An Introduction to Darius Lux
We at ATC are constantly inspired by the travelers around us. Having recently met the digital acquaintance of singer/songwriter and traveler Darius Lux we thought we’d pass the music of a world sojourner on to our readers. Below is a letter from Darius to our readers:
I guess you could say I had reached a point in life where I just had a hunger for something new, for the open road, to actually see and experience things that had been in books and on computer screens for too long. As a musician in NYC, I had spent almost half a decade glued to the city and it’s industry – things had worked out well financially but I was unfulfilled and didn’t know which way to turn. Out of the blue I decided to go to a crystal healing session by Jodi Serota, it seemed like a fun new experience and I had heard good things. We sat in a circle as Jodi put her hands on the crystal skull and began channeling other-worldy sounds that I can only describe as making me feel like I could knock down a building with just my arm. The next morning I awoke with a clear vision of traveling around the world for a year – I spoke to my wife, Tiffany about it and she was instantly excited by the idea.We found a One World explorer ticket that allowed us to travel through four continents (with three stop-offs each continent) over the course of a year, heading East to West with no turning back. Being mostly city-dwelling folks we were in need of the basics like a tent, sleeping bags, stove etc – these items became our mobile-hobo-home for at least the first 3-4 months of travel through the Pacific: particularly in Kauai (Hawai’i), New Zealand and Australia which all proved to be great places to backpack and budget effectively.
When you travel there are so many factors that make up the bigger picture. Sure enough you set out to see things that are famous for their natural beauty or for how ancient they are, etc but it was the people we met along the way that was an unexpected gift. Reducing ourselves to travel by foot with our whole life on our back was part beatnik-retro-fantasy-homage and part madness. I sometimes look back and wonder how we made it safely round the world. There were countless ‘angels’ along the way who picked us up in our darker moments and helped us find food and shelter. Kauai alone is a whole universe unto itself with full-on communities hidden away happily in the forests and along the wild beaches, also Golden Bay in New Zealand.
How do I fit a year around the world into a few paragraphs? Each leg of the journey was like a separate lifetime. Indonesia followed by Thailand, Cambodia, India, Nepal was one long mystical dream – we were intoxicated by the old cultures, the reverence for something bigger than themselves, the beauty and simplicity and still the complex histories.As mentioned earlier, I had hit somewhat of a crossroads with music and the journey had been partly a self-enforced chance to rewrite my life, I had started out wanting to forget music and do something different, and yet as I traveled I felt the music pulse in me stronger than ever – South East Asia was a tipping point – the cultures have such a strong connection to music, its everywhere you go – in the temples, on the streets – people would invite us over for dinner in their shack or compound and all the family members would be playing music of some kind or another. A momentous point was climbing through the night to the top of Mount Agung (Bali) with the kids from an ashram we were staying at – as the sun rose above us we reached the peak, a kid handed me his acoustic guitar and gestured me to stand on the top where I played a song that later became “The Great Unknown” from my record “Arise” – it felt like a pivotal moment. “Arise” is the CD I recorded once I returned to the US. In hindsight, I’m not sure how “worldly” the record sounds but I know lyrically its all about digging a little deeper and going that extra mile, beyond doubt and fear, to do something extraordinary. Another song, “Human Race”, chronicles the travels a little more literally. Things aren’t always pretty and the universal struggle that most human beings are engaged in could not be ignored and was reflected on my follow up EP, “Time is Now” on the title track plus the song, “What I Feel”.
There was also Italy, England, Brazil, Peru – too many places to write about here. All in all, I’d have to say I still see ways in which the journey effects me now – as I work on a new record, it’s influence is more present than ever on upcoming songs like “Advice from a rock”. In some ways the journey can be too much for most people to digest, understandably, and recently sitting with another song-writer, she cajoled a more user-friendly lyric about the travels in another upcoming song called “The Happy Song”.
Please feel free to connect with me, I am always happy to communicate with others who plan to travel or have already and just wanna share experiences. Here’s to the open road, let it rise…
, where Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor ride their BMWs from London to New York– the long way around. They cover some 19,000 miles in around 3 months. This show was of interest to us because we recently completed the 2010 
, by Tim Cahill. It is a rare thing that I read a book in one sitting, but that is exactly what happened once I started reading Road Fever. Cahill and long-distance driver Garry Sowerby race to set a new world record from the furthest southern point in South America, Tierra del Fuego, to the furthest northern point of Prudhoe Bay Alaska. They did this amazing feat in 32 1/2 days, a Guinness World Record. It isn’t just the feat that is amazing, it is the fun series of adventures Cahill and Sowerby find themselves enjoying while setting new records. I left this book in Turkmenistan.
, by Paul Theroux. While it is no secret that I dislike Theroux’s writings for their stuck up, holier-than-thou feel, I did enjoy reading these two books in so far as they provided insight into the areas we would be traveling through by rail. Theroux is notorious for his use of ground transportation, an idea we can fully support. Nevertheless, his constant complaints about food and sanitation become pestering the more pages you turn. In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Theroux retraces a route he took as a young man, and notes the changes. This had real potential, but fell short because he brought along a cell phone, laptop, and an older man’s need for amenities. I left one of these in Shanghai, and the more recent book in Uzbekistan.
, by Tom Bissell. Another former Peace Corps volunteer becomes a writer. Bissell became deathly ill while serving in Uzbekistan, and was sent home before completing his two years of service. Once healed, the more-healthy and mature Bissell returns to Uzbekistan to finish what he started– a trip to the Aral Sea. Filled with historical insight and a bit snobbish critic of the area and its people, Bissell is no doubt an expert on the country’s water waste and the diminishing Aral Sea. Nevertheless, it is a bit long-winded and egotistical, focusing on his own return to Central Asia and his misadventures more than the people or region. Ironically, I left this book in Central Asia when I departed.
, by Lonely Planet Publications. This compilation of tales focuses on people who have chosen to travel without leaving the ground, proving that getting there is more than half the adventure. Some of these amazing folks are featured on our 
, by Peter Hessler. Like many great travel writers, Hessler got his taste for travel in the Peace Corps while assigned to a small town on the Yangtze River teaching English. He studied Mandarin Chinese daily, and slowly became fluent in the world’s most difficult language to master. Meanwhile, he spent his time trying to understand the people he worked with and around, and to delve into the culture without holding back. As a result, Hessler’s books offer genuine commentary on the Chinese and their massive country, as well as an un-egotistical vantage point from which readers can enjoy a foreign country. River Town, his first book, is the tale of his Peace Corps assignment while Oracle Bones is a montage of information Hessler gleaned while living in Beijing, interviewing locals and learning more about Chinese history and language. I lent a friend one of these books never to see it again, and the other is in my collection in the USA.
, by Charley Boorman. Charley Boorman and longtime travel partner Ewen McGregor have set off around the world together on their motorcycles and then composed Long Way Round. In Race to Dakar, Boorman sets off on his own. While the writing is not 100%, the adventure is, and Boorman details his planning, launch and then start in the Dakar Rally. While he was injured and did not finish the rally, Boorman healed up and continued on several other adventures, including another trip with Ewen McGregor called 
. We were excited to read about these rally adventurers because of our own upcoming 
, by David Fromkin. This telling Pulitzer price book finalist tells of the causes of World War I (on the Eastern front between 1914 and 1922) and how the policies before, during and after the conflict have resulted in the most tumultuous area on the planet– the Middle East. The book begins with a young Winston Churchill visiting the Bosporus and concluding that any army hoping to take the Ottoman Empire would only have to control the Aegean. This thought came to fruition later in Churchill’s life as he sent British troops during WWI up the straights in a failed attempt to destroy the Ottoman Empire and end the war. It is shocking how daringly close the plan came to success. The war rages on and the Ottoman Empire collapses, and is ruled eventually by Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal). They gain in power and reinforce the German’s advances, further prolonging the war on all fronts. Eventually the dust settles to reveal the Central Powers have been defeated, but what is less commonly known is that each government in the Allied Powers Alliance has fallen and their internal opposition parties came to power. Essentially, those who began the war were replaced in all cases except Germany, and the mission and goals of the war changed dramatically as a result of new voices in the arena post fighting. Thus, new faces sat around the table deciding how to divide winnings and the states of Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon were formed, and the Israeli homeland question was raised. The Allied Powers promised a homeland to the Israelites and set about making it happen, not knowing the cultural and religious currents they would stir in so doing with neighboring Arabs. This book explains the root causes of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, as well as why modern Turkey is so different from other Muslim countries. This book does not touch on the wars in Iraq (Desert Storm of Operation Iraqi Freedom) or 9/11 or Afghanistan.
, by Mark Bowden. This book about the Iran Hostage Crisis read like an adventure novel, but was in fact very well researched. Bowden interviewed countless survivors, read everything he could get his hands on about the Iranian student’s movements, and fully explains the reasons why Muslims dislike Americans. For an American, this book is almost a must-read simply because Bowden is able to get inside the minds of the students who took the American Embassy hostage, and reveals their motives, desires and, years later, what happened to these children. His subtitle is: “The First Battle in the West’s War with Militant Islam,” and Bowden explains why the hostage crisis was a precursor to events that transpired later between the Muslims and the West, and why westerners often fail to fully grasp the rationale and motivations of those militant Muslims in places like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
, by Peter Hopkirk; 
, by Stephen Tanner; and 
, by George Crile. If it seems all these books represent a trend, then you are an astute reader my friend. We’ve been traveling through predominately Muslim countries, and our books of choice reflect a desire to better understand the historical context of our culture clashes. We are historians, so naturally our interest in understanding the present lead us to the past. At any rate, all of these books were also page-turners that we think almost anyone could easily enjoy.
as Rolf Potts terms it, then this book is an invaluable guide on how to get started with planning and logistics. It is a whimsical yet no-nonsense guide on how to take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years off to travel, and do so successfully.
offered invaluable insight into the inter-workings of a team undertaking the rally.
will be full of inside jokes only you and other China travelers will understand. His insight into the psyche of the Chinese was amusing and comical, but hardly deep. It would be fair to say that more than half of the book was taken with Troost’s comical musings on the Chinese way of life, with the remaining bit concerned with telling where and what he was up to while romping around the Middle Kingdom.
, Thompson gives perky little insightful tales from his own past that involve excessive amounts of cocaine and marijuana done with Alaskan State Government officials, various visits to go-go dance halls (aka brothels) and a ridiculous amount of drinking with all sorts of unsavory characters. Despite this, he manages to weave an attention-grabbing tale of what it is like to travel as a rogue (albeit flawed) writer, a tale that leaves me wondering what his wife (mentioned in only half of his trips abroad) thinks of his new book.
, making it a fast and delightful read. While their insight into the places they visit is minimal, the funny commentary along the route is amusing and delightful.
is for you. Weiner travels across the globe trying to find the world’s happiest locations. He travels to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India and America in search of this aim.
