The Lunatic Express

Here's a nice new blog, The Lunatic Express, logging the round-the-world exploits of writer Carl Hoffman, who explains the reason for his journey thusly:

We’re lucky. The world is on the move; people aren’t just in their villages anymore, and most of them are subject to horrendous travel. Buses that turn over and plunge from cliffs. Commuters literally crushed to death on the trains in Mumbai. Planes that might not leave at all, or worse – you’re 25 times more likely to die on an African airline than on an American one.

So I’m off to circumnavigate the globe, traveling as the rest of the world must – on the world’s slowest, most crowded, or most dangerous, buses, boats, planes and trains. I want stories, yes, but perspective, too. I want to see the world in a new light, a new way. I want to meet these people.

Hoffman's eventually going to write a book about his travels. And apparently he's not kidding about the hazards of his travels. Today he's in Colombia and writes:

Regarding bus safety, the government of Columbia was progressive: since 2004 it required bus companies to post safety statistics in every ticket window. At first the stats for my bus didn’t seem too bad – only 18 accidents, eight injuries and six deaths. But that was only for the first two months of 2008. And no one seemed to have died on other lines. Oh well, I bought a ticket and settled in.

A hundred years ago writers traveled around the world and then wrote books about it when they returned home. Now we get to follow along during the first-draft. Pretty cool.