Humans have traveled for quite a long time, but I don't think the activity of travel has been properly systemized and studied in a rigorous manner. I intend to correct this dire deficit by presenting suggestions for legitimizing the SCIENCE OF TRAVEL.

The following article is the barest outline, and I probably can't concentrate long enough to flesh it out in any detail. Especially since I don't drink much coffee anymore. Sorry.

SCIENCE

The term 'science' is often applied inappropriately to many areas of human endeavor that have nothing to do with the objective study of observable reality, such as Political Science, Christian Science, Creation Science, Computer Science, etc. Travel Science avoids logical and nomenclature errors, while still qualifying for research grants and social prestige.

The basics of real science are very simple. Science is a way to look at reality, build conceptual models of that reality, and test those models. To do so, science use certain tools. And each tool provides a different career path for the industrious.

A) THEORY. Without a good theory, researchers and observers don't know what to look at and test. With a good theory, anything is possible. Of course, all theories are eventually found to be wrong, so theorizing is a career with no limits.

B) TAXONOMY: Combining observation with theory, taxonomists ensure that a subject is dead by classifying the life out of it. Taxonomists are always arguing about their petty categories. This is a good job for passive-aggressive pedants and bores.

C) OBSERVATION: Reality must be probed to be understood. Observation is the easy way. But to be useful, observations must be continuous and precise and relentless. A good observer is quite anal-retentive; a good job for certain neurotics.

D) EXPERIMENTATION: Experimenting with reality is harder than just observing it, so active researchers must be driven, sadistic, obsessive-compulsive hardware-oriented psychopaths with no regard for the costs and consequences of their actions.

E) EDUCATION: To keep the grant money flowing, funders and the public must be educated as to the importance of the research work. Teachers, popularizers, propagandists, mind-control experts and other such manipulators will find a place here.

But enough of career paths. (And I won't even mention administrators.) Let's look at what each of these tools needs in order to contribute to the SCIENCE OF TRAVEL.

THEORY

In an earlier article entitled HOW/WHY TRAVEL, I touched upon certain theoretical (and other) aspects of travel. But I did not construct a rigorous Theory of Travel, nor shall I here. I just want to mention some considerations that may be included in any Travel Theories, to facilitate their construction. Remember that a theory is a model. We can build all the models we want. There's always room for another model. Just don't sniff the glue.

1) WHY travel? Possibly for these reasons: escape, employment, expansion, and esperanza (hope). If you can think of other reasons, include them in your theories.

2) HOW to travel? By virtual methods (imagination, simulation) and real methods (self-propelled or animal-assisted or motorized). And any other way you can think of.

3) WHERE to travel? To interior and/or exterior realms. Through time and/or space. Across air, water, land, fire, neurons, dimensions. Anywhere you can try to get to.

4) WHEN to travel? Past, present, future, no-time. Multiple time-tracks. Whenever.

5) WHO/WHAT travels? Animals, vegetables, minerals. People, pets, machines, ghosts, aliens.

Theorization also includes such tasks as analysis, prediction, rationalization -- and even theologizing, constructing dogmas and metaphysics of travel. I'll leave it to other theorists to work these out. Then there was the constipated mathematician who worked it out with a pencil. But I digress.

Note that I've adapted the old reporter's WHO-WHAT-WHEN-WHERE-WHY-HOW inquisitory paradigm to provide a structure for these theoretical considerations. OK, so I plagiarized. So sue me.

TAXONOMY

In case you haven't noticed, I'm really big on categories and classifications, lists of may-be-related stuff, all the raw materials of taxonomy. Does this mean that I'm a boring pedantic passive-aggressive twit? Probably. Too bad. Thinking about taxonomizing travel is what led to this article, so bear with me.

Any travel experience, past or present or future, has certain characteristics, either real or expected. By noting those characteristics, we can assign categories and even scores to each such experience, and then diagram their relationships. Here are some areas that strike me as significant:

1) DURATION, DISTANCE: Can be measured in time, miles-kilometers-lightyears, number of borders crossed and/or avoided, or any other quantitative units.

2) COST: Can be measured in financial terms, or as lost time or opportunities, or in terms of health and/or discomfort (see below).

3) PAIN/PLEASURE, DIS/COMFORT: Can be measured objectively (disease, dismemberment, death) (or by monitoring endorphin levels) or subjectively (relative euphoria, discomfort, more or less satisfied curiosity, or other moods).

4) EXOTICNESS: Can be measured by what preparations are necessary for the journey, Learn new languages and skills? Acquire new clothing and equipment? Or measured by reactions to the journey: how different did it seem from the ordinary?

5) PROVOCATIVENESS: Can be measured by the travelers' responses. How many words, images, artworks, musics, did they produce as a result of the travel? Did they change lifestyles, politics, religions, etc as a result? Did they procreate, suicide, transcend, whatever?

You can probably think of other categories. You had BETTER think of other categories, or your career as a taxonomist will be brief and inglorious. Get those neurons cracking, bub.

OBSERVATION

Like Chauncey Gardiner, many of us like to watch. But serious observation requires that we take notes, many notes, constantly, forever. Or we can just leave the recorder on. But we must choose what and how and when to observe. Consider:

1) OBSERVATIONS: Interior or exterior. Of ourselves or others, be they locals or other travelers. Images (still or moving, visible light or infrared or ultraviolet or XRay) and/or sounds (sub- or super-sonic, real-time or slowed down or speeded up) and/or words (our own or plagiarized) and/or emotional imprints. Random or regular or constant.

2) ANTI-OBSERVATIONS: In structuralism, the lack of an observation is as significant as an observation. Try to avoid observing things. It's easier than you think.

EXPERIMENTATION

Peripheral to researching the prior article, I encountered the terms Experimental Tourism and Accidental Tourism and Spiritual Geography which all involve travel in ways other than traditional paradigms. In the first two, the traveler sets some non-standard goal(s) and notes what happens along the way. In the last, the traveler sets out to explore a spiritual landscape, which may be no more or less valid than any other terrain.

1) EXPERIMENTS: Try visit or avoid all places in a regularly- or randomly-generated set. Try to travel in or outside of certain times. Dress yourself minimally or maximally during travel. Do all you can to minimize or maximize danger and/or adventure and/or excitement and/or discomfort and/or distance. Persuade others to participate in your experiments.

2) ANTI-EXPERIMENTS: In structuralism, the lack of an experiment is as significant as an experiment. Try to avoid experimenting on things. It's easier than you think.

NOTE: Be sure to see my short pieces on InnerSpace Exploration and Pilgrimages and Time Travel and Hell.

EDUCATION

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't program, manage, Those who can't manage, manage programmers. Or so it seems. But I digress. Public and private education are vital parts of any science or pseudoscience. Travel Science is no different.

Non-scientific travel already supports a vast educational infrastructure, in the form of maps, tourbooks, travel journals, magazines promoting and reporting on travel to fancy resorts and sublime wildernesses with luxury accommodations, etc. Some lucky bastards get paid for writing about (or making films or recordings of) their travels. But they aren't scientists, so they don't count, except at the bank.

Then there are the urban or wilderness guides, the language and culinary academies, the seminars on where and how to travel, the travel agencies, et al. Some of these are formally educational, others provide a painful education. Who know where your luggage goes?

Make no mistake: education is where the money is. If you doubt that, note the shelfspace given over to travel publications in any bookstore or magazine stand. Count the number of travel videos on sale or being broadcast. Count number of yellow-pages entries under TRAVEL.

Then think to yourself: as a Travel Scientist, how can I best educate the public and other potential funders about the needs and payoffs of Travel Science? And create your own flood of travel materials, to divert some of the ever-flowing funds into your own coffers, er I mean research budget. Just make sure your products look like all the rest, only different.

CONCLUSION

There is much more to be said about the SCIENCE OF TRAVEL, but my blood sugar is low and I'll likely be unconscious soon, so someone else will have to say it. I'm exhausted from my traveling. But now I've documented these basic ideas, and maybe someone (soon) will pay me for the film rights. I can see it now: TRAVEL SCIENCE CONFIDENTIAL, with some muscular bullethead and his pneumatic cohort dodging explosions and special effects while they compile compendious travel data and construct a new Theory Of Everything. Coming soon in DVD.

_{—12 May 2005, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico}

NOTE: Science was invented by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Tycho worked before telescopes, with no technology mightier than the astrolabe and the pen. Sure, it was a BIG astrolabe, but it could have been build millennia before -- and bigger observing quadrants WERE built long ago, in India and other places.

Tycho's innovation was to take regular observations and write them down. Not just at solstices, not just of astrologically significant stuff, but EVERYTHING and ALL THE TIME. His tables of planetary positions allowed Kepler to compute the elliptical orbits of the planets, which allowed Newton to formulate the law of universal gravitation and invent calculus.

Later, Bacon formulated the rules of experimentation and testing that are now known as the Scientific Method. Regular observations and rigorous testing -- these are the cornerstones of science. Any other approach to understanding observable reality is just pissing in the wind. Any other approach that calls itself science, isn't.

_{—13 May 2005, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico}

The TRAVEL TAXONOMY Contest

Above, I spoke of a scientific taxonomy or classification of travel. Now I would like to propose an intellectual contest. Consider the following.

My basic criteria (each rated as high, medium, low, etc) for such a taxonomy are:

1. Duration (time and/or distance and/or number of border crossings)
2. Expense (including potential or actual discomfort)
3. Risk (physical and/or financial and/or mental-moral-spiritual)
4. Exoticness (count the clothes, gear and languages you must acquire)
5. Output (amount of written or audio-visual material generated)

My general categories of travel are Adventure and Recreation and Business (including commercial, charitable, military and other {non-}governmental) and Migration.

A taxonomic key is a type of tree chart, branching to ever-greater levels of judging criteria. Some criteria are weighted more than others in devising the key. Categories and classifications can be expanded or contracted or repeated. Here is an example of such a key -- refer to botanical etc keys for other examples:

  TRAVEL
  -RISK High:
  --EXPENSE High: 
  ---CASUALTIES High: MILITARY Travel
  ---CASUALTIES Low: BUSINESS Travel
  --EXPENSE Low: 
  ---OUTPUT High: CREATIVE Travel
  ---OUTPUT Low: ADVENTURE Travel
  --EXPENSE High or Low: 
  ---RETURNS High: BUSINESS Travel
  ---RETURNS Low: CHARITABLE Travel
  -RISK Low:
  --EXPENSE High: LUXURY Travel
  --EXPENSE Low:
  ---DURATION Long: MIGRATION Travel
  ---DURATION Short: VACATION Travel
  ---DURATION Long or Short:
  ----OUTPUT High: CREATIVE Travel
  ----OUTPUT Low: RECREATION Travel
  --EXPENSE Irrelevant:
  ---RETURNS Irrelevant:
  ----OUTPUT Irrelevant: GOVERNMENT Travel

The contest: I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader (YOU!) to devise a key that links the criteria to the categories: Your work, emailed to me by 30 June 2005, will be judged, and prizes will be awarded. (I'll decide on the rewards later.) Have fun!

_{—18 May 2005, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico}

BACON ON TRAVEL

Francis Bacon - Essay XVIII: Of Travel - 1625

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school [learn], and not to travel.

That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow [approve] well; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been in the country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go; what acquaintances they are to seek; what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth. For else young men shall go hooded, and look little abroad.

It is a strange thing, that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if chance were fitter to be registered than observation. Let diaries therefore be brought in use.

The things to be seen and observed are:

• the courts of princes, specially when they give audiences to ambassadors;
• the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes;
• and so of consistories ecclestiastic;
  
  
• the churches and monastaries, with the monuments which are therein extant;
• the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbors;
• antiquities and ruins; libraries;
• colleges, disputations [debates] and lectures, where any;
  
  
• shipping and navies;
• houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near great cities;
• armories; arsenals; magazines;
• exchanges; burses [treasuries]; warehouses;
  
  
• exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like;
• comedies [theatres], such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort;
• treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets [museums] and rarities;
• and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go.

After all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of them; yet are they not to be neglected.

If you must have a young man to put his travel into a little room, this you must do, First, as was said, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth. Then he must have such a servant or tutor as knoweth the courtry, as was likewise said. Let him carry with him also some card [map] or book describing the country where he travelleth; which will be a good key to his inquiry. Let him keep also a diary.

Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another; which is a great adamant [magnet] of acquaintance.

Let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth.

Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth; that he may use his favor in those things he desireth to see or know, Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit.

As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel; that which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he may suck the experience of many.

Let him also see and visit eminent persons in all kinds, which are of great name aborad; that he may be able to tell how the life [reality] agreeth with the fame [report].

For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided. They are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quarrels.

When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him; but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth.

And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers, than forwards to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country [domestic] manners for those of foreign parts; but only prick in some flower of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.