100 Canons for Escaping the Rat Race and Exploring the World
Globetrotter Dogma – 100 Canons for Escaping the Rat Race and Exploring the World
by Bruce Northam, published by New World Library, April 2002. ISBN 1-57731-216-3
Author of In Search of Adventure: A Wild Travel Anthology and The Frugal Globetrotter, Bruce Northam brings us a new book, Globetrotter Dogma – fun from the moment you put it in your hands. Or maybe cruel torment for some. A soft-cover passport-blue small volume, it is laid out in 100 bits no longer than a page and a half. Each short observance begins with a canon like Canon 34 – “Get Lost, then Keep Going” and follows with a personal story from his own huge collection of travel experiences.
Globetrotter Dogma is a classic in armchair travel, that tragic sub-class of voyeurism where a person reads something and it pretty much has to do for the real thing. It seems that Northam tries very hard to get the readers to believe they can transcend the wannabe habit, become no-shows in the Rat Race and go off for adventures of their own.
He’s convincing, but his is a hard act to follow. First, you have to be very gregarious. Very. Second, you have to have a high tolerance for discomfort. Where another favorite travel author Rick Steves builds an empire rendering foreign travel comfortable through planning, Northam is a lover, not a fighter, a drifter not a driver.
Canon 33: Accept Culture Shock.
Canon 22: Expect Setbacks.
You’re unlikely to see much of those in a Rick Steves guide since his whole gig is to actively minimize culture shock and make the hellbent most of each travel day and dollar. Both, of course, recognize that if you are sitting there reading their book, you may have an itch to travel, and they’re both good for encouragement to scratch it.
Maybe you’re looking wistfully past the sidelines of your own spot in the Rat Race and one day will find yourself stumbling off course with a little blue passporty book clutched in your hand. Or maybe you’ll just keep reading that tragic sub-class of voyeurism and it will do. Our money is on Canon 10:
“You never know what’s on the other side until you land there.”
