Did your horse throw ya, buddy?

We investigate what we hope to achieve by literary travel . . . and why our packing cannot prepare us for it!

While the global tourism industry spends billions to shape our eager expectations, what is it that we’re actually so anxious to see? And whatever it is, how likely are we to find it? In this first of two parts, we ask if what we pack in anticipation is to better guarantee our success or to ward us from disappointment. As an example, we read an excerpt from Isabella Bird’s 1879 travelogue, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. And we hear from philosopher/critics Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger along the way. Will we find an answer? Maybe not, but we will be better prepared to understand the questions.

Episode 7.03 –

Packing Lists Pt. 1: Dreams and Dirt

Readings & Resources:

Bird, Isabella L. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. 1879.
Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. 1917.

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. 1999.
MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2024.

Glossary:

The Broken Tool (Zuhandenheit): Martin Heidegger’s term explaining how we remain unconscious of our protective equipment and infrastructure—our constructed “World”—until the moment it fails us, forcing a sudden encounter with raw nature, or the “Earth.”

The Comfort Trap: A psychological defense mechanism in which a reader or traveler seeks “comfort,” “tidiness,” or “closure” to avoid intellectual or moral discomfort. We passively accept a safe, frictionless experience—or a text’s status quo—specifically to avoid confronting nuance or complication in a situation and one’s own possible complicity in it.

Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions

When you look at the very bottom of your daily commuter bag or travel pack, what do you discover that you find most intolerable?
Consider the physical metaphor of a “portable fortress.” How accurate is this to describe your approach to travel?
In tracking the transition from a 19th-century carpetbag to a modern multi-compartment backpack, what has changed in our definition of what an adventure is supposed to feel like?
Think about when some gear or device failed you. How did you respond: the “stripped gear in the brain?” Or did you see the physical earth more clearly? Why?
In our travel behavior and packing lists, who are we performing for?

Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges:

The Grand Tour - PDF
Packing Lists - PDF

Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/

CHAPTERS

00:00 The Infrastructure of Dreams
05:22 Intro Theme
05:58 Industrialized Travel
13:57 Isabella Bird & the “Ill-Found” Expedition
22:50 Skeptical Pilgrim Exercises: Counter-weights
28:11 Closing Credits

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Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-03-Packing-Lists-1

New to Literary Nomads?

Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/

Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag

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Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.

Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.

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CREDITS:

Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)

Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski

USING THIS WORK:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.

MLA CITATION:

Chisnell, Steve. “7.03: Packing Lists Pt. 1 - Dreams and Dirt,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 3 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/