In this episode, host Tony Fletcher reads another short story from his Round The World, backpacking trip of 2016 with wife and 11-year old son: A Travel Day, set in Morocco. Doing so inspires him to discuss the definition and purpose of travel, to consider how the joy is to be found in the sum of its parts, not in largely mythical grand epiphanies or supposedly magical destinations. “Great travel experiences are often about the moments in between those destinations. They come from the days where you simply aspire to get from A to B, but as you will hear in this story, getting from A to B means going via C with additional detours, distractions, disappointments and, inevitably, delights en route.”

Tony’s recent journey back to the United Kingdom finds him unearthing his mother’s own extensive travel diaries, from shared family camping adventures in the 1970s through to her own frequent journeys to the Middle East. This inspires Tony to discuss the merits of keeping and preserving such diaries, especially when they can unlock memories that may have been closed shut by the passing of time and the onset of dementia. And he offers a few more observations of his own travels this past month, finding previously unexplored beautiful destinations more or less on his birth town’s doorstep.

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Original incidental music in this episode is 'Two Struggling Chicago Musicians' by Noel Fletcher.

Music used in the short story A Travel Day:

Abdoulaye Alhassane Touré - Kurbu, Timala and Maru Kiray

Imdukal'N' El Hussain Safir - Laman

VA - gnawa on the streets of Rabat, and Djemma el Fna in lo fi splendor

Eric Carlson - Train tunnel, Scott County, Virginia

Giraffe - A Bus Out of Here

Checkpoint 303 - Bus 21, Jerusalem to Bethlehem,

All from the Free Music Archive used under a Creative Commons License

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