The Philosophy of Travel ‐ A kind of retrospective from three academics who attempted to lash their canoes together

“Has anyone ever considered the philosophy of travel?” Wrote Spanish-American philosopher and thinker, George Santayana (1964). He goes on to attribute the gift of movement – the ability to travel, explore and roam – as the “privilege of animals… perhaps the key to intelligence.” (1) Contrasting with Aristotelean vegetables, their roots as mouths anchoring them to one place, Santayana declares locomotion as the basis for human evolution and, what is more, the greater a person’s experience of travel and traveling the more “arts and manners” (10) they will assimilate, and the more depth and pleasantness they will carry in their own understandings of themself and the world.This paper, a collaboration between a feminist scholar, a queer scholar, and an Asian-Australian scholar, will take a look at individual examples from their creative practice, against the backdrop of connection and exchange, built across four years of collaboration together as colleagues, co-writers and practitioners. Through reflection and critical dialogue, they will journey with each other through their unique worlds, to arrive at a collective destination where they have found new connections and positive exchanges that enhance and enrich each other’s worlds. With the aim of finding a deeper level of depth and pleasantness, this presentation will be a collective journey through disparate creative worlds, ultimately arriving at a new beginning of shared understanding through the gift of intellectual locomotion