Welcome to the fifth edition of VoiceMap’s fortnightly newsletter, Senses of Direction.
This week, we face a hard truth: travel might not have the power to change the world. In fact NYT columnist Matt Gross calls the idea “horseshit”, and declares his life’s work a failure.
You’ll also find out why people still spit on a small stone in front of Bremen’s St Peter’s Cathedral, and follow the humble tumbleweed on its border-hopping adventures.
Last but not least, we’ve got excerpts from a fascinating new book about the history of direction, and how it’s more topsy-turvy than you’d expect.
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For your political sensibility | TRAVEL IS NOT A POLITICAL ACT
Is travel a vehicle for opening ourselves up to new experiences? A ticket out of our comfort zone, or an invitation to become “a cultural chameleon”? I believe it can be. So did writer and former New York Times Frugal Traveler columnist, Matt Gross.
He left the US in the early 2000s on “the journey that would turn [him] into a travel writer,” feeling like he and his trailblazing colleagues were “collectively doing something new – charting the fresh ways that Americans could discover the world, freed from the expectations and requirements of previous generations.”
In this new blog post, Travel is not a political act, Gross picks apart what he sees as misguided – and often compelling – sentiments from “guidebook czar and travel-TV personality” Rick Steves’ book, Travel as a Political Act: How to Leave Your Baggage Behind. Steves writes:
“Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colours. (…) Imagine you love books… and one day the librarian mentioned there was an upstairs.”
Steves urges readers to get out of their comfort zones when travelling, and endeavour “to become a ‘temporary local.’” Only by leaving home, he argues, can we learn that “other people find different truths to be ‘self-evident.’”
Gross calls Steves’ sentiments “truly beautiful” before declaring: “They’re also horseshit.” The truth, Gross has decided, is that “travel is not and never has been political.”
He gives us the stats: In 2004, around 36.5 million Americans travelled abroad. By 2023, that number had risen to 98.5 million. But travel “changes only those who want to be changed,” he argues. As for the rest: “it’s a vacation, an exercise in hedonism, an Instagram flex, or, at worst, an obligation, something one does with one’s money simply because one is expected to.”
🔗 Read the piece, subtitled “Rick Steves is wrong, and my life’s work is a failure” at Trying, Gross’ humbly-named blog, here.
For your sense of disgust | THE UNLIKELY STORY OF THE SPITTING STONE
It might shock or surprise you to see people in the German city of Bremen spitting on a seemingly random spot in Domshof square. But, if you’re on the lookout for the famous ‘spitting stone’, seeing it will feel like a triumph. But where on earth did this tradition come from?
It’s a story with a few unexpected plot twists, which you can hear on Robin and the Tourguides’ first VoiceMap of Bremen – and fifth in Germany. From pathos for Gesche Gottfried (AKA ‘the Angel of Bremen’) to suspense and, finally, head-rolling justice, this is a slice of history that you don’t want to miss!
🔗 Listen to the captivating story here or check out the whole tour, Bremen’s Old Town to the Schnoor District: A Guide to its Timeless Treasures, at this link.
For your sense of direction | THE UNEXPECTED HISTORY OF DIRECTION
The cardinal points – north, south, east and west – have always seemed so… reliable. “Yet they are far more subjective – and sometimes contradictory – than we might realise,” writes British historian Jerry Brotton in his fascinating new book, Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction.
Yes, our position in space is always subjective. On my left is different from on your left, depending on where we’re standing. But Botton’s book cracks open this subjectivity and its implications in an exciting and humbling way.
“At noon the Sun is always due south in the northern hemisphere and due north in the southern hemisphere,” Botton points out, adding: “The cardinal directions are relative terms, but over centuries they have become established markers of not just where we are in the world, but who we are.”
The book opens with a simple but uncanny example. Botton tells the story of how the world was introduced to the photograph dubbed ‘The Blue Marble’: The first true-colour image of the fully-illuminated Earth captured from space, taken in 1972 by one of the three-man crew on NASA’s Apollo 17, and an iconic symbol of our planet and the environmental movement.
“But when NASA first developed the photograph they saw what they regarded as a problem: it had been taken with the South Pole at the top of the frame swathed in cloud, Africa in the middle and the Arabian peninsula at the bottom. (…) Concerned that the photo might disorient viewers’ expectations of what the world looked like, NASA inverted the image, to align it with people’s assumptions that the North Pole should be at the top and the South Pole at the bottom. The world was literally turned upside down: but which way up is true?”
In this latest book by the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, Botton explores direction from all angles, including why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps, why early Islam revered the south, and why the Aztecs used five colour-coded cardinal directions.
🔗 Preview the book here (US or UK), or read the New York Times’ 12 November review here.
For your sense of irony | THE HUMBLE TUMBLEWEED’S TRUE ORIGINS
Tumbleweed is synonymous with the old American West, drifting across the desertscape of many a cowboy film. But this quintessential weed may not be as American as you think. It hitchhiked halfway across the globe, over the Ural mountains, from what was the Russian empire in the 1870s.
🔗 Watch this short BBC film about the immigrant species’ journey to America, here.
Until next time, thanks for travelling with us!
Best Wishes,
Claire van den Heever
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