The doughty navigator

For Los Angeles based Navigator, travel has always been about treks of self-discovery. He puts the art of travelling into context:

I've never been a fan of traveling for the sake of traveling. Sure, there's an appeal for just seeing the exotic and waking every day to a radically novel environment to immerse yourself in. But I've never understood how that could be sustained for a year or 18 months, as New Zealanders and Australians often do, or even for three months as many Americans do. Traveling for the sake of seeing something purely novel can be enormously valuable, but it's about as logical as going to see a movie simply because the movie has been made and you haven't seen it yet and someone says it's a pretty, shiny thing. This time around, I'll only be traveling in places that hold significance for me.

For instance, Malta: packed with history; Neolitic tombs, Jewish and Christian catacombs, a Crusader heritage, prominent role in WWII. That's all context I can appreciate. It's not about just seeing Malta. It's about putting place to the idea of the Knights of Malta.