Hey, get going!

“Have you ever sat at your desk quietly daydreaming of traveling the world” the promotional copy asks. Like I am right now? Why, is help on the way? Edward Hasbrouck, once a travel agent, has written “The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World’’ (601 pp., $21.95, Avalon Travel, fourth edition). He offers advice, suggestions, guidance, resources . . . empowerment! Hasbrouck lessens the intimidation and ignorance facing the novice and provides perspective and insider recommendations to the seasoned trekker. Destinations, transportation (surface and air), baggage, practicalities, safety and health, the bottom line, resource guide -- such are the categories he works in. Sprinkled tidily throughout are asides labeled Real Life, about such vicissitudes as having to be airlifted thousands of miles for brain surgery. (Get insurance!) This is a book that explains the abacus, and lists Urdu as a language helpful to know in some parts, so what can be left out. . . . If I could only stop daydreaming . . .