I came across a statistic the other day that claimed only about ten percent of Americans have traveled outside their country. There is no reason for this. The recession is not an explanation …

… I count among my friends the most-traveled man in history, Paul Theroux. Not only has he written many wonderful novels and short stories, but a shelf of travel books. …

He is the most widely-read man I know, and he suffers my company because I have heard of Mrs. Gaskell and Oliver Onions, and I share his opinion that for a book to read on a journey, nobody beats Simenon.

I told him one quiet afternoon that with his eyes he had seen more of the surface of the earth at ground level than any other man had, and any other man ever would. He said he had never thought of it that way. …

Has travel broadened him? He says not. He is rather notorious for having written, “Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation; and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.” …

Why then, does Theroux travel? “The greatest justification for travel,” he wrote in Dark Star Safari, “is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace. …

A slow boat to anywhere (2009)

I rather doubt that Theroux, one of my favourite writers, is the most traveled man. But he’s up there.