c/o Joël Henry
3, rue de Bâle 67100 STRASBOURG (France)
Spend 48 hours in an airport without getting on a plane. Enjoy the comfortable lounges, the different washing facilities, the shops and the various eateries. Watch people skip through to the departure lounge and let your eyes glaze over as you peruse the ever-changing departures board.
Leave your home on foot. Take the first road on the right, then the next on the left, then the next on the right, then the next on the left, etc. Carry on until something, a no man's land, a building or a stretch of water, blocks your path and you can go no farther.
With the help of a telephone directory (internet, or other method) find a person called Ariadne in a town of your choice.
Give Mr or Ms Ariadne a call and ask him/her what his/her favourite 21 places in the town are.
Mark each place on a map and visit them in a logical order.
Travel on a total budget. Leave with not enough time and not enough money available to do your trip. Choose a destination that has nothing to recommend it, and where you have a limited understanding of the local language.
Take a tour of the following places known for their administrative function (rather than their touristic value): waiting rooms, social services offices, town halls, police stations. Use the facilities and resources eg, photocopier, brochures, magazines, and sample the gastronomic delights on offer eg, canteen, coffee machine, sandwich shop, etc.
Arrange to visit a place and arrive at night. Spend the night exploring the town and return home at dawn the next day.
Insert the name of your home town into the index of a world atlas (if it's not there already). Throw a dice then count that number of lines down from your town. The one your finger lands on is the destination of your trip.
So for example if you live in Melbourne, Australia:
One will take you to Melbourne, USA
Two will take you to Mele, Cap, Italy
Three will take you to Melekess, Russian Federation
Four will take you to Melenki, Russian Federation
Five will take you to Mélèzes, Rivière aux, Canada
Six will take you to Melfi, Chad
Travel with a camera, but don't take pictures of the famous landmarks and tourist attractions. Stand with your back to the sight and snap that view instead.
All Twelve-travel itineraries should be built around the number twelve.
Examples:
Take a train that leaves at 12.12 and get off at the twelfth stop
Walk or swim along the twelfth line of latitude
Do a tour of hotels, only staying in room number 12
Begin a round-the-world trip with only £/$12/� in your pocket
Journey along motorways or highways that are number 12
Visit places whose names repeat themselves in their title eg, Sing-Sing, Bora-Bora, Baden-Baden.
Take a suburban bus, tube or train out of a city and travel until the end of the line. Find accommodation to stay the night and explore the suburb that you find yourself in.
Arrange to spend a weekend away with your partner. Travel to your chosen destination by different means and don't arrange a meeting time or place. Now look for each other...
Explore the area on a town plan or map that sits in the square marked K2. Take full advantage of all cultural attractions, gastronomic delights and watering holes in that area.
This gastronomic adventure consists of devising dishes and menus created exclusively from ingredients whose name contains a destination. For example Brussels(s) sprouts, Frankfurters, Paris mushrooms, Chantilly cream, etc
Explore a place following the suggestions of the locals. Do exactly what they
say.
Try doing this in your home town, on the pretence that you are a
foreigner.
Give yourself a year off to go travelling. During those twelve months, travel the world by buying last-minute cheap deals from tour operators. Take a week here, 10 or 15 days there, half board or full board. The only prerequisite for your travels is that you plan your route, using the Internet, by linking holidays or flights that are reduced in price.
(1) From time to time you can go home to rest, do your washing, buy more pet food, vote, etc.
Take a literary tour of the world without leaving your sitting room. Start with an author from your country, and then read a book by someone from a neighbouring country. Continue until you make your route around the globe.
Method of city exploration which consists of discovering a capital by following the layout of its Monopoly board. Visit the streets, stations, jail, car park, water and electricity companies, etc all by throwing the dice and following the official rules of the game.
Visit places in your home country that share their name with places abroad eg, Ellesmere in the UK (but also in Barbados).
Make a journey that is suggested by the title of a piece of art, literature, music or cinema. For example:
One Night in Bangkok
Round Ireland with a Fridge
Miss Saigon
A Year in Provence
Meet up with friends in a cafe on a Saturday morning
Put your house keys, name and address in an envelope
Mix up all the envelopes and redistribute them randomly
Spend the weekend at the address in the envelope you are given, keeping all
the appointments (lunch, brunch or dinner) made by the usual
occupant.
Go to your nearest motorway slip-road with a backpack on and a large piece of card (approx 20*50 cm). Write the name of a faraway destination on your piece of card eg, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, etc. Stand by the side of the road, stick your thumb out and wait
Pick a destination that is quite far from where you live and take the quickest form of transport you can find to get yourself home. For the return journey do the reverse and choose transport that is as slow as possible.
Citing an invented burst water pipe or lack of hot water, invite yourself to take a bath at the house of your friends. Take with you all of the equipment that you would use in a spa: soap, shampoo, towel, bath-robe, relaxing music, seaweed scrub, champagne, etc.
Follow some friends when they go on holiday and don't let them out of your sight. Take lots of photos of them using a tele-photo lens. On their return home, welcome them with a slideshow of their holiday.
Trip Poker is a travel game for four people. All you need is an ordinary dice. The game is split into three hands. At stake is a journey with the other players. Each player throws the dice in turn. He or she who gets the highest number wins the hand.
The winner of the first hand chooses the destination of their trip. The destination must lie within a specified distance of where the players live. This distance is calculated by multiplying the number on the dice by 100 km.
The winner of the second hand decides the date of the weekend away by adding a number of months onto today's date. That number is on the face of the winning dice.
The winner of the third hand determines the type of accommodation. Each number on the dice corresponds to an abode, see below.
LATOUREX
c/o Joël Henry
3, rue de Bâle 67100 STRASBOURG (France)
Webmaster : Philippe Martz