Have You Gone on a Long-Distance Trek?

I'm currently working on a book, "Transforming Journeys," about people who have done long-distance treks or hikes or pilgrimages, why they did the journey, how the trek changed them, and how they brought what they learned on the road back to civilization and carried it forward into their new life.

The book is not limited to walkers--if you know someone who did a long-distance bike, kayak, canoe, or other human-powered trip, please pass on the word. I don't have any minimum distance in mind, but I'm more interested in longer trips, and in people who journeyed alone or with perhaps one other person, with only their own resources to fall back on, than in people who traveled with the safety of a guide or group.

For the book, I'd interview people and ask them a series of questions about what made them decide to do the trek, to what happened during the trip, what events really transformed them, and how they re-entered the world when it was done. I'd also like to find people who took these trips but did not get much out of them, or who decided to quit halfway through, to see how and why their experiences were different. I'd like to find out what the personality pattern is of journeyers, and what the template is for life change. I would hope to find principles of change and growth that would apply to most people, so that even people who are unable to physically go out on a trek could use them to transform their lives.

Interested? Know someone who might be interested? Please e-mail me at kellywin@earthlink.net, and I'll send you a questionnaire.

Thanks!

Kelly Winters

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