ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how geographical relationships are changing from 'roots' to 'routes' and the implications these changes have for people understanding of place within a globalizing world. It also explores the extent to which place attachment and mobility are mutually exclusive phenomena or whether they may be combined in various ways. The chapter is based on interviews with 23 lifestyle travellers conducted in 2010. Interviews occurred across South East Asia and Australasia, on the 'beaten track' for independent travel where exotic destinations combine with opportunities for casual employment. The chapter examines the difficulty in categorizing lifestyle travel, recognizing that there cannot be one homogenous overarching criterion applicable to all. It considers the key motivations to lifestyle travel, before examining how self-progression is central to sustaining this practice. Lifestyle travel provides the freedom to carve individualized paths and trails through the world, to break free of routine and settlement in order to sustain a lifestyle based on change, novelty and progression.
