“There are many reasons not to fly. Boring, air conditioning that makes you sick, thrombosis risk. It's cramped, you can't smoke, and beneath your feet are ten kilometres of air. I don't like having nothing beneath me. Some people quit smoking; I quit flying. It was the right decision. But in an age of boundless mobility you suddenly belong to a minority. So I decided, all alone, to launch a trend: Slow Travelling. I travel slowly. Travelling instead of flying. A journey is pretty much exactly what lies between two airports — what you see far below, ten kilometres down: the sea, all the countries you behold from high above.” Rudolph Jula's book follows an overland journey on the way to Damascus.