Still Journeys

stefan mostert

14 june 2025

1,600 words

12 minutes

a quiet journey through books, time, and memory

Still journeys are those in our minds, when we think or read or dream. In these journeys we can bring adventure to us, instead of us going out to find it. Most of the journeys I have undertaken in the past few years have been in this form. Its reach is expansive: you can experience faraway places, and the destinations are endless!

In this way, I recently went on a journey to Antarctica with Apsley Cherry-Garrard. The 1910 expedition was led by Robert Falcon Scott, and its purpose — among other things — was a race to the South Pole. Cherry-Garrard’s description of that journey is riveting and could fill a book on its own — but it is not the journey he named his book after.

The Worst Journey in the World is, in fact, about a small side mission that Cherry-Garrard and two other adventurers undertook during a particularly harsh Antarctic winter, before the main expedition to the South Pole. They were after emperor penguin eggs, and because of the birds’ unusual breeding cycle, the journey had to take place in the very season when polar explorers would normally huddle in shelters, write, and play cards.

From base camp, they traveled to and from the penguin colony over five weeks, enduring icy headwinds in temperatures as low as -77°F (-60°C), all in perpetual darkness. Cherry-Garrard describes the cold vividly, writing how each night they had to defrost their sleeping bags by slowly wiggling into them. A frozen cocoon became their warm place. He writes:

“It is not easy to describe the pain of a frozen face, the strange sensation of a nose that has frozen and broken open… and the curious numbness that takes the place of pain.”

Things go bad, as the title suggests. In fact, the journey becomes so grueling and their pace so slow that it almost becomes unbearable to continue reading. But through it all, I was reminded of how persistent and resistant and curious and strong and intelligent we humans are.

Another journey I took to Antarctica was on the Endurance Expedition, which Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton led in 1914. This journey also shows how miserable survival and adventure can become. But as we all know, hard journeys make good stories.

Endurance is Alfred Lansing’s account of Shackleton’s third Antarctic journey. Their ship got stuck in the ice almost as soon as the expedition started. Then they traded the rough time on the ice for being lost at sea. When they finally reached unfrozen land, they were forced to make one last grueling trek over a treacherous island wilderness. Miraculously, everyone survived.

Lansing offers even more reason to feel inspired and proud of the achievements and evolutionary journey of our species. Something in us makes us seek; we are what we are today because we have not stopped seeking. Of course, we’re not perfect—we’re still working through a few details—but I believe there is ultimately a process in place that is creating the best version of ourselves.

Another Still Journey I recently undertook was to The Roman Empire: From Augustus to the Fall of Rome, with Gregory S. Aldrete. The journey spans from the empire’s birth in 27 BCE to the eventual fall of the Western Empire in 476 CE. Combined with the East, the empire as a whole lasted nearly 1,500 years. Through that lens, the United States—at just 250 years old—is still in its infancy. Many things that feel permanent to us are, in fact, fleeting events.

While much of the book covers the expected wars and politics, it’s the descriptions of everyday life for the average Roman that may be most interesting to the modern reader — and a powerful lens through which to measure our current place in history. Aldrete sums up the prevailing historical condition of our ancestors with five F’s: constant filth, famine, floods, fires, and fighting.

Of course, all these things are still with us today, but overall — in the Western world and many other parts — we have learned to be much more in control of them. Despite how it may feel sometimes, how we live today is not even comparable to how we used to live in the past — even when compared to historical kings and elites.

Like the kings and elites from the Middle Ages.  Currently I’m on a journey around England, at the end of the first millennium, with Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series of five books — one of which is the well-known Pillars of the Earth. These stories show how our lives are an interwoven dance between the real and the imagined. There is the rain, the droughts, the sun, the stars, and the meteorites. But also all the stories: the politics, religion, and all those many strong beliefs we hold.

For me, Follett is remarkably good at submerging you into a scene — the ultimate achievement for any piece of writing. His stories become dark and gray, yet also light and inspirational. Just like real life. Ultimately, this sweeping excerpt from the Middle Ages reminds us that life’s driving forces have always been the same, but the outcomes have definitely improved.

Leaving England, I walked with Rory Stewart and a few other Afghans across the mountains and deserts of central Afghanistan, from Herat to Kabul, in the winter of 2002. Steward relied heavily on Afghan hospitality and in The Places In Between, he describes how every night after walking about 20 miles, they would knock on the door of the nearest house. It was customary for the Afghan hosts to shelter and feed their unexpected guests. Some minded, most did not. This, along with the fact that Stewart spoke their language, results in an immersive journey into the everyday life of a faraway place.

I was reminded of my time cycling around Southern Africa with two good friends. We also, many times, knocked on the doors of strangers. Mostly, we were welcomed; sometimes, we were turned away. The successful times more than made up for the rejected times. There is maybe no better way to get under the skin of a country than by visiting the homes of its people.

With the help of their journals, I also accompanied Meriwether Lewis and William Clark across the American continent in 1804 — in search of a water route to the Pacific, but more importantly, in search of adventure. Their journal entries are simple and clear, often recording the first known descriptions of many plants and animals in American scientific literature. The coyote, for instance, was carefully documented here.

But the highlight of these journals is the documentation of meetings that capture each moment of first contact between two tribes on planet Earth — the intensity, the uncertainty, and then - for the most part - the exchange of a pipe and a smile. It must be one of the best surviving accounts of what life was like for explorers of uncharted lands. They were adventurous in many ways. Not only did they revert to eating dogs sometimes, they were actually quite fond of it. Lewis writes:

“The dog now constitutes a considerable part of our subsistence and with most of the party has become a favorite food; certain I am that it is a healthy strong diet, and from habit it has become by no means disagreeable to me, I prefer it to lean venison or elk, and it is very far superior to the horse in any state.”

In Hampton Sides’ The Wide Wide Sea, I sailed with Captain Cook on his third voyage in 1776. Cook was very good at what he did: Discovering and recording. He made first contact in several places, including Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. Unfortunately, later in his life, he apparently became a bit of an unpleasant captain and fellow human being. His travels ended in Hawaii, where he and his men would eventually overstay their welcome.

This is another great account of life on an exploration ship — a vessel with a sole purpose of uncovering new parts of the world. An experience that must have been both thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

My most inspirational travel companion is Paul Theroux. His writing is very raw and honest. His books essentially unfold as a series of conversations with strangers. He has narrowed it down to a very simple method: talk to people.

Dark Star Safari was my first journey with Theroux. Here he traveled from Cairo to Cape Town — all the way across Africa — using only public transportation. All this while speaking to almost every person he met. Through this way, he too ended up in the homes of many strangers. He writes:

 “I had come to Africa not to observe animals but to look at people.”

Still Journeys also took me to the Amazon, Kazakhstan, the North Pole, Mars, and Paris’ catacombs. My other companions include Sir Francis Drake, Theodore Roosevelt, Einstein, Aristotle, George Orwell, Benjamin Franklin, and a hermit called John J. Rowlands.  These quiet journeys are about exchanging reality for a dream, even if just for a few seconds. They are a gateway into all of recorded history, and a reminder of just how endlessly vast, yet deeply connected, the human experience can be.