To travel in this fashion, one goes it alone. This is necessary if the Traveler is to find his rhythm, travel light, allow things to happen, and understand the Other. It is a time of intense self-reflection, dark nights, and hard exhausting days, during which the Traveler asks himself, "Why travel?" "What is home? "Why do we do what we do?" And seems to find -- regardless of where he is in his internal/external journey -- that there is only one verity: it is always time to leave.

Cabana has several purposes in writing this book. It is a primer of sorts for would-be Travelers; it is a memoir of his own experiences; it is a summation of the ethnographic fieldwork he undertook when writing his Ph.D. dissertation on the culture; and it is -- possibly primarily -- a meditation on what the role of the journey means in human history and society. To Cabana, "the Traveler is the quintessential human being and his journey in the world our journey on earth. The personage of the Traveler is an eloquent metaphor for human inquisitiveness and human aspiration."

At one point the author writes, "People will avidly listen to someone's travel stories, the surface story of unusual or extraordinary events. But no one, except close friends or family, is interested in listening to the inner side of the story." Bookreview.com considers "Travelers: The Meaningful Journey" a compelling introduction to that inner story.