Onomatopoetic Travel, Systematic Travel and Dromomania

Honolulu

Bora Bora

Acapulco

Timbuktu

Karakorum

Shangri-La

Serengeti

Tahiti

Sahara

Hong Kong

Monte-Carlo
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Pago-Pago

Baden-Baden

Sing-Sing
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Borobodur

Paramaribo

Maracaibo

Galapagos

Kashmir
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Systematic Travel

Systematically planned out travel can provide travelers with a strategy for seeing the world.
By Dr. Alan Hogenauer (RIP)

Hello, fellow travelers. This is the first installment in our series on systematic travel, defined here as the methodical visitation to a specific number of distinct places in a given area, or distinct elements on a given topic. Area-wise, these can range from just one site (such as the 12 residential colleges of Yale University) to the entire earth (the seven continents, for example, or the highest peaks thereon, the Seven Summits.) Topic-wise, these can be visiting the top 50 cities in population or eating in a McDonald's in all 50 U.S. states.

If you’re an avid traveler, you may already be well along in this type of activity. Therefore, over the next few months, we will both cite known systematic travel pursuits and encourage like-minded travelers to add their names and/or their special pursuits to the discussion.

COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD
This is certainly an obvious list at first glance, but it gets tricky indeed if you try to be precise. What, exactly, is a country? Only a truly independent nation (France), or also one of its sizeable, distant territories (New Caledonia)? A miniscule island (Nauru) or also a huge possession (Greenland)?

We will examine several systematic efforts to both determine and visit "countries". But NO "countries" list will EVER be truly definitive/objective!

UN MEMBER NATIONS
Here's an objective list, for sure, with 192 members as of this moment, covering most of the world. But Antarctica is left out and many UN member nations are so small as to be almost inconsequential, while others are so huge that a visit to one point therein is hardly sufficient to constitute a thorough or even a representative visit.

THE TRAVELERS’ CENTURY CLUB
This group, initiated 54 years ago by travel agents, to both recognize and motivate travel, has prepared a frequently revised list. It currently totals 317 "countries", including both independent countries (like the USA) and key possessions/territories (like Puerto Rico, even Alaska). Their list has certainly motivated many to reach the primary goal of 100, and then continue to try to complete their full list. Controversially, however, they count merely landing (and not even disembarking) as a visit. Do you agree with this? Send your comments to [email protected].

NEXT TO COME
Next time we'll cover MostTraveledPeople.com (698 "places") and the Amateur Radio list, yet another compilation with multiple revisions.

Happy travels, determined or otherwise!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Alan Hogenauer is Associate Professor in the College of Business Administration at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA, specializing in travel and tourism. He has been traveling "systematically" for more than 50 years. In 1981, he became the first person to reach all the units of America's national park system, which he updated in 1995 and 2006. His multiple travel challenges are listed on his website www.cheklist.com. Dr. Hogenauer's latest and ongoing goal is to link everywhere on earth using surface transport only; to date he has linked 169 countries and territories on all seven continents without using an airplane.

Source: http://www.johnnyjet.com/folder/archive/Alan-Hogenauer-Systematic-Travel-2008.html

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Dromomania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dromomania, also travelling fugue, is an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander.[1] People with this condition spontaneously depart from their routine, travel long distances and take up different identities and occupations. Months may pass before they return to their former identities. The term comes from the Greek: dromos (running) and mania (insanity).[2]

The most famous case was that of Jean-Albert Dadas, a Bordeaux gas-fitter. Dadas would suddenly set out on foot and reach cities as far away as Prague, Vienna or Moscow with no memory of his travels. A medical student, Philippe Tissie, wrote about Dadas in his doctoral dissertation in 1887.[3]

Jean-Martin Charcot presented a similar case he called automatisme ambulatoire - French for "ambulatory automatism" or "walking around without being in control of one's own actions."

Only a handful of cases of such behaviour have been documented, nearly all in France in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, dromomania in wider sense (e.g. spontaneous change of location undertaken due to dysphoria) can be characteristic of other mental disorders, e.g. Borderline personality disorder.

More generally, the term is sometimes used to describe people who have a strong emotional or even physical need to be constantly traveling and experiencing new places, often at the expense of their normal family, work, and social lives.