced to chain hotels and increasingly identical town centers, a hefty dose of the ridiculous will go down very nicely, thank you.