Schrecklich schön und weit und wild - Warum wir reisen und was wir dabei denken

Weekend trip or round-the-world trip, package tour or backpacker trip, checking off countries or simply last minute: we travel for all we're worth and in every conceivable way. But what's behind all this wanderlust? What has become of the great promise that the world once was? How has traveling changed?

Matthias Politycki, a novelist and poet by profession and a passionate traveler by avocation, has not written a travel guide, but a book about travel - and at the same time a very personal book about universal questions.

He has been traveling for over 40 years and has visited 97 countries during this time. This is his literary logbook, a report of his experiences and a survey of a globalized world in which the most distant destinations seem to be just around the corner. The longing for foreign lands has become ever greater. Matthias Politycki traces the inner driving force behind travel and shows - beyond tourist horizons - what travel can mean today