July 2, 2024 • 41 mins
In this episode, award-winning writer and artist Ben Hatke shares his latest adventure: a pilgrimage back home. Inspired by Phileas Fogg’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” Ben embarked on a bold plan to circumnavigate the globe using (almost) only surface transportation. With the historical precedents set by Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, Ben talks about how modern challenges impact such a journey. His adventure started by leaving one door of a Virginia farmhouse kitchen... and will end when he walks in the other door.
In our conversation, Ben and Joan talk about how modern-day transportation has reshaped our perception of distance and time, the need to document his journey with the desire for introspection, and travel's unexpected gifts and surprises. Come along as Ben prepares to embrace the discomforts of the road as adventures, inspired by the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton, and get ready to hear all about a pilgrimage... back home.
You can find Ben and his work (and travels) here:
http://www.benhatke.com/
Instagram: @heybenhatke
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benhatke
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to In Via the podcast where we're navigating
the pilgrimage of life.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
You might notice somethingdifferent in our episodes lately
.
Basically, I'm talking toreally cool people and just
finding out how their life andwork relates to pilgrimage.
Today is no different.
(00:41):
I'm chatting with Ben Hatke, anaward-winning writer, artist,
author of graphic novels, astoryteller, and we're going to
talk about an adventure.
He's recently embarked on, apilgrimage back home.
Hi, ben.
Hi how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm pretty good.
It's been a while since we'vetalked, but we've known each
other for like ever.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I was going to say my whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I don't think there's been a time that you
didn't know of my existence.
I think, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah.
So we go way back to childhood.
Ben's sister's my best friend,so it's a lot of memories from
childhood.
But for those people who don'tknow you, Ben, which I feel
sorry for them, I always startby asking people if they could
tell us three sentences aboutthemselves.
What three sentences would theytell someone?
(01:36):
Okay, wife-related work-relatedgeneral introduction you want
someone to know, okay, okayfollow up with other questions.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Sure, sure, sure, sure, okay, so I, I am ben hatke
.
I am an artist and writerworking in virginia uh,
originally from indiana.
Mostly comics and graphicnovels and picture books and
other kinds of stories.
That's one thing.
That's one thing that prettymuch sums up.
(02:08):
And I've got a big ramblingfamily in a little Virginia
farmhouse and I'm very happy ina canoe and with a bow and arrow
.
Those are two things that makeme happy.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That was a lot do you have the bow and arrow in the
canoe?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
once in a while, but if only if I'm going somewhere
with it.
Okay, fair enough, I don't knowif I've ever loosed an arrow
from a canoe.
That would be something to try.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I like it Well, all of that kind of plays into our
topic today because it paintsthe picture of kind of this
adventurer, I think, this kindof adventure with a family.
Yeah, kind of this adventurer,I think, this kind of adventure
with a family.
But before we launch into whywe're talking today, I would
like to ask you a little bitmore about your work, because I
think not many of us have met acartoonist maybe.
(02:55):
I mean, I think it's really funthat I was telling somebody
today about who I was going tointerview and I said I never
thought that this would actuallyhappen.
Like, I'm just excited that Iknow Ben Hackey and that Ben
Hackey is a New York Timesbestselling cartoonist.
So can you tell us a little bitabout, like, being a cartoonist
(03:15):
?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
a big question, yeah, so, um, man, I grew up loving
comics, um, and loving both,both art and stories, right, and
and so, um, I never I can'treally tell when the dream of
combining art and storiessolidified but.
But, but, as you know, as acomics creator, it makes me both
a writer and an illustrator,right, and those two hats, those
two, um, ways of working, arein intercommunication all the
(03:52):
time, and so so I think ofmyself as like a, like a
storyteller who works with a lotof like, like visual language,
visual storytelling, and so, forthe past 15 years now, I guess,
I've been able to write anddraw stories, create books,
create a lot of different kindsof adventure comics and picture
(04:16):
books for kids, and that's beenreally neat.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I guess you're a graphic novelist, right, I have
a really hard time pinning down.
That's been really neat.
I guess you're a graphicnovelist, right, it's hard.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I have a really hard time pinning down when people
ask at parties oh, what do youdo?
I have a really hard timecommitting to a lane on that one
, because early on I studiedpainting and I've done like some
like prose projects and one ofmy, one of my big heroes is Tove
(04:51):
Jansson, who created the Moominstories after it, like sort of
in the.
She was Finnish and shortly inthe wake of World War II, when
things were just kind ofterrible, she started writing
these.
She was a daughter of artists,so her father was a sculptor,
(05:11):
her mother was an illustratorand she wrote these picture
books about this kind of likebohemian minded family of.
They look like puffy whitehippopotamuses.
She called them moomin trollsand they're just the best little
creatures, best little familyand they had this very open way
of living and uh, the, the booksare charming and the uh.
(05:37):
Eventually the moomins gotpicked up by, I think, a british
newspaper for a daily comicstrip.
So she was for years doing themoomins comic strip and moomins
got pretty big.
I mean there was a cartoon ofMoomins in the in the nineties.
Snufkin is one of thesecharacters who comes in and out
and we might actually end uptalking about Snufkin because he
has a lot to do with thisproject that I'm working on now,
(05:58):
but all that to say is is Ilove reading about the life of
of this creator, toby youngson.
She um felt a little bit uh umkind of trapped in that lane of
of by her creations, right likeshe is making these movies,
(06:19):
comics, and she wanted to be apainter.
She wanted to work on and shedid, and she worked on big uh,
big uh mural type paintings andalso wrote uh, fiction for
adults, um, all these differentthings and um, so I'm really
drawn to this sort of likemulti-faceted creative career.
Um, and comics, yeah, have beenextremely good to me.
(06:41):
So I suppose that's, I suppose,yeah, I suppose I should
introduce myself as a cartoonist.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
But that I think.
Yeah, I like Storyteller.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Why do I feel so weird about that?
Yeah, yeah, storyteller is good.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Because it is in so many.
I mean it's like Michelangelo,right, Like, what was
Michelangelo?
Like, was he a painter?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
He got mad when he had to do Sistine Chapel.
He did not like that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
He was like I'm a sculptor.
He identified as a sculptor.
He didn't see himself as apainter, right yeah, or like.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Leonardo da Vinci is probably my sort of biggest
historical role model and he wasvery like the thing we know one
thing we know a lot about himis that he had a hard time
finishing things.
Some people say he would havebeen like diagnosed with add if
you, you know, grew up today.
(07:28):
He was homeschooled, he was allthese, all these weird things,
but he uh, you know, with thethe last supper, there are a lot
of stories of him just sort ofdisappearing for days on end.
Uh, is he coming back to workon this, is he not?
and it was because he was goingoff to get he was interested in
other stuff.
He'd just go out in the streetsand be drawing.
(07:48):
So that's the kind of sort ofcreative practice, like a very
broad outlook creative practicethat I've been interested in.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And so it makes sense , I think, this next project
that we're going to talk aboutbecause if people just know you
as the creator of zeta orjulia's house, or kids books, or
that they're, they're not goingto they're going to be like
wait, what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
yeah, like this isn't dragons and robots right, right
, yes.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So why don't you tell us um what you're about to do?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
okay.
So, um, we're really we'retalking in in the in the final
countdown in um.
Next, uh, next week, I'm I'mafter, um, you know, 25 years of
thinking about it and, uh,about a year of of um putting
the project together andplanning it.
Uh, I'm going to be setting offon sort of a trip around the
(08:47):
world to my house.
So the idea is that we live inthis little ramshackle Virginia
farmhouse and this kitchen onour house has a door that faces
east and a door that faces west,and the concept is that I would
walk out the one door, circleour planet Earth and walk in the
(09:08):
other door, the goal being touse as much as I possibly can
though I think it's nearlyimpossible for a regular person
to do this entirely right nowbut as much as I possibly can to
um use only surfacetransportation, which means,
(09:29):
like, no flying, if I can helpit um, which, like I, I don't
know if it's nearly impossibleto do, but it's very difficult
to do it in a compressed timeperiod, right.
So this is also in the traditionof phileas fogogg's Around the
World in 80 Days, which was donein real life by Nellie Bly and
Elizabeth Bisland in like 1889.
(09:51):
And the idea is, to you know,to basically approach my home
from the other direction.
So the whole journey is ajourney home and yeah, and
that's, and it's somethingthat's been in my mind.
I actually have the book, myactual copy of the Everlasting
man from college, which has thequote.
(10:13):
That sort of warmed its wayinto my brain the moment I read
it and never left me alone, soit got to the point where I had
to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I love it.
So you're going out.
Which door You're?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
heading going out.
I'm going eastward, you'regoing eastward, okay, so heading
east, heading uh, um, yeah,heading all across the did nelly
do the same?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
did nelly blight go the same route?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
nelly blight, did she ?
I will be tracing a bit of herpath.
What's interesting is there wasanother woman journalist the
same year.
Same time when they heard thatNellie Bly was going, another
publication sent a woman calledElizabeth Bisland the other
(10:58):
direction.
So they sent her west and it wasactually sort of a race.
Um, the other publication wastrying to make it a race and the
the new york world, I think, isthe paper that sent nelly bly
and they, they they sort ofseemed to barely have
acknowledged that the, thatthere was even a competitor here
.
Um, and they were verydifferent.
(11:19):
They're interesting becausethey were very different
characters.
Um, elizabeth bisland was um, uh, more of a woman of letters.
She was um a bit more of a of apoet and a well-read woman who
was not seeking a lot of, like,personal attention.
Um, and and and was basicallyjust told by the paper like,
(11:40):
look, you're going, we expectyou to go now, go go, you have
to get out of here.
And uh, nelly bly had a sort ofmore swashbuckling style and um
really liked that kind of um, Idon't know, would we call it
gonzo journalism, the kind ofthing that's like, like, really
hard hitting, like, uh, she got,she got herself um
(12:02):
institutionalized.
Her first big sensation wasexposing some really bad living
conditions within mentalinstitutions by getting herself
committed.
So, yeah, that's how she made aname for herself.
She sort of had this reputationfor for just um jump, she was
(12:24):
like a lois lane character.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I guess, yeah, so it seemed like she was kind
of doing it to show she could doit right, like she's imitating
this.
You know what's what we onlyknow from fiction and deciding
I'm gonna do it.
Is that why you decided to doit like what captured you.
To think like do you just wantto see if you can do it like
what captured you?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
big part of it.
The big part of it is what itwhat's um, what's different in
our world today that makes iteasier or more difficult to do
the same thing in the same sortof like.
I mean, she nearly blighted itin like 72 days.
She took that 80 days down to72, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And she was never on an airplane.
I mean that's mind boggling,right.
I mean, obviously she was neveron an airplane, but like it's
mind boggling.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, it's pretty fast.
So the idea is that Jules Vernewas like I think you can do
this, um, and then wrote anadventure story about it.
And then 10 years, about 12years later, when Nellie Bly
left the idea, when I wasreading about it, they said the
idea was kind of hanging in theair, like this could be done.
(13:36):
Somebody should be doing this.
She pitched the story and thepaper was like a woman Never.
And then a year later they werelike we changed our minds, you
go.
And she was given like two daysto the one.
They finally said yes, she hadlike two days to prep and go,
which that part's, um, if you'rereally going to do it fast,
(13:57):
that part's basically impossiblenow because you um like like
I'm, I'm.
The first leg of this is theQueen Mary II, which is really
one of the last Atlanticcrossing passenger place things
that goes from point to point.
It's not really cruising, it'stechnically a crossing, so you
(14:18):
get on and then you get off, butwith two days prep she just got
on the next boat that was goingout and with telegraphs they
could sort of like keep in touchand keep the next thing kind of
lined up, but still it was abig thing and there are things
(14:41):
that are legitimately moredifficult to do.
There's no real actualpassenger thing that I can find
across the Pacific, on the otherhand.
Okay, and then in the 80s, late80s I think it was late 80s,
not early 90s, I think late 80sMichael Palin, who was part of
(15:05):
Monty Python, he did a triparound the world in 80 days as a
mini series and he did it.
He did it, he, with a film crew.
A lot of what he traveled onwas cargo ships for the Atlantic
, pacific specifically, and andthat's like with Nellie, like
(15:26):
she was on steamers a lot of thetime.
And what's also sorry now yougot me going but what's also
interesting that I found is likethose steep, that time, that
crossing time for like theAtlantic, that's basically the,
it takes about the same amountof time today on those boats,
right, those steamers were liketrucking and there were lots of
them and people could get onthem and, um, but Michael Palin
(15:50):
took cargo ships which for atleast 30 years or so, you really
could um, contact those bigshipping companies and they
would rent out.
It was like this, like notlittle known but not widely used
sort of a travel mode like realstripped down you just get a
cabin, you eat, you sit on theboat and that's it, but that I'd
(16:16):
been planning this book for along time and that practice
disappeared after COVID.
Every major shipping companydecided never again, no more.
They weren't making any moneyon it and so it was like COVID
was a good excuse to just stop.
And I contacted a lot of themand they were like nope, that
doesn't happen anymore.
(16:36):
And I felt really close withone company called I'm Skip from
Iceland, and one guy there waspretty excited about it but he
couldn't convince them.
And it was going to be soamazing because it was going to
be more of a um, it was going tobe more of like starting out
(16:57):
driving the East coast up andthen going across from, like
Halifax or or something likethis that makes sense so the
Pacific is going to be your.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's.
That's the difficulty.
Is you're going to have thepacific, is the difficulty.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The pacific, I might uh.
Right now I'm like the onlything to do is get an airplane
no bearing straight uh hoppingover complicated.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So I guess that brings up a question how did you
tackle the itinerary?
Did you look at countries youknew would be easy?
Did you look at and you don'thave to reveal what you don't
have to reveal.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, but.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
How did you go about this?
Nellie Bly took, which kind ofmore or less mirrored Phileas
Fogg's journey.
That route was really affectedby British colonialism.
Right, they were hitting placesthat were kind of easy there
(18:05):
and then.
So, from there, the othertroubled part is just world
conflicts.
So there's the Ukraine, there'sthe Middle East and, as I was
planning this, both of thosebecame a little bit more
difficult, escalated, yeah, yeah, so, uh, so I did a lot of
(18:30):
reading and I ended up, um, andbasically I ended up contacting
a lot of like travel writers andtravel bloggers and being like,
what would you suggest?
And, uh, this one guy got aholdof who's done all kinds of
different, um, really, uh, uh,like, low budget sounds not
(18:51):
great.
Like, um, uh, just just, yeah,like, like, really like, what do
you call?
It's not low budget, it's likeum like on a shoestring, like
yeah but it just, he just likeresourceful, resourceful.
He was a very resourcefultraveler.
He um could just figure outlike bus systems and all these
(19:12):
different places, stuff likethat.
Like he's not using, um, he'snot having planned trips, he's
just like trying kind oftraveling by the seat of his
pants, um, and he does all theseinteresting ones.
And so he he just emailed meback and was like here's, here's
what would suggest.
He gave me this route and itworked out really well and I'll
say, like it's basically theSilk Road, it's like the old
(19:36):
Silk Road, so it goes basicallythrough, yeah, so up through,
like Turkey and into Georgia andthrough Azerbaijan.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Wow, and we will see it as it happens, that's the
idea.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So through, like Turkey, and into Georgia, and
through Azerbaijan and and there, and we will see it as it
happens.
Um, that's the idea.
So that's one of the parts thatI'm most, uh, nervous and
unsure about.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Is this idea that I've said I'm going to draw this
as I go, or at least draw adraft of it as I go, and I don't
, I don't know that I'm that, Idon't.
I don't know that I'm that, Idon't know that I'm that fast.
I mean, I don't know that I'mgoing to have like, uh, the
amount of time every day toactually just sit and be drawing
um, and not just like grabbingsketches is one thing, but like
(20:20):
um fussily planning Cause I'vedone some like comics in advance
and they're already like uponline and you can read them and
get a kind of a sense of whatI'm doing.
But those are um, those areones that, like you know, I sat
at my desk, I did like a likerough thumbnails and then I did
like a nicer version and and I'mnot I'm not bringing my desk
(20:43):
with me, you know.
So, yeah, I guess we kind ofskipped.
We said you, I guess we kind ofskipped.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We said you're doing this.
We kind of skipped the actualproject, that it's this idea of
around the world in 80 pages andthat it will be a travel log
for adults to kind of see theseplaces in 80 pages or something.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, it's a look at the world.
Really.
It's something where I wantedto be like I don't know if
you're familiar with RobertMcFarlane's Underland, so what I
kind of wanted to do was justdo that with the world as a
graphic novel.
Here is a look at our preciousshared world.
(21:25):
I was actually like and this isstill like I signed this book
up as Around the World in 80Pages, which as a title sounds
kind of young already.
So this is actually an untitledproject and I'm going to save
the commitment to a title towhen I get home.
But we've thrown around a lot ofdifferent ideas and one of them
(21:49):
which I don't know if it'sgoing to be the name of the book
, but I like the sentiment of itwas homebound.
Uh, because when you look uphomebound, like in Webster's,
it's like um, it's got twodefinitions and one of them is
heading toward home and one ofthem is unable to leave home.
(22:10):
And this is both right.
If you think of the pale bluedot as our one precious home, we
are homebound in a sort ofuniversal sense, in a sort of
like universal sense, likeyou're sure we might have people
on Mars or whatever to pokearound, but within our scope of
(22:35):
history.
We are homebound and that'sprecious, and so I kind of
wanted to see and also, like thepsychological size of the world
is an interesting thing for meto look at.
Oh yeah, where, like I was evenreading about when trains
(22:57):
started coming up and beforetrains, there was local mean
time, which meant like basicallyevery town had its own clock
setting.
This town might be two minutesbehind that town, but that's
because that's their local meantime.
Yeah, it didn't matter.
It was when the railroads andthe railroad barons needed
everything to be like that thateverybody had to decide okay,
(23:21):
this is a time zone and it'snoon for everybody in this time
zone at this moment, and thatkind of and being able to.
There was another thing theysaid about the railroads was in
Napoleon's day he could getaround basically the same speed
as a Roman emperor.
That was the top speed, ithadn't changed.
(23:45):
And then suddenly a couple daysbecomes a trip of seven hours
and the world seems smaller.
Days becomes a trip of sevenhours and the world seems
smaller.
And now you know my family,we've gone back and forth from
Italy a lot.
I'm there.
I don't think I've ever reallylike physically clocked that
distance.
(24:06):
You know, it's always you get ona plane and you sit there for
eight hours and now you're inPisa, or you know, or whatever,
or you hop a couple of times,but it's just like I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, it's interesting because in some ways
, the world does seem muchsmaller because, yeah, I can get
to Pisa I could be in Pisatonight if I really pushed it
Right.
Yeah, but at the same time,like when you were talking about
being homebound, and that we'reall on the same blue dot in
some, some ways, the world feelsvery large, in that I feel very
distant from the conflict inUkraine and I feel very distant
(24:38):
from like you're going to begoing to places and I think in
some ways, the world is actuallygoing to seem very small
because we're all on the sameblue dot.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I don't think about, like I don't think about people
over there having the same homeas me, but we do.
We have this shared home thatwe have to, we need to care for,
and I, I need to care for thosepeople over there too, because
we're all in the same home, andso it's this odd thing of like
the world's very big but, at thesame time, very small, because
this is all we have right now.
We're not colonizing the moon,we're not colonizing mars yet,
(25:08):
and so how are we caring foreach other and how are we caring
for this blue dot?
And so as the world gets biggerand smaller at the same time.
I think it's something for usto think about in that
responsibility.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, yeah, and how we care for each other and how
we care for like the world arekind of the same thing, you know
, so, so, yeah, so there'sthat's, that's a whole big thing
.
And then there's like it's thehistorical travelers.
And then there's like it'shistorical travelers.
So, having, you know, studiedhistory for a long time, I
really like started to feelkinship with, because we talked
(25:46):
about, like Nellie Bly andElizabeth Bisland.
But there are some others whohave sort of like touched this
journey and are sort of pilgrimsin different ways, and the
three main ones I think are well, there's Patrick Leigh Fairmore
who, when he was like 18, waskicked out of his, his fancy
(26:09):
prep school in England anddecided to.
He was prodigiously smart andreally, really good at languages
and he was like, well, what doI do now?
And he decided to walk from, hesaid, the hook of Holland to
Constantinople.
And he and this oh sorry, thiswas the 1930s, so this is, yeah,
(26:32):
so this is early 30s.
And he basically did it.
And then he, years later, andthen he had this adventurous
life which you can read about islike a life like just packed to
the gills with adventure.
And then, when he was older hewent back to those diaries and
wrote the account.
So it's this beautiful look atpre-war Europe with both the
(26:57):
eyes of like this, like this,like really young eyed, white
eyed young guy, and years of ofsubsequent learning, kind of
layered on top of that beautiful, beautiful book called a time
of gifts.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Um so.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So he's one, and whenever I and there's a part
where my path will cross intohis which I really am excited
for.
And then I've been rereadingabout Francis of Assisi.
I started with the Chestertonbiography, which kind of tries
to get the spirit of St Francisand he was a person of the road
(27:35):
in a lot of ways Like he, um,they had dwellings, but like
part of the no owned dwellings,and he was so influenced by the
troubadours which and they, thatwas a whole movement of, of the
road and of travel, Um, so thatwas really interesting.
And then I also there wasanother, there's a more, so I
(27:56):
paired Chesterton's St Franciswith another biography where I
had the name written down he Idon't know where I did it, oh,
Augustine Thompson, that's whoit was.
He wrote a more like hardhistory version of St Francis,
right Like to Chesterton'spoetical version, right this is
(28:17):
more like a historian's versionof the St Francis, like what we
know from the documents, what weknow from, like all these other
sources, and that was reallyinteresting too, but it really
dovetailed well with the travelangle.
And the other one I really loveis Ibn Battuta, who is the.
Do you know about Ibn Battuta?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I don't, and you'd mentioned him in an email and I
thought I need to ask Ben.
Oh, he's so great.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
He's the great Islamic traveler.
He went on pilgrimage when hewas in his early early 20s.
He's like this young guy he'sgoing to go to Mecca, so he sets
out for Mecca and he doesn'tstop traveling for 30 years and
he clocked, and this is 1325.
(29:05):
So this is straight in themiddle of the Middle Ages and he
clocked more miles thanMagellan did.
250 years later he was one ofthe most widely traveled people
of his era or of the medievalera, and then when he came back
as an older guy, he wrote a longaccount of all his travels,
(29:28):
everything he'd seen, and calledit like my gift and it's a
great.
It's a great and you know, like, like a lot of medieval texts,
like there are, you know,disputed stories and and all
these other things, and therethere are some crazy accounts
that you think like reallythat's interesting and odd, but
(29:49):
all in all there are.
It gives you a look at whattravel and pilgrimage was like
in the Middle Ages and also howkind of cosmopolitan the world
was then.
Still Like he got into Chinaand ran into somebody from the
village next to where he grew upWow.
And you're like oh okay, peoplewere really moving around, so
(30:13):
he's a good one.
Um, yeah, so anyway, I've reada lot of like travel literature
and gotten into it for a longtime I think you're gonna have
several books come out of this,it seems well you're gonna write
one in 30 years.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
When you're an old man, like looking back and like
looking back at it.
Yeah, you know like there's,there's a lot here.
Yeah, um, what place are youmost looking forward to?
Can you reveal that, or do youwant to keep that a secret?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
oh, um, that's a tough one.
I could.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
There's so many, you're not gonna be able to
linger in these places I'm not.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'm being hosted by people in a few different places
, which will be interesting andgood, and then there are a few
places that already feel likehome, which I'm going to take
short breaks in Nice, and so, Idon't know, maybe I'm almost
looking forward to those themost.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Because you know the village where my wife's family
is from, from Gravagna.
It's just this little mountainand I'm and I am swinging
through Italy and I'm just goingto be like, okay, I'm going to
take a two day break here andrest, and it's like I know all
the neighbors there.
I knew everybody there.
It's good, it's going to be.
That's going to be basicallylike I watched my kids grow up
there, right, so?
So I'm going to get over thereand I'll be stop at home and
(31:31):
then, um, coming back, oh no,all the way back around the
world, like I'm skippingeverything, but like, on the way
, you know, back across the theus, I'm gonna stop at my parents
house in indiana, yeah, um, andwork that into the book.
And another place that I havethat clocks very intimately as
(31:54):
home, right, yeah, so lookingforward to those.
And, yeah, and there's a, thereare a couple exotic places like
like Georgia.
I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
That's the country of Georgia.
For those who are not, theexotic state of Georgia.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
DC, georgia, so yeah, there are a lot of spots.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I love the.
You know we talk a lot in thepilgrimage company that I work
for about the return, theimportance of returning from
pilgrimage, Because a lot ofpeople neglect that, Like they
go on this trip and they don'tthink about coming home and the
responsibility to share whatyou've learned and to enter back
into your world as a changedperson.
(32:37):
And so we talk a lot about thereturn.
And what I love about your tripis that your return is your
trip.
That you're coming home, that'syour trip.
Your whole trip is the return.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The sacred place that I am pilgrimaging to is my
house is my home right.
Yes, and I guess that's maybeone of the secret worries I have
in the project is a little bitactually the performance aspect
of it, the fact that I amplanning to make and post a lot
of things as I go because, likeit's such a, like a, because it
(33:16):
does clock as a pilgrimage in alot of ways, and because it is
like this deeply personal thingand because I like want to like,
like, keep my eyes on that, youknow, and keep, keep a little
bit of silence inside as Itravel, like I do worry that
like the, the performativeaspect of it, could take away
(33:36):
from that.
Um, so maybe if I had plannedthe, if I had the project to
plan over again, I might even belike no, I am not posting
anything about this as I go, I'mgoing to just do it and draw it
and then I'll see on the otherside.
But I think I I don't know LikeI was so intent on like selling
(34:01):
this thing as, like a likeplease sign up this book.
This is the book I really careabout, that.
I said I'll post it as I go andit helps build up a community
for your project.
I mean, it is a book, so Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
It's exciting.
I think there still will bethings that you take from it
that maybe you don't you nevershare with people, and I think
there'll be other things thatpeople I mean it's a gift.
I noticed that the idea of giftwas in both of those books you
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, and it is my gift and a time of gifts, yeah.
Yeah, it's a gift that you arealso sharing with us that we get
to follow along um, so you'llbe giving gifts that I think
remain for you yeah you don'tshare but the gifts of the road
and road magic is a big uh is abig thing that I think about and
have experienced in differentways, and it's always like the
(34:53):
most special thing, talismansthat people give you and stuff
like this.
Um, I was at a um like a booksigning event in like golly,
where was it?
Like like alabama or something,where was I forget?
Um, anyway, in the carolinasomewhere, and I was in a
bookstore and I was like, um,just, I hadn't brought a book,
my own book, with me.
And I was in a bookstore and Iwas like, um, just, re, I hadn't
(35:14):
brought a book, my own book,with me.
And I was like looking throughthe bookstore shelves and
thinking like I just really wantthe perfect book to read and I
couldn't find anything and I satdown, I was signing books for
for kids and, um, this one, um,young adult guy came up and he
was like you know, I, I justwanted to give you my copy of
the princess bride and I waslike you are kidding me of all,
(35:36):
like it had been years since Iread it and I was like somehow
that was just the book that Iwanted to read and it was just
sort of like magic of the roadthat way.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Always keep your eyes open.
We always tell our, ourtravelers, that that go in with
some, some expectations, but nota lot, because you're going to
be given something, that if youhave too many expectations,
you're not going to have youreyes open to those surprises.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So you work with pilgrims a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yes, so my job is to help people prepare for their
trip.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I should be asking you for advice then.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Well, I don't know about that.
I just tell them, like, this iswhat you're going to see.
Because, we also.
We want to go into these tripskind of knowing and kind of
expecting.
You don't want to go completelyblind.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
But you also want to be open to the surprises that
God has waiting for you, right?
You want to be like maybe it'sbetter that you didn't bring a
book to that trip because youwere ready to accept the you
know the gift.
And so I think there's thatgive and take when we travel, of
being open to those surprises.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
That's the hard balance I'm finding, like the
nerves you know of it make mewant to plan out every little.
You know part of it right, andthere's got to be some give and
take.
You can't just be walkingthrough.
You know, a predeterminedseries of very well thought out
(37:10):
steps.
Um, uh, I used to, um, when Iwas doing more book travels, uh,
and a couple of different likebook tours, I was working with
somebody at uh for a second andwhen she would send it, this was
a really good uh.
But when she would send me,like all like the information
packet of you know where I'mgoing and what I'm doing, it was
(37:30):
always just like I could.
I could basically shut my brainoff and follow her steps and
find myself at the hotel that Iwas supposed to be at or
whatever it was.
So that was really good.
But that's not this.
This needs to have a little bitof fuzziness at the edges.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, and there will be fuzziness when stuff doesn't
go as planned.
Yeah, that's true, and therewill be fuzziness when stuff
doesn't go as planned.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And just to kind of be open to okay, this is where
we're going, because maybethere's something even better in
store, and that's kind of whatwe help our travelers with is
there are going to be surprises,right.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
And you can either accept them as an inconvenience
or you can.
I mean, it's the Chestertonquote, right.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah.
You can accept those things asinconveniences or you can accept
them as adventures, and it'sall about how you consider them,
and I think that's a hugelesson that you're going to find
in 80 days.
Yeah, yeah, and that's it'salso like a test of like am I a
good traveler?
Like I've always felt that Iwas pretty good at embracing the
(38:32):
discomfort of travel, likeactually enjoying I don't know
all the yeah the discomforts,the weird little unfamiliar
things and the things that likeI don't know how, how adventures
really are you?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
you're gonna, I know right and how how good at this
am I really?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I can't.
I mean so.
So there's a lot to, there's alot to discover and also like um
, I don't know stuff likeminimalist traveling and yeah,
yeah everything down to justwhat you need.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yes, that's another yeah, there's all these little
lessons, I think in yeah, um,and I guess, as as we wrap up, I
think what I loved about what Iwanted you on was like whether
you're taking a pilgrimage.
I think you are, I think weagree like I think you're taking
a pilgrimage, I think you are,I think we agree, like I think
you're taking a pilgrimage home,and I think it's that sacred
site of home and which made methink of the grant wood quote
(39:24):
that grant wood said I had to goto france to appreciate iowa
and I have that on a magnet onmy refrigerator because, I
really I think that's a reallyimportant thing, that sometimes
we have to leave so that we cancome back home.
I mean I think we have to bestretched and we have to leave
Iowa so that we can appreciateIowa.
(39:45):
So that quote really resonateswith me and I think that really
I hope I think you're going toget that right.
You're going to appreciate whenyou walk in that Western facing
door, you're going toappreciate that right.
You're going to appreciate whenyou walk in that Western facing
door, you're going toappreciate home a little
differently, I bet.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, I hope well.
I'll report back, Maybe we'lldo a post journey conversation,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Where?
How can people follow this?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Oh, good question.
Best place would be on myPatreon, where I'll be posting
the most in-depth stuff, and youdon't have to you don't have to
you can sign up as a freemember.
So that's.
That's a good spot.
I'm posting a lot to Instagram.
My website is in shambles, butit is benhatkecom.
You can get the basics there.
(40:32):
Yeah, those are the three.
Those are the three main mainbits.
Great, and Patreon is justpatreoncom slash benhatke.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
We'll put all that in the show notes so people can
follow along.
So actually when we post thisyou are going to be in route.
So that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Oh, cool Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So you will be on your adventure.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I'll be off, okay, and people can immediately click
and find out where I am orwhere I was the day before.
Yeah, nice, anything else,anything you want to add as we
finish up?
No, this was a lovelyconversation.
I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, I am too.
I'm really excited for yourtrip.
I'm glad to live vicariouslythrough you and yeah, we'll be
praying and waiting and seeingwhat's in store.
All right, so excellent.
Thanks, ben, thanks listeners.
And yeah, all those links arein the show notes so you can see
right now where Ben is on histravels and see what I think
(41:32):
multiple projects are going tocome out of this.
So really excited.
So thanks for listening and besure to share this episode with
someone who would find itinteresting.
God bless.
Welcome to In Via the podcast where we're navigating
the pilgrimage of life.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
You might notice somethingdifferent in our episodes lately
.
Basically, I'm talking toreally cool people and just
finding out how their life andwork relates to pilgrimage.
Today is no different.
(00:41):
I'm chatting with Ben Hatke, anaward-winning writer, artist,
author of graphic novels, astoryteller, and we're going to
talk about an adventure.
He's recently embarked on, apilgrimage back home.
Hi, ben.
Hi how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm pretty good.
It's been a while since we'vetalked, but we've known each
other for like ever.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I was going to say my whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I don't think there's been a time that you
didn't know of my existence.
I think, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah.
So we go way back to childhood.
Ben's sister's my best friend,so it's a lot of memories from
childhood.
But for those people who don'tknow you, Ben, which I feel
sorry for them, I always startby asking people if they could
tell us three sentences aboutthemselves.
What three sentences would theytell someone?
(01:36):
Okay, wife-related work-relatedgeneral introduction you want
someone to know, okay, okayfollow up with other questions.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Sure, sure, sure, sure, okay, so I, I am ben hatke
.
I am an artist and writerworking in virginia uh,
originally from indiana.
Mostly comics and graphicnovels and picture books and
other kinds of stories.
That's one thing.
That's one thing that prettymuch sums up.
(02:08):
And I've got a big ramblingfamily in a little Virginia
farmhouse and I'm very happy ina canoe and with a bow and arrow
.
Those are two things that makeme happy.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That was a lot do you have the bow and arrow in the
canoe?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
once in a while, but if only if I'm going somewhere
with it.
Okay, fair enough, I don't knowif I've ever loosed an arrow
from a canoe.
That would be something to try.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I like it Well, all of that kind of plays into our
topic today because it paintsthe picture of kind of this
adventurer, I think, this kindof adventure with a family.
Yeah, kind of this adventurer,I think, this kind of adventure
with a family.
But before we launch into whywe're talking today, I would
like to ask you a little bitmore about your work, because I
think not many of us have met acartoonist maybe.
(02:55):
I mean, I think it's really funthat I was telling somebody
today about who I was going tointerview and I said I never
thought that this would actuallyhappen.
Like, I'm just excited that Iknow Ben Hackey and that Ben
Hackey is a New York Timesbestselling cartoonist.
So can you tell us a little bitabout, like, being a cartoonist
(03:15):
?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
a big question, yeah, so, um, man, I grew up loving
comics, um, and loving both,both art and stories, right, and
and so, um, I never I can'treally tell when the dream of
combining art and storiessolidified but.
But, but, as you know, as acomics creator, it makes me both
a writer and an illustrator,right, and those two hats, those
two, um, ways of working, arein intercommunication all the
(03:52):
time, and so so I think ofmyself as like a, like a
storyteller who works with a lotof like, like visual language,
visual storytelling, and so, forthe past 15 years now, I guess,
I've been able to write anddraw stories, create books,
create a lot of different kindsof adventure comics and picture
(04:16):
books for kids, and that's beenreally neat.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I guess you're a graphic novelist, right, I have
a really hard time pinning down.
That's been really neat.
I guess you're a graphicnovelist, right, it's hard.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I have a really hard time pinning down when people
ask at parties oh, what do youdo?
I have a really hard timecommitting to a lane on that one
, because early on I studiedpainting and I've done like some
like prose projects and one ofmy, one of my big heroes is Tove
(04:51):
Jansson, who created the Moominstories after it, like sort of
in the.
She was Finnish and shortly inthe wake of World War II, when
things were just kind ofterrible, she started writing
these.
She was a daughter of artists,so her father was a sculptor,
(05:11):
her mother was an illustratorand she wrote these picture
books about this kind of likebohemian minded family of.
They look like puffy whitehippopotamuses.
She called them moomin trollsand they're just the best little
creatures, best little familyand they had this very open way
of living and uh, the, the booksare charming and the uh.
(05:37):
Eventually the moomins gotpicked up by, I think, a british
newspaper for a daily comicstrip.
So she was for years doing themoomins comic strip and moomins
got pretty big.
I mean there was a cartoon ofMoomins in the in the nineties.
Snufkin is one of thesecharacters who comes in and out
and we might actually end uptalking about Snufkin because he
has a lot to do with thisproject that I'm working on now,
(05:58):
but all that to say is is Ilove reading about the life of
of this creator, toby youngson.
She um felt a little bit uh umkind of trapped in that lane of
of by her creations, right likeshe is making these movies,
(06:19):
comics, and she wanted to be apainter.
She wanted to work on and shedid, and she worked on big uh,
big uh mural type paintings andalso wrote uh, fiction for
adults, um, all these differentthings and um, so I'm really
drawn to this sort of likemulti-faceted creative career.
Um, and comics, yeah, have beenextremely good to me.
(06:41):
So I suppose that's, I suppose,yeah, I suppose I should
introduce myself as a cartoonist.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
But that I think.
Yeah, I like Storyteller.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Why do I feel so weird about that?
Yeah, yeah, storyteller is good.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Because it is in so many.
I mean it's like Michelangelo,right, Like, what was
Michelangelo?
Like, was he a painter?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
He got mad when he had to do Sistine Chapel.
He did not like that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
He was like I'm a sculptor.
He identified as a sculptor.
He didn't see himself as apainter, right yeah, or like.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Leonardo da Vinci is probably my sort of biggest
historical role model and he wasvery like the thing we know one
thing we know a lot about himis that he had a hard time
finishing things.
Some people say he would havebeen like diagnosed with add if
you, you know, grew up today.
(07:28):
He was homeschooled, he was allthese, all these weird things,
but he uh, you know, with thethe last supper, there are a lot
of stories of him just sort ofdisappearing for days on end.
Uh, is he coming back to workon this, is he not?
and it was because he was goingoff to get he was interested in
other stuff.
He'd just go out in the streetsand be drawing.
(07:48):
So that's the kind of sort ofcreative practice, like a very
broad outlook creative practicethat I've been interested in.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And so it makes sense , I think, this next project
that we're going to talk aboutbecause if people just know you
as the creator of zeta orjulia's house, or kids books, or
that they're, they're not goingto they're going to be like
wait, what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
yeah, like this isn't dragons and robots right, right
, yes.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So why don't you tell us um what you're about to do?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
okay.
So, um, we're really we'retalking in in the in the final
countdown in um.
Next, uh, next week, I'm I'mafter, um, you know, 25 years of
thinking about it and, uh,about a year of of um putting
the project together andplanning it.
Uh, I'm going to be setting offon sort of a trip around the
(08:47):
world to my house.
So the idea is that we live inthis little ramshackle Virginia
farmhouse and this kitchen onour house has a door that faces
east and a door that faces west,and the concept is that I would
walk out the one door, circleour planet Earth and walk in the
(09:08):
other door, the goal being touse as much as I possibly can
though I think it's nearlyimpossible for a regular person
to do this entirely right nowbut as much as I possibly can to
um use only surfacetransportation, which means,
(09:29):
like, no flying, if I can helpit um, which, like I, I don't
know if it's nearly impossibleto do, but it's very difficult
to do it in a compressed timeperiod, right.
So this is also in the traditionof phileas fogogg's Around the
World in 80 Days, which was donein real life by Nellie Bly and
Elizabeth Bisland in like 1889.
(09:51):
And the idea is, to you know,to basically approach my home
from the other direction.
So the whole journey is ajourney home and yeah, and
that's, and it's somethingthat's been in my mind.
I actually have the book, myactual copy of the Everlasting
man from college, which has thequote.
(10:13):
That sort of warmed its wayinto my brain the moment I read
it and never left me alone, soit got to the point where I had
to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I love it.
So you're going out.
Which door You're?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
heading going out.
I'm going eastward, you'regoing eastward, okay, so heading
east, heading uh, um, yeah,heading all across the did nelly
do the same?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
did nelly blight go the same route?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
nelly blight, did she ?
I will be tracing a bit of herpath.
What's interesting is there wasanother woman journalist the
same year.
Same time when they heard thatNellie Bly was going, another
publication sent a woman calledElizabeth Bisland the other
(10:58):
direction.
So they sent her west and it wasactually sort of a race.
Um, the other publication wastrying to make it a race and the
the new york world, I think, isthe paper that sent nelly bly
and they, they they sort ofseemed to barely have
acknowledged that the, thatthere was even a competitor here
.
Um, and they were verydifferent.
(11:19):
They're interesting becausethey were very different
characters.
Um, elizabeth bisland was um, uh, more of a woman of letters.
She was um a bit more of a of apoet and a well-read woman who
was not seeking a lot of, like,personal attention.
Um, and and and was basicallyjust told by the paper like,
(11:40):
look, you're going, we expectyou to go now, go go, you have
to get out of here.
And uh, nelly bly had a sort ofmore swashbuckling style and um
really liked that kind of um, Idon't know, would we call it
gonzo journalism, the kind ofthing that's like, like, really
hard hitting, like, uh, she got,she got herself um
(12:02):
institutionalized.
Her first big sensation wasexposing some really bad living
conditions within mentalinstitutions by getting herself
committed.
So, yeah, that's how she made aname for herself.
She sort of had this reputationfor for just um jump, she was
(12:24):
like a lois lane character.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I guess, yeah, so it seemed like she was kind
of doing it to show she could doit right, like she's imitating
this.
You know what's what we onlyknow from fiction and deciding
I'm gonna do it.
Is that why you decided to doit like what captured you.
To think like do you just wantto see if you can do it like
what captured you?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
big part of it.
The big part of it is what itwhat's um, what's different in
our world today that makes iteasier or more difficult to do
the same thing in the same sortof like.
I mean, she nearly blighted itin like 72 days.
She took that 80 days down to72, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And she was never on an airplane.
I mean that's mind boggling,right.
I mean, obviously she was neveron an airplane, but like it's
mind boggling.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, it's pretty fast.
So the idea is that Jules Vernewas like I think you can do
this, um, and then wrote anadventure story about it.
And then 10 years, about 12years later, when Nellie Bly
left the idea, when I wasreading about it, they said the
idea was kind of hanging in theair, like this could be done.
(13:36):
Somebody should be doing this.
She pitched the story and thepaper was like a woman Never.
And then a year later they werelike we changed our minds, you
go.
And she was given like two daysto the one.
They finally said yes, she hadlike two days to prep and go,
which that part's, um, if you'rereally going to do it fast,
(13:57):
that part's basically impossiblenow because you um like like
I'm, I'm.
The first leg of this is theQueen Mary II, which is really
one of the last Atlanticcrossing passenger place things
that goes from point to point.
It's not really cruising, it'stechnically a crossing, so you
(14:18):
get on and then you get off, butwith two days prep she just got
on the next boat that was goingout and with telegraphs they
could sort of like keep in touchand keep the next thing kind of
lined up, but still it was abig thing and there are things
(14:41):
that are legitimately moredifficult to do.
There's no real actualpassenger thing that I can find
across the Pacific, on the otherhand.
Okay, and then in the 80s, late80s I think it was late 80s,
not early 90s, I think late 80sMichael Palin, who was part of
(15:05):
Monty Python, he did a triparound the world in 80 days as a
mini series and he did it.
He did it, he, with a film crew.
A lot of what he traveled onwas cargo ships for the Atlantic
, pacific specifically, and andthat's like with Nellie, like
(15:26):
she was on steamers a lot of thetime.
And what's also sorry now yougot me going but what's also
interesting that I found is likethose steep, that time, that
crossing time for like theAtlantic, that's basically the,
it takes about the same amountof time today on those boats,
right, those steamers were liketrucking and there were lots of
them and people could get onthem and, um, but Michael Palin
(15:50):
took cargo ships which for atleast 30 years or so, you really
could um, contact those bigshipping companies and they
would rent out.
It was like this, like notlittle known but not widely used
sort of a travel mode like realstripped down you just get a
cabin, you eat, you sit on theboat and that's it, but that I'd
(16:16):
been planning this book for along time and that practice
disappeared after COVID.
Every major shipping companydecided never again, no more.
They weren't making any moneyon it and so it was like COVID
was a good excuse to just stop.
And I contacted a lot of themand they were like nope, that
doesn't happen anymore.
(16:36):
And I felt really close withone company called I'm Skip from
Iceland, and one guy there waspretty excited about it but he
couldn't convince them.
And it was going to be soamazing because it was going to
be more of a um, it was going tobe more of like starting out
(16:57):
driving the East coast up andthen going across from, like
Halifax or or something likethis that makes sense so the
Pacific is going to be your.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's.
That's the difficulty.
Is you're going to have thepacific, is the difficulty.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The pacific, I might uh.
Right now I'm like the onlything to do is get an airplane
no bearing straight uh hoppingover complicated.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So I guess that brings up a question how did you
tackle the itinerary?
Did you look at countries youknew would be easy?
Did you look at and you don'thave to reveal what you don't
have to reveal.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, but.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
How did you go about this?
Nellie Bly took, which kind ofmore or less mirrored Phileas
Fogg's journey.
That route was really affectedby British colonialism.
Right, they were hitting placesthat were kind of easy there
(18:05):
and then.
So, from there, the othertroubled part is just world
conflicts.
So there's the Ukraine, there'sthe Middle East and, as I was
planning this, both of thosebecame a little bit more
difficult, escalated, yeah, yeah, so, uh, so I did a lot of
(18:30):
reading and I ended up, um, andbasically I ended up contacting
a lot of like travel writers andtravel bloggers and being like,
what would you suggest?
And, uh, this one guy got aholdof who's done all kinds of
different, um, really, uh, uh,like, low budget sounds not
(18:51):
great.
Like, um, uh, just just, yeah,like, like, really like, what do
you call?
It's not low budget, it's likeum like on a shoestring, like
yeah but it just, he just likeresourceful, resourceful.
He was a very resourcefultraveler.
He um could just figure outlike bus systems and all these
(19:12):
different places, stuff likethat.
Like he's not using, um, he'snot having planned trips, he's
just like trying kind oftraveling by the seat of his
pants, um, and he does all theseinteresting ones.
And so he he just emailed meback and was like here's, here's
what would suggest.
He gave me this route and itworked out really well and I'll
say, like it's basically theSilk Road, it's like the old
(19:36):
Silk Road, so it goes basicallythrough, yeah, so up through,
like Turkey and into Georgia andthrough Azerbaijan.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Wow, and we will see it as it happens, that's the
idea.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So through, like Turkey, and into Georgia, and
through Azerbaijan and and there, and we will see it as it
happens.
Um, that's the idea.
So that's one of the parts thatI'm most, uh, nervous and
unsure about.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Is this idea that I've said I'm going to draw this
as I go, or at least draw adraft of it as I go, and I don't
, I don't know that I'm that, Idon't.
I don't know that I'm that, Idon't know that I'm that fast.
I mean, I don't know that I'mgoing to have like, uh, the
amount of time every day toactually just sit and be drawing
um, and not just like grabbingsketches is one thing, but like
(20:20):
um fussily planning Cause I'vedone some like comics in advance
and they're already like uponline and you can read them and
get a kind of a sense of whatI'm doing.
But those are um, those areones that, like you know, I sat
at my desk, I did like a likerough thumbnails and then I did
like a nicer version and and I'mnot I'm not bringing my desk
(20:43):
with me, you know.
So, yeah, I guess we kind ofskipped.
We said you, I guess we kind ofskipped.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We said you're doing this.
We kind of skipped the actualproject, that it's this idea of
around the world in 80 pages andthat it will be a travel log
for adults to kind of see theseplaces in 80 pages or something.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, it's a look at the world.
Really.
It's something where I wantedto be like I don't know if
you're familiar with RobertMcFarlane's Underland, so what I
kind of wanted to do was justdo that with the world as a
graphic novel.
Here is a look at our preciousshared world.
(21:25):
I was actually like and this isstill like I signed this book
up as Around the World in 80Pages, which as a title sounds
kind of young already.
So this is actually an untitledproject and I'm going to save
the commitment to a title towhen I get home.
But we've thrown around a lot ofdifferent ideas and one of them
(21:49):
which I don't know if it'sgoing to be the name of the book
, but I like the sentiment of itwas homebound.
Uh, because when you look uphomebound, like in Webster's,
it's like um, it's got twodefinitions and one of them is
heading toward home and one ofthem is unable to leave home.
(22:10):
And this is both right.
If you think of the pale bluedot as our one precious home, we
are homebound in a sort ofuniversal sense, in a sort of
like universal sense, likeyou're sure we might have people
on Mars or whatever to pokearound, but within our scope of
(22:35):
history.
We are homebound and that'sprecious, and so I kind of
wanted to see and also, like thepsychological size of the world
is an interesting thing for meto look at.
Oh yeah, where, like I was evenreading about when trains
(22:57):
started coming up and beforetrains, there was local mean
time, which meant like basicallyevery town had its own clock
setting.
This town might be two minutesbehind that town, but that's
because that's their local meantime.
Yeah, it didn't matter.
It was when the railroads andthe railroad barons needed
everything to be like that thateverybody had to decide okay,
(23:21):
this is a time zone and it'snoon for everybody in this time
zone at this moment, and thatkind of and being able to.
There was another thing theysaid about the railroads was in
Napoleon's day he could getaround basically the same speed
as a Roman emperor.
That was the top speed, ithadn't changed.
(23:45):
And then suddenly a couple daysbecomes a trip of seven hours
and the world seems smaller.
Days becomes a trip of sevenhours and the world seems
smaller.
And now you know my family,we've gone back and forth from
Italy a lot.
I'm there.
I don't think I've ever reallylike physically clocked that
distance.
(24:06):
You know, it's always you get ona plane and you sit there for
eight hours and now you're inPisa, or you know, or whatever,
or you hop a couple of times,but it's just like I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, it's interesting because in some ways
, the world does seem muchsmaller because, yeah, I can get
to Pisa I could be in Pisatonight if I really pushed it
Right.
Yeah, but at the same time,like when you were talking about
being homebound, and that we'reall on the same blue dot in
some, some ways, the world feelsvery large, in that I feel very
distant from the conflict inUkraine and I feel very distant
(24:38):
from like you're going to begoing to places and I think in
some ways, the world is actuallygoing to seem very small
because we're all on the sameblue dot.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I don't think about, like I don't think about people
over there having the same homeas me, but we do.
We have this shared home thatwe have to, we need to care for,
and I, I need to care for thosepeople over there too, because
we're all in the same home, andso it's this odd thing of like
the world's very big but, at thesame time, very small, because
this is all we have right now.
We're not colonizing the moon,we're not colonizing mars yet,
(25:08):
and so how are we caring foreach other and how are we caring
for this blue dot?
And so as the world gets biggerand smaller at the same time.
I think it's something for usto think about in that
responsibility.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, yeah, and how we care for each other and how
we care for like the world arekind of the same thing, you know
, so, so, yeah, so there'sthat's, that's a whole big thing
.
And then there's like it's thehistorical travelers.
And then there's like it'shistorical travelers.
So, having, you know, studiedhistory for a long time, I
really like started to feelkinship with, because we talked
(25:46):
about, like Nellie Bly andElizabeth Bisland.
But there are some others whohave sort of like touched this
journey and are sort of pilgrimsin different ways, and the
three main ones I think are well, there's Patrick Leigh Fairmore
who, when he was like 18, waskicked out of his, his fancy
(26:09):
prep school in England anddecided to.
He was prodigiously smart andreally, really good at languages
and he was like, well, what doI do now?
And he decided to walk from, hesaid, the hook of Holland to
Constantinople.
And he and this oh sorry, thiswas the 1930s, so this is, yeah,
(26:32):
so this is early 30s.
And he basically did it.
And then he, years later, andthen he had this adventurous
life which you can read about islike a life like just packed to
the gills with adventure.
And then, when he was older hewent back to those diaries and
wrote the account.
So it's this beautiful look atpre-war Europe with both the
(26:57):
eyes of like this, like this,like really young eyed, white
eyed young guy, and years of ofsubsequent learning, kind of
layered on top of that beautiful, beautiful book called a time
of gifts.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Um so.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So he's one, and whenever I and there's a part
where my path will cross intohis which I really am excited
for.
And then I've been rereadingabout Francis of Assisi.
I started with the Chestertonbiography, which kind of tries
to get the spirit of St Francisand he was a person of the road
(27:35):
in a lot of ways Like he, um,they had dwellings, but like
part of the no owned dwellings,and he was so influenced by the
troubadours which and they, thatwas a whole movement of, of the
road and of travel, Um, so thatwas really interesting.
And then I also there wasanother, there's a more, so I
(27:56):
paired Chesterton's St Franciswith another biography where I
had the name written down he Idon't know where I did it, oh,
Augustine Thompson, that's whoit was.
He wrote a more like hardhistory version of St Francis,
right Like to Chesterton'spoetical version, right this is
(28:17):
more like a historian's versionof the St Francis, like what we
know from the documents, what weknow from, like all these other
sources, and that was reallyinteresting too, but it really
dovetailed well with the travelangle.
And the other one I really loveis Ibn Battuta, who is the.
Do you know about Ibn Battuta?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I don't, and you'd mentioned him in an email and I
thought I need to ask Ben.
Oh, he's so great.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
He's the great Islamic traveler.
He went on pilgrimage when hewas in his early early 20s.
He's like this young guy he'sgoing to go to Mecca, so he sets
out for Mecca and he doesn'tstop traveling for 30 years and
he clocked, and this is 1325.
(29:05):
So this is straight in themiddle of the Middle Ages and he
clocked more miles thanMagellan did.
250 years later he was one ofthe most widely traveled people
of his era or of the medievalera, and then when he came back
as an older guy, he wrote a longaccount of all his travels,
(29:28):
everything he'd seen, and calledit like my gift and it's a
great.
It's a great and you know, like, like a lot of medieval texts,
like there are, you know,disputed stories and and all
these other things, and therethere are some crazy accounts
that you think like reallythat's interesting and odd, but
(29:49):
all in all there are.
It gives you a look at whattravel and pilgrimage was like
in the Middle Ages and also howkind of cosmopolitan the world
was then.
Still Like he got into Chinaand ran into somebody from the
village next to where he grew upWow.
And you're like oh okay, peoplewere really moving around, so
(30:13):
he's a good one.
Um, yeah, so anyway, I've reada lot of like travel literature
and gotten into it for a longtime I think you're gonna have
several books come out of this,it seems well you're gonna write
one in 30 years.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
When you're an old man, like looking back and like
looking back at it.
Yeah, you know like there's,there's a lot here.
Yeah, um, what place are youmost looking forward to?
Can you reveal that, or do youwant to keep that a secret?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
oh, um, that's a tough one.
I could.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
There's so many, you're not gonna be able to
linger in these places I'm not.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'm being hosted by people in a few different places
, which will be interesting andgood, and then there are a few
places that already feel likehome, which I'm going to take
short breaks in Nice, and so, Idon't know, maybe I'm almost
looking forward to those themost.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Because you know the village where my wife's family
is from, from Gravagna.
It's just this little mountainand I'm and I am swinging
through Italy and I'm just goingto be like, okay, I'm going to
take a two day break here andrest, and it's like I know all
the neighbors there.
I knew everybody there.
It's good, it's going to be.
That's going to be basicallylike I watched my kids grow up
there, right, so?
So I'm going to get over thereand I'll be stop at home and
(31:31):
then, um, coming back, oh no,all the way back around the
world, like I'm skippingeverything, but like, on the way
, you know, back across the theus, I'm gonna stop at my parents
house in indiana, yeah, um, andwork that into the book.
And another place that I havethat clocks very intimately as
(31:54):
home, right, yeah, so lookingforward to those.
And, yeah, and there's a, thereare a couple exotic places like
like Georgia.
I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
That's the country of Georgia.
For those who are not, theexotic state of Georgia.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
DC, georgia, so yeah, there are a lot of spots.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I love the.
You know we talk a lot in thepilgrimage company that I work
for about the return, theimportance of returning from
pilgrimage, Because a lot ofpeople neglect that, Like they
go on this trip and they don'tthink about coming home and the
responsibility to share whatyou've learned and to enter back
into your world as a changedperson.
(32:37):
And so we talk a lot about thereturn.
And what I love about your tripis that your return is your
trip.
That you're coming home, that'syour trip.
Your whole trip is the return.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The sacred place that I am pilgrimaging to is my
house is my home right.
Yes, and I guess that's maybeone of the secret worries I have
in the project is a little bitactually the performance aspect
of it, the fact that I amplanning to make and post a lot
of things as I go because, likeit's such a, like a, because it
(33:16):
does clock as a pilgrimage in alot of ways, and because it is
like this deeply personal thingand because I like want to like,
like, keep my eyes on that, youknow, and keep, keep a little
bit of silence inside as Itravel, like I do worry that
like the, the performativeaspect of it, could take away
(33:36):
from that.
Um, so maybe if I had plannedthe, if I had the project to
plan over again, I might even belike no, I am not posting
anything about this as I go, I'mgoing to just do it and draw it
and then I'll see on the otherside.
But I think I I don't know LikeI was so intent on like selling
(34:01):
this thing as, like a likeplease sign up this book.
This is the book I really careabout, that.
I said I'll post it as I go andit helps build up a community
for your project.
I mean, it is a book, so Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
It's exciting.
I think there still will bethings that you take from it
that maybe you don't you nevershare with people, and I think
there'll be other things thatpeople I mean it's a gift.
I noticed that the idea of giftwas in both of those books you
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, and it is my gift and a time of gifts, yeah.
Yeah, it's a gift that you arealso sharing with us that we get
to follow along um, so you'llbe giving gifts that I think
remain for you yeah you don'tshare but the gifts of the road
and road magic is a big uh is abig thing that I think about and
have experienced in differentways, and it's always like the
(34:53):
most special thing, talismansthat people give you and stuff
like this.
Um, I was at a um like a booksigning event in like golly,
where was it?
Like like alabama or something,where was I forget?
Um, anyway, in the carolinasomewhere, and I was in a
bookstore and I was like, um,just, I hadn't brought a book,
my own book, with me.
And I was in a bookstore and Iwas like, um, just, re, I hadn't
(35:14):
brought a book, my own book,with me.
And I was like looking throughthe bookstore shelves and
thinking like I just really wantthe perfect book to read and I
couldn't find anything and I satdown, I was signing books for
for kids and, um, this one, um,young adult guy came up and he
was like you know, I, I justwanted to give you my copy of
the princess bride and I waslike you are kidding me of all,
(35:36):
like it had been years since Iread it and I was like somehow
that was just the book that Iwanted to read and it was just
sort of like magic of the roadthat way.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Always keep your eyes open.
We always tell our, ourtravelers, that that go in with
some, some expectations, but nota lot, because you're going to
be given something, that if youhave too many expectations,
you're not going to have youreyes open to those surprises.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So you work with pilgrims a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yes, so my job is to help people prepare for their
trip.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I should be asking you for advice then.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Well, I don't know about that.
I just tell them, like, this iswhat you're going to see.
Because, we also.
We want to go into these tripskind of knowing and kind of
expecting.
You don't want to go completelyblind.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
But you also want to be open to the surprises that
God has waiting for you, right?
You want to be like maybe it'sbetter that you didn't bring a
book to that trip because youwere ready to accept the you
know the gift.
And so I think there's thatgive and take when we travel, of
being open to those surprises.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
That's the hard balance I'm finding, like the
nerves you know of it make mewant to plan out every little.
You know part of it right, andthere's got to be some give and
take.
You can't just be walkingthrough.
You know, a predeterminedseries of very well thought out
(37:10):
steps.
Um, uh, I used to, um, when Iwas doing more book travels, uh,
and a couple of different likebook tours, I was working with
somebody at uh for a second andwhen she would send it, this was
a really good uh.
But when she would send me,like all like the information
packet of you know where I'mgoing and what I'm doing, it was
(37:30):
always just like I could.
I could basically shut my brainoff and follow her steps and
find myself at the hotel that Iwas supposed to be at or
whatever it was.
So that was really good.
But that's not this.
This needs to have a little bitof fuzziness at the edges.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, and there will be fuzziness when stuff doesn't
go as planned.
Yeah, that's true, and therewill be fuzziness when stuff
doesn't go as planned.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And just to kind of be open to okay, this is where
we're going, because maybethere's something even better in
store, and that's kind of whatwe help our travelers with is
there are going to be surprises,right.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
And you can either accept them as an inconvenience
or you can.
I mean, it's the Chestertonquote, right.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah.
You can accept those things asinconveniences or you can accept
them as adventures, and it'sall about how you consider them,
and I think that's a hugelesson that you're going to find
in 80 days.
Yeah, yeah, and that's it'salso like a test of like am I a
good traveler?
Like I've always felt that Iwas pretty good at embracing the
(38:32):
discomfort of travel, likeactually enjoying I don't know
all the yeah the discomforts,the weird little unfamiliar
things and the things that likeI don't know how, how adventures
really are you?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
you're gonna, I know right and how how good at this
am I really?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I can't.
I mean so.
So there's a lot to, there's alot to discover and also like um
, I don't know stuff likeminimalist traveling and yeah,
yeah everything down to justwhat you need.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yes, that's another yeah, there's all these little
lessons, I think in yeah, um,and I guess, as as we wrap up, I
think what I loved about what Iwanted you on was like whether
you're taking a pilgrimage.
I think you are, I think weagree like I think you're taking
a pilgrimage, I think you are,I think we agree, like I think
you're taking a pilgrimage home,and I think it's that sacred
site of home and which made methink of the grant wood quote
(39:24):
that grant wood said I had to goto france to appreciate iowa
and I have that on a magnet onmy refrigerator because, I
really I think that's a reallyimportant thing, that sometimes
we have to leave so that we cancome back home.
I mean I think we have to bestretched and we have to leave
Iowa so that we can appreciateIowa.
(39:45):
So that quote really resonateswith me and I think that really
I hope I think you're going toget that right.
You're going to appreciate whenyou walk in that Western facing
door, you're going toappreciate that right.
You're going to appreciate whenyou walk in that Western facing
door, you're going toappreciate home a little
differently, I bet.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, I hope well.
I'll report back, Maybe we'lldo a post journey conversation,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Where?
How can people follow this?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Oh, good question.
Best place would be on myPatreon, where I'll be posting
the most in-depth stuff, and youdon't have to you don't have to
you can sign up as a freemember.
So that's.
That's a good spot.
I'm posting a lot to Instagram.
My website is in shambles, butit is benhatkecom.
You can get the basics there.
(40:32):
Yeah, those are the three.
Those are the three main mainbits.
Great, and Patreon is justpatreoncom slash benhatke.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
We'll put all that in the show notes so people can
follow along.
So actually when we post thisyou are going to be in route.
So that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Oh, cool Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So you will be on your adventure.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I'll be off, okay, and people can immediately click
and find out where I am orwhere I was the day before.
Yeah, nice, anything else,anything you want to add as we
finish up?
No, this was a lovelyconversation.
I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, I am too.
I'm really excited for yourtrip.
I'm glad to live vicariouslythrough you and yeah, we'll be
praying and waiting and seeingwhat's in store.
All right, so excellent.
Thanks, ben, thanks listeners.
And yeah, all those links arein the show notes so you can see
right now where Ben is on histravels and see what I think
(41:32):
multiple projects are going tocome out of this.
So really excited.
So thanks for listening and besure to share this episode with
someone who would find itinteresting.
God bless.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.