Travel light in Europe

As an optimistic and observant person by nature, I was excited about the formation of the European Union and saw the new opportunities of solitude in a continent without borders. I thought that now in the European Union just like in the United States, we Europeans could grab our cars and travel from coast to coast. Or even say to our honey: “I am just going out to buy cigarettes” -and to never come back.

This is for me the true meaning of travelling, the true meaning of freedom.

I decided to join in with writing a different version of the ‘Lonely Planet’ to give anyone who wants it the chance to disappear and re-emerge somewhere else.

Michel Foucault had already noticed in the late sixties that to control a subject (in his case it was prisoners) you don’t even have to watch. You have to give your subject the feeling that you are constantly watching him, though you don’t actually have to be doing it physically. The thought that the prisoner is getting constantly observed will prevent him from breaking your laws. If the prisoner doesn’t know when the guard is watching his actions, because the light in the watchtower is burning all the time, the prisoner will just have to ‘behave’ continually. Foucault called this Panopticism.

In the past a person could decide to step out, disappear and live outside of the social order of his time. He or she could change their name, build a little cabin on the mountain and try to live off the land. In our days the taxman is most likely to knock on this little cabin door every March - that is if the husband or wife of this supposed person didn’t have him or her followed with a GPS device long before that.

What used to be a question of a little creativity in surviving outdoors or under a false name has become, in the technological age, almost Mission Impossible.

It is not as easy to go outside for five minutes to buy cigarettes and never come back. To not get registered in our western world you will have to avoid: ATM machines, taking the train, the tram, even the bus, having children, credit cards, all possible records; from police till dental records – don’t forget DNA, bank accounts, phones, mobile phones, e-mails and computers, sending post, parking, driving, getting ill, visiting convenience stores and supermarkets, walking the streets, flying, having electricity, eating fast food, everything our western world has to offer, is given to us only if we are willing to be watched constantly.