A Map For Saturday

I just watched a documentary called A Map For Saturday and really enjoyed it. Made by an ex-HBO producer named Brook Silva-Braga after he backpacked around the world, it's surprisingly well done for something that was filmed with a hand held camera while living out of a backpack for a year.

Silva-Braga covers his journey by not only looking at the places he traveled but also the experiences and thoughts and impressions of the people he meets along the way. He looks at the hardships of such travel, living out of a single bag, sleeping in hostels, the emotional highs and lows, the challenges, and even has room for a little socio-political commentary along the way (but never in a heavy handed way).

Apart from the actual documentary, the extras on the DVD seem almost essential to the full experience of the film. In the extras he does post interviews with the main people covered in the film, including "girlfriends" and "best friends" he had along the way. It is interesting to hear their different, yet quite similar reactions to not only the film but also life after the road.

Such a trip is obviously not for everyone. There are some pretty big hurdles to get over before you could contemplate such a thing, not to mention the mental and physical aspects of it. For one, and probably the biggest obstacle--other than putting your life on hold for a year, would be the financial aspect. Not only would you need to quit your job, or somehow suspend it, but you would have to figure out how to pay your bills, etc. For most of us, it's a near impossibility.

The ideal situation would be to have no financial commitments. That is, no outstanding bills, no monthly payments, no mortgage, rent, phone bill, any of that. No pets, children who can't travel with you, any of that. Any relationships you do have would have to be the kind you could also put on hold--parents and siblings, basically. I would think it would be quite difficult to even entertain maintaining a romantic relationship while you "backpack around the world." Not too many people are going to put up with that kind of poppycock. Of course, you could do the trip together. As someone in the movie points out, such a trip would certainly be the ultimate test--if you could survive the trip and come out the other side still together you'd probably be together forever. On top of all of that you would still have to have some kind of "nest egg" that you could liquidate to take your trip. Silva-Braga spend about $20,000 on his trip. I'm not certain if that included his round the world ticket--generally between $5K-$6K.

I don't think I know anyone who fits this profile. At all. Maybe I've had students along the way who could pull it off. Trust funders, perhaps. Who knows. I can think of one person, maybe. If anyone could pull it off, he could--my old boss's son. He has the right profile, but I don't know about the funding. Maybe if his dad was feeling generous? Who knows. I can think of maybe two others who might benefit from such a trip, but the funding would be a hitch, methinks.

Either way, it's an entertaining and sometimes eye opening little film and I highly recommend it. You can't get it at Blockbuster or Netflix or anything like that. It's only available through the website, but it's only $15--that's one ticket to a movie and a medium popcorn, if you're lucky, so it's cheap in comparison. Give it a whirl. You'll like it.