“TRAVELLING LIGHT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22831, 16 March 1936, Page 10

“TRAVELLING LIGHT”

ADVENTUROUS JOURNEYS Round the world on nothing! It isn’t an impossibility (states a London journalist). Lots of people who choose to sacrifice personal comfort can do it. So Really there is no excuse for the wander-thirsty, armchair travellers who would fly across Russia, sway straddled across a camel in the Sahara, or court blue noses in Alaska —if they had the money! Miss Betty Simpson Brogan, a charming girl, travels round the world without paying a cent. Being young and beautiful, she sold her own photographs, explaining she was making her way round the world on the receipts. “A woman is a fool,” she says, “to start out on the road in a hiking suit dressed comfortably for walking, because motorists think she teally wants to walk and don’t give her lifts. When I go on a journey, 1 wear a sheer silk dress, the highest heels I can buy, and with my big suitcase in my hand, totter along the highway. “ Every person who drives ray way will put on the brakes and ask, ‘ Goodness, how far are you going with that £rip? ’ ” During a respite from tapping her typewriter. Miss Viola Irene Cooper, stenographer, picked up a newspaper and read that the windjammer Star of Peru was going on its last voyage before being broken up. She dreamt about it — couldn’t get it out of her mind. Finally she walked out of the San Francisco office, went to see the captain of the ship, and pleaded with him to let her come along as a midshipman. She enlisted —and had the honour of being the first girl midshipman in the world. She borrowed money from friends, sold her typewriter and a fur coat, gave up her job and boarded the windjammer. When she returned half a year later she wrote a best-seller book, “ Windjamming to Fiji.” and recouped her expenses. “ I’d do it again,” she says, although it would mean coming back to my typewriter and shorthand afterwards. So many exciting things happened. A tribal chief in Fiji wanted to marry me. He tried to barter me for two pigs with the captain, who jokingly accepted! ” The most glamorous world wanderer is Miss Mona Dell Man-, cabaret girl. After a dinner in a London hotel, she was challenged to go round the world in the clothes she was wearing. Mona rose from the dinner table, surveyed her streamlined diaphanous frock and satin shoes — and accepted the challenge. She began by rescuing a man from death in a lift accident. He enriched her by £2O. and so she started her adventures. Miss A. Heald Lindsay makes successful travels in unknown countries on limited money. Listen to her exciting Story: “I spent 21 days in the desert of the Saraha alone with a dragoman, a camel boy and a cook. We had three little white tents, two of which were for my comfort. My total expenses for that trip, including the hire of the camels, were £2 a day.” She visited a Chinese home in the native quarter. “ Three or four Chinese who had been smoking scurried away,” she says, “and the proprietor showed me the silks I had come for. When X left lie said:'‘Were you not afraid? I don t know of any white persons, man or woman, who would have done this. They fear some mystery which clings to the Chinese House. Traveller, I am proud of your confidence.” . Miss Lindsay found that a lone girl traveller always gets respect so long as she respects and trusts others. Mrs Aloha Wandervvell always looks .is though she has just come from the aerodrome, in her breeches and uniform whica she wears most of the time. There’s little she doesn’t know about getting the most excitement for her money on world travels. “Oh, I’ve been captured by Chinese bandits —the usual thing. They wanted to kill me, but I escaped. Dull, really,” she says casually. ‘ And .there was the time crocodiles attacked me—nothing much to that, either. The natives frightened them off with a rifle.” John Wells, jnn., son of Carveth Wells, the explorer, travelled the whole world on a bicyelc and £2 a week, and found a beautiful wife en route. Adventurers who feel the call of the open road strongly do not let thoughts of danger or lack of money stand in their way.