Grounded, by Seth Stevenson

Without really meaning to, I've wound up reading a lot of travel literature in the last few years. It's good fuel for travel plans, and makes long winters seem less so. With the right book, I'm not slogging through another February, but just putting my feet up at the Royal Geographical Society headquarters while the funding for my next expedition comes through. Paul Theroux is one of my favourites. His The Old Patagonian Express was the book that spurred my interest in South America, and I've since read most of his other books. Mainly I find his crankiness refreshing.

Last week I was given a copy of Seth Stevenson's new (and first) book, Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World. It muscled its way to the front of the queue and I wolfed it down in a couple of evenings, finishing it off Friday morning before heading to work. If you've read it to the end, you'll know it pained me to go to work after all that.

As the title suggests, Stevenson's goal was to circumnavigate the Earth without taking to the skies, a goal I heartily support. He and his girlfriend leave their jobs and their apartment in Washington, DC, take Amtrak to Philadelphia, and from there a commuter train to a deserted station near a port on the Delaware River, where they board a container ship to Antwerp. The book recounts the travel itself, the logistical acrobatics sometimes involved, and provides some interesting background on their chosen modes of transport--the invention of the shipping container, the history of the bullet train in Japan, and the failure of high-speed rail in North America.

I made a pledge about ten years ago to stay grounded, and although I have done quite a bit of long-distance train travel, I've also broken my pledge for several quick Christmas trips home, and some further afield. Perhaps it's time to re-commit. Stevenson's account is both an inspiration and a deterrent to try. He reminded me about the sort of zen that sets in on a long train trip with the right surrounding passengers, the deadening frustration in the company of the other sort, and that appearances can be completely deceiving when it comes to determining which category any passenger will fall into. The high-school dropouts with the ten-month-old baby: excellent distraction through North Dakota. Affable-looking backpacker: annoying braggart who talked the whole way from Chicago to Boston. That said, I remember the leering drunk I once had to sit next to on an overnight flight from Vancouver to Montreal as being significantly more horrific, despite the experience having occupied only four hours versus full days. I think maybe we approach slower modes of transportation in a more forgiving mindset. The presence of actual scenery also factors in.

Although I initially found Stevenson's tone a little too chatty for my tastes, I settled into it within a chapter or two. He is less the sage, jaded surveyor of humanity and more the funny friend over beer, and his journey seems remarkably accessible as a result. In the end my only real complaint was that he had condensed six months of boat, bike, train, and car into just 272 pages.