BOOK: "The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel," by Rachael Antony and Joel Henry (Lonely Planet, $18)
TARGET AUDIENCE: People willing to give travel an extra dimension.
Lonely Planet, the preeminent guidebook publisher for the backpacking set, here challenges conceptions of what travel is, offering 40 ways to see the world differently, each with its own experimental protocols. In "Synchronised Travel," people in different cities follow the same set of directions (walk north until you see something blue, then turn left and walk 50 paces . . .), take notes and confer about how it went. In "Anachronistic Adventure," they travel via an outmoded transportation mode -- sedan chairs, perhaps. In another, the traveler wears a horse costume. The point is getting you to notice usually-overlooked things as routines are upset.
Or at least in theory. Each proposal is accompanied by "laboratory results," and that's where the book often falters. Many of the promising ideas are lamely executed. There's a lot of "I was planning to go to China but there was this real mean dog outside my door and. . . . "
Still, you've got to like "Ero Tourism": You and your love go separately to an unfamiliar place and see if you can meet "by chance" and fall in love at second sight.
-- Jerry V. Haines
