Background

In October of 1996 I found a copy of Werner Herzog's Of Walking in Ice in a bookshop in Montréal. It's been one of my favourite books since, in it's rambling aggressivity and abbreviated sentimentality. It also drew my attention to the possibility of walking long distances without professional degrees of preparation or training. Some months later I read a transcript of a conversation he had at the Edmonton Film Festival which brought me further under the enchantment of travel under limited means.

When I started my degree in Music Technology (which amounted to building guitars and violins) I knew that I wouldn't get any proper holidays for the next three years; the time would be filled by study or working to pay for it. To calm my itchy feet I would need to plan a big trip for the end. A month or two in, I found a copy of Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust. I decided an extended walk would do the trick, and settled on Rome as a destination. There was quite an elaborate reason at the time, beyond the fact that all roads lead there. I've forgotten it. But over the last three years, I started telling people what I planned to do, and I've now told too many to back out.

Of course, there's also the fact that I'm not sure if I can make it. This sort of test might unearth some part of me I don't know about. And if not, at least I'll have a few months to figure out what to do with myself next.