Prologue

”LOVE FOR HIKING”, ”CARAVAN”, ”I WANDER AND I TALK”
Traveling Culture

The idea of traveling is in the very foundation of tourism. Vacation, entertainment, adventure, health, profession or attending an important event – they all come second to it. Human longing for traveling has many meanings, it is ancient and always modern.
”Traveling is not only a means to cover, usually in the shortest and most efficient way, the distance between two points in space. Much more than that, traveling is also exploration, learning, conquering something new, adventure, game. It can be passion, philosophy, view of the world, it can have its esthetics and poetics, as well as its rituals. It has something of the old alchemist secret: not only the landscapes through which one is traveling are changing, but the traveler himself. Traveling is not only getting to know the world in which we live, but getting to know our own soul. The divine is not in the object of admiration, but in the admirer. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
You can travel many times to one country without learning anything important about it. It has not opened up to you, or you to her. You remain a mere user of technical services, just like you are using the ATM machine on the corner, in a nameless city, waiting to transfer in the plane flying god knows where. You cannot truly get to know one country unless you get deep into the soul of its people, its colors, scents, aromas, lights and darkness, symbols, wines, spices, melodies, mountain peaks, waters. If you do not listen to its song, its laughter and its silence. If you do not feel how it rejoices and how it grieves. If you do not check what the travelers before you wrote and do not leave a letter to those who will come after you...” (Serbia – By Roads, Railways, Rivers, 2007)
Before it was turned into the present day commercial-industrial phenomenon, traveling used to have this nature to a much higher degree. It was a part and the basis of one highly developed traveling culture. It had a dimension of nobility and deeper understanding. It was not reduced to technical issues, nor was the so-called efficiency devouring the beauty and charm in it. Look at the old travel writing, travel guide books, postcards. Look at series of travel writings, such as The Caravan by Milan Kovačević. Return to Džumhur’s Hodoljublja, Kapor’s I Wander and I Talk, Loves in Tuscany by Miloš Crnjanski.
Of course, times, way of life and culture of available means have changed. We have changed as well. But it is not wise, it is even dangerous, to easily disregard that beautiful old gold. To settle for shallow water, rapid and brief, to reduce everything to a couple of dozen stereotype images and less than half the words.
Think about this before you chose a vacation package for the next summer.