True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly

A Map for Saturday
Don’t watch this film unless you are ready to quit your job. Seriously.
It’s about the emotional challenges and sheer joy of long-term travelling
– as in backpacking around the world for a year. This kind of vagabonding
is more a state of mind than a state of motion. The film explores the
mellow subculture of (mostly) young people who trek along an invisible
international traveller’s circuit. There’s a kind of endless distributed
global party going on every day of the year (plainly visible here), and to
join it all you need is a ticket to any country and the address of the local
hostel. I was part of this mind-set for many years and boy, does this film
nail the peculiar delights of perpetual cheap travel. Not just the highs
(everyday is Saturday, each new person an instant best friend), but also
the lows (always saying goodbye, and loss of connection). Something
weird happens when you travel longer than 10 days, and that wonderful
transformation (which no one can explain to their family when they return)
is what this superbly written, fabulously edited, deeply personal and
wonderfully likeable documentary is all about. But this bug is contagious.
It is impossible to watch this fun film and not confront the fact that you
are here instead of there, on the road, soaking up the world of all youcan-eat
$3 dinners and $5 rooms, traveling the world for a year, as the
filmmaker did himself. If you are headed in that direction, this disc will
also work as a great orientation course, offering advice. It’s the Zen and
the Art of Long-term Travel.
By Brook Silva-Braga
2006, 90 min.
Available from
amapforsaturday.com
The romantic ideal is
found: a volleyball game
on the beach at sunset.
Place: Thailand. Room
cost is $5 per night
(below left). The other
cost is a primitive squat
toilet. Better get used
to it.
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