Henry Miller wrote, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of looking at things.” These days that means you can vagabond around the world with a computer and a reasonably fast Internet connection. Here are 10 videos that will take you up and out of your office and leave you in another world.
1. On The Road with Solitaire, Episode 2: In the Cradle of the Cordillera, Sweetgrass Productions
This clip from Sweetgrass Productions’ South American backcountry ski flick, “Solitaire” starts in Huaraz, Peru and ends in the 20,000-foot peaks of the Cordillera Blanca. As with many expeditions, the beauty of the teaser is in the road to getting there.
2. “Flying The Lindbergh Trail,” a 1937 Pan American Airways Travelogue
This late 1930s travelogue, of a Pan-Am “Clipper Ship” touring South America, follows a flight on a Sikorsky S-42 Flying Boat from Miami to Buenos Aires. The vintage travel wear and cabin is worth a view, as is the Boeing B-307 the passengers transfer to. (That plane is now at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles International). A great view into the Golden Age of Aviation.
3. Shelter Trailer
From the Moonshine Conspiracy—who made Thicker Than WaterandSeptember Sessions—Shelter is a classic among contemporary surf films. Opting to shoot surfers like Rob Machado, Shane Dorian, Jack Johnson and Joel Tudor playing music, eating, talking and living the surfing life, this movie, and trailer, is a welcome relief to modern wave porn. And the trailer is set to The Shins.
4. War Photographer Trailer, by Christian Frei
A reminder of what goes on around the world, every day.
5. The Making of Surfing Magazine’s Swimsuit Issue
Because Surfing is infinitely cooler than Sports Illustrated and…why the hell not.
6. Andre de la Varre’s 21 Days in Europe
“Born in Washington D.C. in 1902, Andre de la Varre quit school at age 17, bought a motion picture camera, and went to Europe to find adventure. He began making his own travel films and in 1924 became a cameraman for Burton Holmes. In the early 1930's, de la Varre went out on his own as “The Screen Traveler” and made theatrical shorts for independent release as well as for many of the major Hollywood Studios. He traveled and filmed constantly. In an autobiographical sketch, he wrote: “During the winter of 1938-39 I drove more than 10,000 miles through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. I covered not only cities and coastal regions but criss-crossed back and forth over the Atlas, Djurdjura, Kebelie, and Aures mountains. I also visited many of the oases on the Northern Sahara and crossed over trails or no trails in the deserts and mountains.” De la Varre continued traveling and making films for the next forty years and died in Vienna, Austria at the age of 87.” —The Travel Film Archive
7. Kerouac, Ginsberg & friends in New York
There’s no sound and no text. This is just raw—and rare—footage of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and a few others wandering around New York City. A tribute to some of the men who started all this wandering.
8. Original National Lampoon’s Vacation trailer from Warner Brothers
The scary thing is that you’ve probably been on a family trip like this. Maybe without Christie Brinkley.
9. Lonely Planet Visit to a Cocaine Factory
Watch a bunch of American tourists follow their translator into the Sierra Nevada mountains of Colombia to visit a real, live (tiny) cocaine factory. They pass by paramilitary soldiers guarding the cocaine farms around Santa Marta and visit with a kindly old man, who walks them through the toxic process of refining cocaine. The only thing more entertaining than the old man’s casual demeanor is the hungry eyes and nervous laughter of the Americans gazing at the finished product.
10. Driving Around New York City in 1928
This is just insane. Cop chase, Babe Ruth cameo, steamers on the East River.