IS GRAHAM’S CIRCUMNAVIGATION ONE OF THE WORST IDEAS FOR A GLOBAL ADVENTURE?

IS GRAHAM’S CIRCUMNAVIGATION ONE OF THE WORST IDEAS FOR A GLOBAL ADVENTURE?

By Kevin Stoda

On National Geographic, I came across one of the worst ideas in adventure travel for the 21st Century. It is an 8-part program named “Graham’s World: The Odyssey Expedition”.

http://theodysseyexpedition.com/?page_id=2622

The original plan of the producer Hugh Graham was to travel to all the country’s in the world in a one-year period of time—without using a plane.

Here is the blurb Graham used to get attention for his endeavor on National Geographic:

“British filmmaker Graham Hughes is taking his love of travelling to the limit, embarking on an epic – challenge to step foot in every country on earth in a single year without flying. This series documents his madcap attempt to break a world record by visiting 200 countries and travelling 90,000 kilometers in 52 weeks of non-stop travelling – virtually all of it on public transport. Racing against a ticking clock, Graham sets out with no support, a limited budget and only a video camera for company. His plan is to not only bag a world record but raise oodles of cash for charity and win the hand of the girl he wants to marry on the finishing line. The trip of a lifetime, a flight of fancy, or a recipe for failure? Only time will tell.”


NATURALLY

Thank God, Graham did not meet his “ambitious schedule”!

Hughes is currently already about two years under-way and still has 17 countries to go. Hughes journey may be a world-record for circumnavigation of the entire (political) globe, but it appears to be a none-too-enjoyable way to see things--and more importantly to enjoy—God’s Earth, people and wonders.

For example, tonight, for the first time ever, I had turned on the program (Episode 4) of this particular odyssey, and I observed that Graham Hughes had gotten himself put in jail for 6 days in Cape Verde because he had failed to get permission to enter the country legally in the boat he arrived on from Senegal. Then he was stranded for more than two weeks more on Cape Verde because he could not get a boat off the island. Hughes had hardly a good word to say about Cape Verde.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/cape-verde

In contrast, LONELY PLANET, who has sponsored the video production of Graham’s journey, says of Cape Verde: “Though tiny in area, the islands contain a remarkable profusion of landscapes, from Maio’s barren flats to the verdant valleys of Santo Antão. And Fogo, a single volcanic peak whose slopes are streaked with rivers of frozen lava. The beaches of Sal and Boa Vista increasingly attract package-tour crowds, but Cape Verde remains a destination for the connoisseur – the intrepid hiker, the die-hard windsurfer, the deep-sea angler, the morno devotee.”

We were hardly shown anything like that on Graham’s program during the section on Cape Verde. Worse still, whenever Graham had worries on his road-trip ahead of him, Cape Verde was referred to as a traveler’s nightmare
.

MAY I ASK?

What was Graham Hughes expecting when he determine by-trip-design to focus on speed rather than on wonder on his journey? I would like to ask readers and TV viewers, what is the purpose of such a journey? It seems to me that the journey and program is a warning to bad travel ideas and sets back travel trends to well into the 19th century, i.e. when the novel by Jules Verne Around the World in 80 Days was written.

http://www.online-literature.com/verne/aroundtheworld/

However, in contrast to Jules Verne’s tales, Graham Hughes shows us too few beautiful sunsets, next-to-no nature scenes in any reflective way, and ignores most introspection on the problems with his goals. The message is to meet one’s goals come-hell-or-high-water—that is, an obsession to hit-the-road is the constant rhythm of Hughes’ journey.

I traveled to 102 countries between 1983 and 2008. I have lived or worked in ten of those countries.

Since then I’ve gotten married and now have a child. Therefore, I imagine I will not travel as much in the future but my memories of travel and going to new places are going to continue to be much more fruitful and more reflective than the journeys of Graham Hughes as presented in his current Odyssey.

http://enjoyingtravelwithkids.blogspot.com/2009/04/tom-bihns-new-tri-star.html


COMMON SENSE IN GLOBAL TRAVEL

The modern global traveler is not/and should not be focused on speed. As John Lennon once sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Through Hughe’s hyper-focus on getting-on-the-road, he rarely takes us viewers to smell the roses or to appreciate eating the yams along the way.

This program by Hughes is not a good example for young travelers. Travel should not be one great race, but one great celebration of life that happens to have occasional destinations along the way. .