Since the New Year has on from its welcoming celebrations, many

travelling folk are spending the winter conceiving travels and tours
for the forthcoming year. Such thoughts brighten up these grey months
that stretch through to Easter and test our imagination. Can it be coincidence
that travel shows thrive during this time? I’ve always found that
there is considerable enjoyment to be had from visualising any possibility
and anticipating what could happen along the way. If not planning, travellers
can usually be found doing – indeed I’ve ‘lost’
friends to California, Canada and Australia in quick succession recently!
Have you noticed that how our non travelling friends no longer caution
against such exuberance? I’m sure we should spare them a thought
or two, as they are subjected to our endless plans. To calm our intoxications
perhaps we should all be given copies of Alain de Botton’s The
Art of Travel to digest – he comes up with some bizarre and
somewhat unsettling accounts of the ‘satisfactions and disappointments
of travelling’.

In considering the ‘satisfactions’, where do I find myself
on route to next and how has it got to this stage? Well, following on
from a long weekend in Valletta a ferry should then take me across to
Sicily, probably Siracusa or Catania, with a second taking me, a week
or so later, on from Trapani to Goletta. Whether this will leave me time
enough to wander fully along Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast towards
Gabes and Jerab I’m not sure yet. However besides the improved climates
I have high hopes for good snorkelling, spectacular views of Mount Etna
in its current active state and a distinctive crossing into northern Africa,
which as a region is still unknown to me. If anyone has additional experiences
of this vague outline they’d like to share, feel free to get in
touch. Through this planning stage the ‘I’ has become ‘we’
– as Steve and Colin, two friends from previous travels who will
add their own practical and entertaining inputs to this tour, have joined
me. Indeed their immediate ‘yeses’ to my proposals has provided
extra organising drive, along with Steve disappearing to the French speaking
Canadian ski slopes for three months! No doubt Steve’s improved
French language skills will ease our way into Tunisia! As a result and
somewhat unusually this scheme has advanced quicker than previous and
the scratched out beer plan has already evolved through to map and ticket
purchases.

Initially my observations were that I wanted to make my travels more
demanding this year, more revealing and more elsewhere. Attending Globetrotters
and the RGS had left me feeling that my some of my recent tours were pedestrian
and unchallenging in their nature and destination. Further impetus came
from reading of namesake Charles Montague Doughty’s early travels
across the Mediterranean countries, whilst discussions with friends Charlie
and Carrie updated me with what adventures could now be had in northern
Africa. Michael Palin’s recent television trek helped to round off
these thoughts, particular with his attitude of still wanting to learn
from what he was experiencing – something I’d like to echo.
Along with the pleasure of journeys, I would still like to understand
more of how I like to travel.

Where could my ‘disappointments’ come from? My previous
experiences of Africa have been sub-Saharan and very much centred around
Anglo Portuguese influences on the continent, but I do wonder how we will
respond to French legacies and whether we can appreciate if the Sahara
is a major dividing line of the African continent and peoples. I’m
not vain in the sense in thinking that my travels will offer anything
other than interesting experiences to us three. I would like to gain a
deeper insight into what this region is about and to return with a book
full of tales but as yet I’m uncertain as to what I will find, particularly
in Tunisia. Like many I am wary of guide books, packaged destinations
and official opinion, and as a result I’m trying to stick to a single
map, a few articles that I’ve found in the weekend supplements and
first hand knowledge passed on. Previous attempts at such vague planning
have left me lost in Santa Barbara’s unbelievably square grid system
but revealed gems such as Connemara! As such Colin and Steve don’t
yet know how seemingly ill prepared we may be – I hope they understand
that I’m not trying to be careless, that I just want a little more
from my time away…

Matt is happy to be contacted if you’d like some more information
about planning your travels or about any of the places he talks about
in his own travel planning. E-mail mattdoughty@tiscali.co.uk