In his introduction to Marco Polo’s book, John Masefield wrote:

It is accounted to be a romantic thing to wander among strangers and to eat bread by the camp-fires of the other half of the world. There is romance in doing thus, though the romance has been overestimated by those whose sedentary lives have created in them a false taste for action. Marco Polo wandered among strangers; but it is open to anyone (with courage and the power of motion) to do the same. Wandering in itself is merely a form of self-indulgence. If it adds not to the stock of human knowledge , or if it gives not to others the imaginative possession of some part of the world, it is a pernicious habit.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be indulging in my “pernicious habit” and traveling to Uzbekistan to satisfy my curiosity about cities described in books covering such divergent topics as ancient, cross-continental trade (the silk roads), pilgrimage (the travels of Ibn Batutta) and international spying (the Great Game between Great Britain and Russia in the 1800s).