Home on the Road: Pilgrimage, Place, and Peripatetics

The idea and experience of the home is constituted in large part by departures from and returns to it, as well as by the deep cultural and emotional longing for it. I explore how pilgrimages and human ambulation more generally are significant in this regard and show that one can also be very much at home on the road in the act of slow movement across the earth, our most basic dwelling place. A particular focus is given to Asian philosophy, where Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, and everyday walkers create and experience a sense of home via singular or collective sauntering and wandering on foot. Comparisons are made with notions of the home and peripatetic activity in Western philosophy.