The reluctant travel writer

The author and adventurer Richard Halliburton.

Over the holidays I read a biography of Richard Halliburton, an American traveler and adventurer. Nobody remembers Halliburton but back in his heydays—the 20s and 30s—he was as famous as Amelia Earhart, Will Rogers, Howard Hughes, or Charles Lindbergh.

In his lifetime, Richard Halliburton was a synonym for romantic travel. Newspapers dubbed him “Romantic Richard,” “Richard-The-Literary-Lionhearted” or “Daring Dick.” His books offered readers relaxed tours to scenic locales, and introduced them in a charming style to strange people and quaint customs throughout the world. One magazine dubbed him “the most traveled person who had ever lived and a man whose home was the world.”

And yet…and yet…according to his biographer, although Halliburton started out his career as a “naïve idealist,” anxious to see all the world had to offer, by the time of his early death at age 39, he had wearied of travel, and then of writing about travel.

The thought of this—a romantic adventurer and traveler growing weary of travel and travel writing—struck me profoundly. Truth be known, I’ve been there. But until I’d read Halliburton’s biography, it’s not something I’d ever admitted. Not even to myself. To do so, it seemed to me, would be like Alice Waters saying she was sick of cooking or that Mick Jagger had grown tired of being in a band. But that’s how I felt: Wearied of travel, and then of writing about travel.

So when my friend Wafa said she was going home to Lebanon and invited me to join her, my first reaction was, I can’t. I won’t. I mean, Lebanon, now? Really? With all that’s going on in Syria (and Lebanon itself). All those travel limitations and security hassles. Do I want to go to Lebanon? I do not.

Yet in the end, I went. After many long hours in airports and on planes, we arrived in Beirut in the middle of the night, took a long taxi ride to our hotel, where, exhausted, I fell back on my bed, too tired to even undress, and thought, What the fuck am I doing here? Why have I come? Why did I agree to this?

Tonight I don’t know the answer. We’ll see what comes with tomorrow.