Phenomenology of Embodied Detouring

Abstract

This paper adopts a phenomenological and interdisciplinary approach to explore the embodied dimensions of place and movement as they pertain to travel and tourism. By drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, this study examines how the living body intermediates experiences of place and performed mobility across various touring modalities. In particular, it introduces the concept of embodied “detouring” as a distinct form of relationally placed mobility. The paper further explores the notion of “heterotouropia” and its connection to detouring in addition to addressing the ideas of “other-placing” and “other-moving” as ways to engage in indirect pathways. The paper concludes by presenting the implications, open questions and perspectives related to detouring and sustainable forms tourism and mobilities.

1. Introduction

All forms of movement, whether it be for touring or travelling, occur and take place in specific locations characterised by an embodied presence and pace unique to each locale. The way in which individuals engage with, comprehend, and move through the world is profoundly shaped by their physical surroundings and embodiment.

The intertwining relationship between individuals and their environment significantly influences how they perceive, move and interact with the emplaced and embodied world around them. These connections are especially relevant in the context of touring, where the traveller does not simply traverse geographical locations but also orientates and navigates through complex layers of material, affective, sensory, emotional, cognitive, and social interactions.

The interplay between mobility and the sensory and embodied aspects of tourism and travel experiences has been explored extensively (e.g., Cohen 1979; Larsen and Urry 2021; Pons 2003; Veijola and Jokinen 1994). More recently, Rickly-Boyd et al. (2014) identified a shift from the traditional emphasis on the visual aspects of tourism toward an appreciation of the role of the body, sensory encounters, emotionality, and affect. This challenges the traditional visual-centric view of tourism, emphasizing that travelling involves more than mere sight-seeing; it encompasses embodied practices that animate places, with sightseeing being just one of many relations or performances.

Places and (im-)mobilities are inherently interconnected, unfolding together and mutually shaping each other, often with political implications (Pellegrino 2011). They are dynamic constructs formed by socio-material relationships (Massey 1998, 2005). In our globalised world, characterized by the constant circulation of people, objects, capital, resources, knowledge, and power (Castells 2000; Elliott and Urry 2010), these connections are mediated by the body. These dynamic forces substantially transform contemporary socio-economic, cultural, and political orders, impacting their interwoven relationships (Sheller and Urry 2006) and affecting those engaged in touring and their mobility (Hannam et al. 2014).

By integrating phenomenological perspectives that emphasize place, body, and embodiment into the study of mobility and tourism, this paper aims to critically analyse what it means to be mobile and the experience of touring. The discourse on applying phenomenological approaches in tourism research is well established, particularly in examining the embodied aspects of mobility and the multisensory experiences encountered during travel (Pernecky and Jamal 2010; Rickly and Vidon 2018), as illustrated for instance in studies of interrail travel in Europe (Jensen et al. 2015).

A phenomenological approach, especially in examining the embodiment and mobility of the living body as articulated by Merleau-Ponty (2012, p. 143) and Küpers (2015), provides a valuable framework for further exploring the experiential and contextual dynamics of tourism and interactive travel, as well as their relationally placed mobility (Howard and Küpers 2019). By positioning the body as a central mediator in the construction of meaning, this perspective offers a critical examination of conventional understandings of mobility, thereby revealing hidden complexities and proposing new possibilities.

By moving beyond conventional sedentary and nomadic models, this approach enriches our understanding, metaphorical repertoire, and vocabulary of mobility. It acknowledges the diverse, often ambiguous, and sometimes paradoxical expressions of movement as experienced and interpreted within various material and socio-cultural settings. These insights and interpretations provide novel perspectives on the meaning of “touring” and the experiential aspects of being “mobile”. Understanding embodied touring and mobility as dynamically decentralised events encourages a relational view of place. This perspective on a relational place involves extending one’s enacted presence across multiple locations simultaneously, as suggested by Küpers (2010). Within this relational framework of place and placing, detouring emerges as a distinct form of movement, characterized by a performative metaphor and specific practice. It fosters unforeseen encounters and enriches experiences through creative engagements with embodied, placed, and inter-relational processes. This challenges the traditional scripted paths of tourism and facilitates deeper local engagement. Diverging from predefined routes and set scripts or narratives, detouring may redefine tourists’ relationships to authentication and authenticity as well as their relationships with local environments (Boorstin 1961; MacCannell 1976; Selwyn 1996). By engaging with places relationally, detouring might reduce the asymmetry often present in interactions between tourists and locals (Smith 1989), affecting the social, economic, and cultural practices and its dynamics of destination locales.

As discussed in the following in detail, the concept of detouring can play a role in facilitating a “becoming through tourism” (Andrews 2017), which involves imaginative and transformative processes. This approach reshapes the traveller’s sense of self and place, thus influencing individual identities and creating meaningful experiences. Such experiences broaden one’s horizons, alter consciousness and perspectives, and contribute to self-discovery and personal growth beyond mere recreation (Andrews 2009).

In the context of unsustainable travel practices and overtourism (Milano et al. 2019), detouring, especially when associated with “slow travel” might become increasingly important. Emphasising off-season travel, longer stays, and the exploration of lesser-known destinations, these practices support local economies and promote responsible tourism, enriching the traveller’s experience while benefiting local communities.

Detouring behaviour can manifest through changes in itinerary and adaptations based on real-time conditions, deliberately deviating from traditional tourist routes and exploring unconventional attractions. This approach can affect overall travel patterns, potentially leading to more enriched travel experiences and benefiting local economies by dispersing tourist traffic across various areas and other mitigating strategies (Drápela 2023). In relation to these alternative forms of mobility and travel, and amid our hyper-mobile realities, embracing the ethos of “engaged letting go” (“Gelassenheit”) that accompanies detouring may offer valuable insights into the meaning of travel.

This paper is structured as follows: Initially, it will explore the fundamental concepts of the body, embodied place, and mobility through a phenomenological lens. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (1995, 2012) phenomenology and ontology, it examines how the living body mediates our experience of place through movement and performed mobility.

This provides a platform to explore multiple embodied, local-cultural realities of places and the process of relational placing, understanding them as emergent events that constitute our experience of location and movement. These are seen as media for interaction among participants, co-creating specific “scapes” related to both place and movement. A key quality of these interactions is their capacity to enact and respond to the environment responsibly.

Subsequently, detouring will be framed as a component of creatively, relationally placed mobility, and “heterotouropia” will be introduced as a novel approach to touring. The paper will then delve into concepts of “other-placing” and “other-moving” as ways to engage in indirect pathways.

Finally, the implications and potential of these insights for research and practice will be discussed, particularly in promoting sustainable and meaningful forms tourism and mobilities. Special emphasis will be placed on the role of an “engaged letting-go” in relation to detouring.

2. Phenomenology of Embodied Place and Performative Mobility

2.1. Embodied Space and Place

There is long-lasting debate about differences and relationships between space and place (Küpers 2010). In contrast to the more abstract conceptualised space, living places are perceived, felt, imagined, interpreted, understood, and narrated (Soja 1996). While we are located in space, we feel, interpret, and act in place, in ways imbued with social meanings (Harrison and Dourish 1996) and in particular ways related to the body and embodiment. Mediated by the living body with its pre-reflective access to things, places with their meanings are not only socially and culturally constructed but are also primarily sensed, perceived, and consumed (Urry 1995) during touring through embodied experiences before, at the point of, as well as afterwards. With Casey (1993, p. 313):

Places are not so much the direct objects of sight or thought or recollection as what we feel with and round, under and above, before and behind our lived bodies. They are the adverbial and prepositional contents of our usually tacit corporeal awareness, at work as the pre-position of our bodily lives, underlying every determinate bodily action or position, every static posture of our corpus, every coagulation of living experience in thought or word, sensation or memory, image or gesture…. To be a sentient bodily being at all is to be place-bound, bound to be in a place, bonded and bound therein’.

Accordingly, as individuals move through the world, places and their bodily orientation in relation to them define their positions and movements—such as left and right, up and down, near and far, or between motion and stillness—all within the context of their embeddedness in meaningful relationships with their surroundings (Merleau-Ponty 2012, p. 270). Thus, bodies serve as means or conduits through which relational connections to things, people, and activities become possible (Merleau-Ponty 2012, pp. 253–54). The centrality of place, as it emerges through embodiment, is highlighted by Merleau-Ponty in demonstrating that locations themselves are integrated as relational phenomena within the lifeworld. This integration arises because embodiment signifies a world where living beings are inherently placed, thus situated in an active and reversible process, reflecting the negotiation of everyday life in relation to the material and social world (Dale and Burrell 2008, p. 215). For instance, depending on how we are placed and thus orientated, mobility is enacted and experienced through the body in diverse ways. Under certain placed conditions, a traveller may experience fatigue, rendering movement arduous or boring. Conversely, one might move with an adventurous spirit, full of exhilarating optimism, with a noticeable spring in their step.

Embodied mobility can be perceived as a form of liberation when departing from an inhospitable placed environment; conversely, it can feel constraining or being trapped when one is immobilized, as in the case of being stuck in a traffic jam. Similarly, the class in which a traveller flies on a transcontinental journey significantly affects their experience. First-class seating provides travellers with increased space, superior food, and enhanced services, in stark contrast to the experience of economy class passengers, who often find themselves in cramped quarters, experiencing discomfort, waiting in line for restroom facilities, and encountering potential frictions. These conditions form part of the broader constellations of mobility, with their embodied experiences encompassing purpose, velocity, rhythm, route, and spatial scale (Cresswell 2012).

The interaction between the body and its taken or ‘occupied’ place is inherently dynamic, reflecting shifting tides of emotions, self-perception, identity, social interactions, and cultural inclination and practices. The concept of an embodied place suggests a mutual belonging between bodies and their environments, highlighting the inseparable link between body and place as interdependent partners (Casey 1993, p. 103). This connection is revealed through bodily movements and restful states, wherein individuals are embedded within environments that engage them in meaningful relationships (Merleau-Ponty 2012, p. 270). Thus, the interaction between traveling bodies and the places they traverse in real-time is dynamic, continually shaped by the primacy of embodied places.

Living bodies mediate and facilitate a shared orientation within a place, enabling the co-creation of “place-scapes” (Casey 1993, p. 25). According to Casey, these place-scapes are intricate assemblages of interconnected locations, both in a fully experiential and representational sense. Much like landscapes interpreted as performative and emerging relationally (Crouch 2010a, 2010b), place-scapes are dynamic and evolving phenomena with their own temporalities. They are shaped by the movements and interactions of both human and non-human actors (Ingold 1993). Within these place-scapes, there may be sacred sites such as temples, churches, or indigenous sacred landmarks that gather people together for religious practices and ceremonies, imbuing the landscape with cultural and spiritual significance.

Additionally, urban-specific place-scapes, such as city parks, provide a shared, embodied place where diverse groups of people can congregate, engage in leisure activities, and contribute to the community’s collective identity. These parks and landmarks exist as materio-social bodies, formed through the interplay of visitors, events, and the natural environment, thereby fostering a dynamic interaction between humans and nature.

Linked to place-scapes are also embodied move-scapes, that refer to a dynamic and fluid understanding of landscapes as shaped by the movement of people, goods, information, and capital across various spaces (Nuninger et al. 2019). Move-scapes emphasise the relational and processual nature of spaces as they are continuously redefined by flows and movements. Originating from interdisciplinary fields such as human geography, urban studies, and mobility studies, it focuses on understanding how mobility and spatial dynamics interact and patterns at different temporal and spatial scales of multiple pathway systems (Nuninger et al. 2019). This may include animal migration paths that are fluid and constantly changing, impacting the landscape and intersecting with human activities, like hunting and conservation (Bastille-Rousseau and Wittemyer 2021; Wittemyer et al. 2019). Move-scape can also refer to human migration routes through which people move influencing and being influenced by the landscapes they cross (Cresswell 2006; Camacho et al. 2014). Such routes capture the temporality of movement—seasonal, political, or economic migration—and show how landscapes are continuously redefined by movement. Furthermore, there are digital move-scapes, like satellite navigation systems that continuously reshape our experience of place and orientation by offering real-time guidance and updates that shift perceptions of distance and connectivity. Or social media networks for example Instagram or Twitter which digitally map out move-scapes, where information and trends flow across geographical boundaries, altering travel patterns, cultural trends, and global communication.

Moreover, there are further interrelated fluid, flowing, and amorphous “-scapes” in a global cultural economy, as described by Appadurai (1990). Arjun Appadurai introduces the concept of “-scapes” to describe the fluid, dynamic, and overlapping landscapes of global cultural flows in the modern world. He identifies five key “-scapes” that are central to understanding the complexities of the global cultural economy and mobility.

Firstly, ethno-scapes which refer to the movement of people across borders, including migrants, refugees, tourists, and expatriates. Ethno-scapes capture the shifting nature of human mobility and how these movements impact local and global communities. Importantly, among those who constitute the ethno-scapes in a multicultural, shifting world, are besides immigrants, refugees, and other mobile groups also tourists. Secondly, Appadurai describes techno-scapes that focuses on the global spread of technology and the way it facilitates and transforms cultural interactions and economic activities. Techno-scapes encompass a wide range of technological flows, from digital communications to manufacturing technologies. These increasingly powerful scapes describe the global configuration of technology, both high and low, mechanical and informational, that moves at high speeds across various boundaries. Furthermore, he outlines finance-scapes which involve the flow of capital across international markets and are reflecting the complexity and unpredictability of global financial transactions and how they influence national economies and individual lives. Moreover, mediascapes refer to the global flow and consumption of media images and information, distributed across various media platforms. They shape and are shaped by cultural perceptions and narratives, influencing how people view and interpret the world around them. Finally, related to those are ideo-scapes, which consist of the flow of ideologies and political narratives. Ideo-scapes help spread ideas concerning democracy, freedom, rights, and nationalism, influencing political discourse and social movements around the world.

Appadurai’s “-scapes” framework highlights the interconnectedness and fluidity of cultural and economic phenomena in globalisation. These overlapping “-scapes” illustrate how local and global processes intermingle, creating complex landscapes that defy simple categorisation. Through this lens, Appadurai emphasises the non-linear and dynamic nature of cultural interactions in a globalised economy. Moreover, one can think about various sense-scapes that refer to the multisensory experience of a place, including not only visual and auditory elements but also touch, smell, and taste (Küpers 2013, 2015) all related to holistic, multi-sensory approach (Cohen and Cohen 2019, p. 8).

Phenomenologically, the metaphor of a body-scape (Porteous 1986; Longhurst 2001, 2021) that refers to the relationship between the human body and a placed landscape—seeing both the body as a landscape and the landscape as a body and underscoring their interactive, intimate, and transformative relationship—is interesting. This perspective can be related to a “MacCannellian” staging of tourist experiences, orchestrated by strategic guides and presenters (Athinodoros 2015).

The various “-scapes” mediate, enable, or channel mobility along designated structured routes or more versatile path or conduits, attempting to capture the multifaceted embodied, socio-cultural nature of touring and travelling experience in relation to place. Specific sites are moulded by and mould physical objects, events, and processes with spatial and temporal traits, as well as memories, narratives, social activities, and institutions.

In interrelating and acknowledging both internal, personal experiences and external, social frameworks or collective horizons, place emerges as “a structure comprising spatiality and temporality, subjectivity and objectivity, self and others” (Malpas 1999, p. 163). This intertwines with the broader fabric of social bodies, shaping the “social becoming” of embodied material and cultural realities (Crossley 1996, 2001, 2006).

2.2. Inter-Relationality and Mediality of Spaces, Places and Mobility

To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of spaces, places, and mobility, it is essential to interpret them not as fixed locations or simple movements between two points but rather as ongoing emergences of interrelated processes. As previously mentioned, these concepts encompass multidimensional phenomena, comprising physical, environmental, personal, and social dimensions as entangled. They can be seen as forms in media which describes a nexus in which different forms and structures are expressed within various media channels. An example for such a form in a medium is a public park1 serving as intermediary environments or milieus and conduits for the convergence, interaction, and transformation of the natural, material, individual, and collective worlds. With this perspective, they can be understood as constantly evolving and unfolding (Küpers 2011), including transformative travel (Kirillova et al. 2016; Lean et al. 2014) and the transformation of those being toured (Reisinger 2015).

As media, places, and mobility are the result of various interconnected relationships, they are functioning both as causes and as effects. The relationships between them do not only create places and mobilities but also continually shape, reproduce, re-mediate and modify them. From the smallest and most personal details to global phenomena, these relations constantly influence and intertwine with one another (Massey 2005). Mediating, as they emerge, place and mobility are not static, but rather complex and ever-changing processes. Therefore, places cannot be reduced to mere physical locations, but, like mobility, they are multilayered, relational, and constantly changing processes (Casey 1993, p. 65; Küpers 2010).

Enacting a relational intelligibility, our focus can shift away from viewing space and place as mere containers and mobility as simply moving from one point to another. Instead, we can see them as a dynamic process that unfolds between people and their placed artefacts-in-use in their situated environment (Küpers 2014, 2016). This shift in perspective leads us to recognise that placing and moving are rooted in collaborative activities within a complex web of interconnected relationships. This ongoing event of responsive interaction shapes our embodied perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and meanings. For instance, how we relate to affording places in terms of how close or distant visited sights are or what kind of concrete moves are required in various environments impacts how phenomena are sensed, felt, or thought about. It does make a difference whether a place travelled or arranged artefacts in the same are confining and forces alignment or allows freer, rhythmic moves in an open “relation-scapes” (Manning 2009). Erin Manning’s concept of relation-scapes explores the dynamic interplay between movement, experience, and relationality, showing how relations form the basis of our interactions and perceptions rather than merely serving as a backdrop. Accordingly, relation-scapes refer to landscapes made up of relations—a continuous process of becoming that incorporates the movements and interactions of bodies, spaces, and events. This is about understanding space and form not as static or given but as emergent interconnected dimensions of relational processes.

How relational practices take place also influences the development and functioning of communities, as well as the creation, use, and meaning of artefacts in a particular place or their emplacement, influencing how touring and mobility, are continually created, performed, questioned, re-created and re-negotiated. All of these relational elements are constantly changing and evolving within a recursive and reversible nexus (Merleau-Ponty 1995), which allows for a better understanding of relationally placed movement. This means that we can see how our movements and the places we interact with are deeply intertwined and influence each other.

2.3. Embodied Touring—Moving Through Relational Place and Wayfaring

As previously discussed, recognising the importance of embodied processes, places and mobile activity can be viewed as a continuous inter-relational happening that is constantly co-created and transformed. The act in which the presence and movement of both places and mobile subjects are simultaneously extended and connected to multiple locations in real-time refers to relational understanding of place (Küpers 2010). Such understanding requires acknowledging place, mobility, and subjectivity as dynamic and decentred, meshed events. This mesh of relationally being placed is ever-changing and embedded or distributed in dynamic sets of forms within powerful historical, physical, emotional, socio-cultural, and structural dimensions.

Moving through embodied relational places involves recognising that wayfaring, tour stories, or storied touring are experienced along opening lines and spirals as relational fields (Ingold 2011a, pp. 69–70). These interconnected fields are like living textures, composed of interwoven threads that form a relationally placed web of moving relationships, giving rise to the “life of lines” (Ingold 2015). One example of this wayfaring is traditional journeys, like the songlines of Indigenous Australians, also known as “Dreaming Tracks” (Chatwin 1987). These forms of knowing and storytelling combine mythology, mapping, and oral traditions, marking relationally placed paths with songs, stories, dance, and art conveying geographical and ecological information that corresponds to segments of a route. The songlines serve Aboriginal tribes in navigating the vast distances across their territory and are seen as being imbued with spiritual and cultural significance (Morrison and Harding 2006). For example, the Yolŋu songspiral of the Wukun—or “Gathering of the Clouds”—from Northern Australia express a need to cultivate abilities to attend deeply to place’s agency and act through co-becoming, which allows responding to climate change in relational patterned, embodied and affective ways, co-constituted through multi-temporal and more-than-human placed relationships (Wright et al. 2020).

De-linking from colonial ways of thinking, Hōkūlani Aikau and Vicuña Gonzalez (Aikau and Gonzalez 2019) also present an understanding of detours in the Hawai’ian tradition of huaka’i as referring to physical, spiritual, and intellectual journeys. These journey are seen as deliberative and purposeful and expect the traveller to remain open to how to relate and what can be learned about a place and oneself “in ways that you might not expect and that will demand something of you—a shift in perspective, an injunction to take action, a challenge to get involved, a request to step back or stand aside” (2019, p. 246).

Wayfaring is also illustrated by (post-)modern digital nomads, who travel while working remotely (Reichenberger 2018; Aroles et al. 2020) as part of a life mobility (Cohen et al. 2015) through their fluid and adapting interaction while being relationally placed with diverse local environments they temporally inhabit. Accordingly, wayfaring—relationally placed as well as movement and mobility—can be viewed as a form of emergence alongside with things and paths in the very processes of their creation: “not the trans-port (carrying across) of completed being, but the pro-duction (bringing forth) of perpetual becoming” (Ingold 2011a, p. 12). The various forms, formations, and transformations of relationally placed touring coexist and interact co-creatively with each other within a relational embedment of the environment as what has been called “inter-world” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, p. 373). By considering the concept of embodied placing and movement within this relational world embedment or inter-worldly immanence, we can expand our understanding and develop richer, and nuanced insights into our lived involvement within what Merleau-Ponty (1995) refers to as the “flesh” of the world. Merleau-Ponty’s indirect and post-dualistic ontology of “flesh” refers to a chiasmic, incorporated intertwining and reversibility of pre-personal, personal, inter- and transpersonal dimensions (Merleau-Ponty 1995)2. This flesh can be imagined like an immersive contemporary dance performance in which the dancers are creating the experience of moving with and through the place in a way that their bodies communicate and resonate with each other and the audience. In doing so the boundaries between performer and observer become blurred as each movement influences and is influenced by the presence and sensual, emotional and aesthetic responses of others in the room. Thus, the embodied presence is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a greater relational field with interaction, emergences and transformation of meaning shaped by the collective experiences and perceptions in the place as part of an ongoing cycle of expression and interpretation.

A phenomenological interpretation of the dimensions of mobility and travel, as embodied processes, can be revealing and quite enlightening. This revelation becomes even more apparent in contrast to positivistic- and instrumentalist-orientated studies and practices of place and mobility with its limited or reductionistic understanding of both. In addition to providing the basis for criticism of such kind of studies and orientations, phenomenology also helps develop different understandings and enactments of placed, moving, and performative practices. This understanding recognises that the body and embodiment are more than just physical entities or neutral operators. Rather, they are complex and ambiguous media through which we are relationally placed and move. Such interpretation allows for the reconsideration of mobility as embodied, relationally placed movements, enacted in detouring as alternative wayfaring outlined in the following.

3. Detour(ing) as Relationally Placed Mobility

急がば回れ “If you are in a hurry, take a detour” (Japanese proverb).

“It appears that we are here taking a detour. In the realm of such efforts, however, detours are sometimes the nearest ways…. For our contemporary way of grasping things, of course, we must seek detours and first establish one meaning and a univocality so is to proceed from there to understand things in a more originary way.”

(Heidegger 1996, pp. 60, 105)

“Does not detour—which is anything but gratuitous exert a certain power, which is all the more forceful for its discretion”.

(Jullien 2000, p. 7)

In this section, the use of detouring as a metaphor and practice in relation to movement and mobility will be explored. First, the metaphors of mobility and touring will be critically examined, followed by an introduction to the qualities and creative potential of detouring as a relationally placed “heterotouropia”. Finally, some critical perspectives and implications of the interplay between detouring and returning will be presented.

3.1. Metaphors of Mobility

In mobility studies, metaphors such as flow, fluidity, liquidity and nomadism have gained momentum. For example, Urry (2007, p. 22) uses metaphors of network, flow and travel extensively, while Castells (2000) and Bauman (2000) refer to flows, networks, and liquidity, and nomadism, respectively. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) also emphasise nomadism in their work on deterritorialisation and rhizomatic transgression and Deleuze (2006, p. 158) describes a wayfaring process of folding, unfolding, and refolding. Similarly, Braidotti (2006) incorporates the concept of nomadism in her critical post-humanist ethics and politics (Braidotti 2013) in relation to the pursuit of sustainable alternative futures. Metaphors of mobility can signify more than just the movement of people or objects in physical space and time or across social levels. They serve as root-metaphors for understanding the direction and manner in which societies and their members are evolving as well as how cultures are shaped and sustained in the context of late modernity and late capitalism.

How can we, as researchers and practitioners, move beyond the prevailing metaphors of flow, fluidity and nomadism, without reverting to idealised notions of stasis, nostalgia, conservatism, reactiveness or essentialism? Achieving a proper and transformative comprehension and reimagination of mobility requires transcending the potential pitfalls of both: a one-sidedly nomadic, uncritical and malleable instrumentalist approach as well as a one-sidedly sedentary, petrified, immobile stance. This calls for adopting a dynamic and resilient or resistant approach that avoids viewing mobility solely as a means to emancipate from geographical constraints, or as a threat to the stability of places.

While many popular metaphors of mobility and touring emphasise lightness and ease, they fail to fully capture the complexities and challenges, ambiguities and frictions or costs involved in people’s mobile touring, especially in their working lives. This is not to say that existing research on mobility does not acknowledge tensions or take a critical approach, but rather, these issues are not adequately reflected in their metaphors. For example, John Urry (2007) acknowledges the contradictions within mobility and questions the metaphor of flow, despite also using it. He highlights the impact of mobility on the environment, stating that capitalism has led to unprecedented levels of energy consumption and production, resulting in a high-carbon society. The consequences of this are now being felt (Elliott and Urry 2010, p. 140). In comparison to the concept of flow, the term “mobility” does not fully encompass the complexities and tensions involved. As Urry (2007, p. 25) states, the idea of “flux” better captures the struggle and conflicts within mobility.

For example, for highly mobile elite workers, constant and hurried travel can feel oppressive and overwhelming, an experience and concept known as ‘stickiness’ (Costas 2013). As Costas shows the metaphor of stickiness to reveals how highly mobile elite workers experience ephemeral, interchangeable and monotonous non-spaces of mobility can give rise to ambiguity, disorientation and loss as well as feeling stuck and thus alienating, even when returning to familiar places. One related aspect is for instance the experience of travellers while being hypermobile might be also stressfully sticked to rigid time regimes. This is an example of a paradoxical experience that can be described as a “fixed instability” or “rushing standstill”, where moves between ephemeral non-places such as airports lead to a sense of dislocation and uncertainty. Those following in the tradition of Augé (1995), have shown that the supposed freedom and glamour of constantly being on the move “everywhere” clashes with the impersonal, nameless nature of these spaces as “nowhere”. Such experiences result in a feeling of being disconnected or dislocated and a loss of transformation. Instead of being liberating, this constant compulsory logic of “ongoingness” that is of moving on and on can lead to alienation and a lonely working life along with other impacts and “costs” of mobility (Elliott and Urry 2010, p. 140).

3.2. The Metaphor, Practice and Examples of Detouring

Based on critically reflecting about metaphors of mobilities and movement, the following offers a different approach to touring and mobility is proposed through the metaphor and practice of detouring. Showing the value and relevance of detour and cultures of detouring aim at offering a different perspective on and ways of touring, travelling and moving that might contribute to navigating through our contemporary existential challenges (Simpson 2020)3.

Literally, a detour is a diversion route that allows access to an area that may have limited or restricted access. To detour then refers to the embodied act of going or traveling to a destination through a different route than the usual or planned one, often taking longer. It is a deviation from the direct path or normal procedure. To take a detour means to turn differently, to divert, which comes from the Old French word “destor”, meaning “to divert” or “to turn aside” from “destorner” from “des-” or “de-” meaning “apart” or “away from” and “torner” meaning “to turn” (https://www.oed.com/dictionary/detour_n accessed on 29 July 2024).

To go by detour can mean to avoid something by going around it, bypass, circumnavigate, or circumvent, thus making a roundabout way of reaching a destination (https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/detour accessed on 29 July 2024), which may imply to move somewhere in a non-linear fashion (Sheller and Urry 2006).

Detouring can be seen as a disruption or deviation from the intended course of action, resulting in a displacement of either time or space. From a deconstructionist perspective, the “de-” in “detouring” can also be interpreted as delaying, suspending the accomplishment or fulfilment of a desire or a will (Derrida 1978, p. 8) and relating to the gift as disrupting the linear, economic calculation and logic of exchange (Derrida 1992). In the spirit of Derridean deconstructivism, detouring serves as a temporary delay of closure, allowing for the postponement of arrival. As meaning is always postponed and never fully present, deferral detouring may lead to referring to another past or future element in an economy of traces. The latter can be understood as a complex network of circulating, interdependent relationships between different signs, mediated, unstable, multiplied meanings, and non-self-contained concepts in language4.

In this sense, detouring can be used to debunk and expose the flaws of linear thinking, progress, and the perception of proposed efficient and supposed effective, direct touring based on traditional economic hierarchies and logics. For example, cultural festivals can be deconstructed as detours, when travellers planning a visit to a prominent city might unexpectedly encounter a local cultural event. Instead of sticking to the itinerary, they immerse themselves in the festival, experiencing local traditions and customs that are not part of mainstream tourism. Often being hidden in isolated places far from urban areas or popular tourist attractions or destinations, such festivals allow small, creative tourism experiences with specific visitor-resident engagement (Panyik and Komlós 2023, pp. 173–74). Similarly, artistic micro-adventures in small places (Lawrence 2023) and small-scale arts festivals, like the one described by Bakas et al. (2019) in Portugal that make local and visiting participants “engage in activities such as volunteering to help in the running of the festival as well as practices of mutual aid in the form of cooperating with artists to create artistic performances” (Bakas et al. 2019, p. 12).

Another example would be the experience of a gift economy in local markets, when tourists are visiting a rural area and they engage in a local setting where barter or gifting is common and instead of purchasing souvenirs with monetary transactions, they participate in bartering. This detouring practice may disrupt the typical economic exchange logic, promoting a value system based on generosity and reciprocity, fostering deeper connections with local vendors and the community. By stepping away from traditional economic and time-bound constraints, detouring may reveal alternative significances, prompting a re-evaluation of value and efficiency in tourism. By detouring from traditional economic structures, a gift orientation in detouring invites a reassessment of what constitutes value and shows the ethical value of giving and generosity without expecting anything or not directly in return. This orientation challenges the market-oriented, transactional nature of contemporary society and suggests a shift towards a more gift-giving and community-oriented approach. Accordingly, detouring in gift transactions may lead to an ethically nuanced and potentially genuine relationship between giver and receiver, including the travelled environment.

Contradictions encountered on the detoured routes path slow down, deflect, and rearrange the trajectories that define or mark the nature of culture in a globalised world, viewed as a journey or travelled one (Dasgupta 2013)5. The detour itself can take various forms, and it hardly knows where or when it will end. Thus, its ultimate destination is often unknown or outcomes uncertain. Instead of taking a direct route, the detour can lead the traveller astray towards a different direction or pathway. This criticism of following linear path and straight lines calls into question the idea of teleological and deterministic, destination-centric thinking and organising respectively movements and orders. Delays and detours as intricately embodied and culturally complex experiences shaped by contingencies challenge the idea of a predetermined goal-oriented movement through space towards a known destination (Dasgupta 2013, p. 67).

One instance of detouring would be a road trip through scenic routes that leads to an unplanned stop at a picturesque, off-the-map location. Travellers choose to spend time hiking or picnicking at this location, delaying their arrival at planned destinations. This act of stopping serves as a suspension of the end goal, allowing travellers to experience the journey itself and the interruption as meaningful, rather than focusing solely on reaching the destination. Another revealing example of detouring would be byways that are little-travelled side-roads but are scenic as they have natural, cultural, and historical, values within their surroundings (Eby and Molnar 2002).

Compared to tourist roads that primarily facilitate transportation between tourist destinations, scenic byways represent a distinct type of tourism road that integrates multiple qualities all within a visible range. Breaking away from traditional, isolated destination-centric tourism nodes towards routes that offer specific experiences—for example, self-driving tourism routes like the “Giant Panda Ecotourism Scenic Byway” in the Western Sichuan region, or the “Gongga Mountain Scenic Byway Loop” (Zhang et al. 2023). With advancements in technologies like GPS and travel apps, tourists can find spontaneous detours to hidden gems and local attractions advised by user online travel reviews and blogs (Gretzel and Yoo 2008).

One other example of a disruptive, voluntary detouring can be found in forms of refusing conventional museum formats and scripts by honouring local, rural, and indigenous knowledge as described by McTavish (2021) in relation to tours in small-town and rural museums in Alberta, including case studies of “Gopher Hole Museum”, “Fort Chipewyan Bicentennial Museum”, “Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park”, and the “Museum of Fear and Wonder”.

Detouring can be part of eco-tourism when it employs visitor dispersal strategies to spread out or reduce various tourist impacts, to prevent overcrowding and environmental degradation at heavily trafficked sites (Drápela 2023). Detours into natural reserves and lesser-known parks may offer unique travel experiences as visitors can engage deeply with local, less crowded ecosystems, cultures, and communities, leading to a rich and fulfilling travel experience (Fennell 2020; Honey 2008).

Examples of detour could be related to sustainable mobility (Holden and Linnrud 2015) and slow tourism (Dickinson 2015; Fullagar et al. 2012; Moira et al. 2017) that evoke slow paced activities with the aim of experiencing and enjoying the visited locale to the fullest extent, as well as place-attached and in-depth interactions with local residents (Pawlusiński and Kubal 2018; Walker and Lee 2019; Shang et al. 2020). As such they incite different ethical-politically reflective ways of being, and moving, as well as different logics of desire that may tend to value detouring travel experience. Concretely this may include immersion in the local culture or manifest for instance in forms of slow traveling in which detouring refers to engaging with all the senses and savouring each activity in its own right (Germann Molz 2009). In contrast to packed itineraries, travellers adopt a decelerated travel approach, choosing extended stays in smaller, less-known destinations. This choice involves appreciating each moment and locale, possibly foregoing the fast-paced, hyperactive checklist-driven travel experience. By delaying their pace, travellers challenge an accomplishment mentality—the urgency to see and do everything—which may foster a deeper, more sensual, and reflective engagement with places and people. This is described by Hull et al. (2023): travellers—instead of visiting multiple tourist hotspots—choose to spend an extended time in a small, traditional village in Tuscany. Such traveling and stays help to engage with the local community and cuisine, participate in daily activities, and embrace a slower, more intentional way of experiencing the culture and place. Moreover, such a place-based and creative method of tourism can also be co-engaged to aid sustainable cultural development in smaller communities (Scherf 2021, p. 3).

Slow tourism encapsulates this ideal by countering negative impacts of ecological and socially problematic, untenable forms of travel, through a focus on sustainable and sociable identities. It emphasises the preservation of local areas’ distinct characteristics concerning a sense of place, hospitality, leisure, and rejuvenation (Woehler 2004). Such a shift towards eco-friendly consumption encourages travelers to be mindful of their product and service use and to reflect critically on mobility’s complexities. By straying from conventional beaten paths, travellers can engage with local cultures and environments that can support more responsible forms of tourism. Companies like Detour (https://detourdestinations.com accessed on 29 July 2024) which prioritise sustainable partnerships with environmentally and socially responsible local tour operators, like Rainforest Alliance, demonstrate a commitment and drive toward the adoption of sustainable tourism practices.

Detouring can be a form of ‘disruptive tourism’ (Germann Molz et al. 2014) that focus on potentialities of being-with others in unusual ways, including ‘untidy’ practices of hosting and guesting or pathways into the unknown that confound and interrupt habitual assumptions and interactions. As example Germann Molz et al. describes camping, and relating to parasites, silences, unlearning and serendipities as constituents of disruptive, ways of travelling that could be interpreted as have detouring character. Detouring can support this being-with in unusual ways in form of an ‘intimate tourism’ (Bialski 2012), which captures tourists’ desires not just to gaze at places, but to have meaningful embodied and emotional encounters with strangers in their private lives and domestic spaces, attuned into affectively in-between (Germann Molz and Buda 2022). This can happen for example in community homestays in which tourists engage in everyday life activities with local families while traveling (Larsen 2008).

As a form of volunteer tourism, travellers may find themselves involved in a local community project, such as building a community garden as part of sustainable development (Hall and Richards 2000). This participation may divert time and energy from typical travels, focusing on contributing to local projects. Such engagement can represent a kind of detour in the economic transaction logic, emphasising community collaboration over individual leisure, fostering a sense of shared purpose and contribution, especially when organised in an equitable way, keeping local control as Blackstock (2005) has shown in a critical study of a North Queensland tourism destination.

Another related example is voluntourism, which refers to the performance of leisure activities and travelling in combination with volunteering for a good cause, like engaging in community welfare projects or environmental projects, in close contact with residents. This might involve transformative detouring, especially if it involves travel to or in a disaster-stricken country (Knollenberg et al. 2014).

Interestingly, taking the host perspective, Wong (2022) describes a progression of detouring development in a post-pandemic context of ecotourism; specifically eco-trekking in Northern Laos, that can also be helpful for indigenous resilience.

Importantly, while intended to provide mutual benefits to tourists and host communities, certain pernicious aspects of volunteer tourism can negatively impact the relationships of those involved, generating unintended effects or straining relationships and contribute to negative outcomes. One problematic impact is producing dependency within host communities. For instance, local development efforts can begin to rely heavily on the influx of foreign volunteers (Simpson 2004). Such reliance can disrupt local economies and foster power imbalances, as foreign volunteers may be perceived as more knowledgeable or capable than local residents (Palacios 2010), hindering a cocreation process (Hernández-Maskivker et al. 2018). Furthermore, the cultural exchange in voluntourism can be one-sided, with volunteers imposing their cultural values and beliefs. This can lead to misunderstandings and reinforce stereotypes. Detouring, in contrast, encourages engaging deeply and thoughtfully with local cultures, disrupting superficial interactions and promoting genuine understanding through immersion.

Often driven by personal fulfilment rather than altruistic motives, volunteers may inadvertently prioritize their experiences over community needs. This can lead to exploitative practices where volunteers gain significantly more than they contribute. Detouring offers a perspective shift, encouraging volunteers to reconsider their motivations and engage in activities that emphasize mutual aid and ethical interactions. Moreover, the short duration of many voluntourism projects can limit long-term sustainable development. Temporary projects without ongoing support can leave communities worse off once volunteers depart. Detouring, which implies a commitment to long-term engagement and understanding, can foster more sustainable collaborations that prioritize lasting local community benefits over short-term volunteer experiences, also serving as a base for ethical voluntourism practices (Palacios 2010). Volunteer tourism may also displace local employment opportunities, with volunteers working in roles that could be filled by local workers causing also cross-cultural misunderstandings (Raymond and Hall 2008). This displacement is at odds with the spirit of detouring, which values local engagement and participation, suggesting an approach where volunteers support, rather than replace, local initiatives. By adopting a detouring mindset, participants, organizers and locals can reimagine volunteer tourism as an opportunity for deeply reciprocal, sustainable, and ethically nuanced interactions, reaffirms the importance of community empowerment, respect, and collaborative engagement in tourism practices.

Relatedly regenerative tourism involves improving places, which comprises giving back to communities economically, socially and culturally, and enhancing local environments; as well as fostering a connection with place for both visitors and local residents and focusing on how tourism can improve quality of life of human and more-than-humans for future generations, while also rendering some ambivalence and sentiments of resistance (Pung et al. 2024). Furthermore, related to degrowth frameworks, regenerative, localising, and socialising tourism have been explored for developing more inclusive and impactful tourism sectors in consideration of just futures (Akhoundoghli and Boluk 2025).

All these examples and considerations illustrate how detouring, can introduce travellers and hosts to rich and meaningful experiences that emphasise interconnection, culture, and community. Thus, and as stated before, departing from conventional socio-economic constraints and temporal limitations, allows for the discovery of alternative interpretations of meaning, thereby fostering a reassesment of what is valuable during traveling and surplus value in the tourism industry that can be seen as “heterotouropian” as described in the following.

3.3. Detouring as Creative Move and Relationally Placed “Heterotouropia”

The concept and practice of detouring redefines the relationship between the body and its movement within space and place, facilitating a novel experience. This process involves or mediates navigation through unfamiliar or unknown pathways, thereby opening avenues for creative possibilities. In this way, bodily, spatial, temporal, and social dimensions and relationships can be interconnected in a playful manner. Through embodied detouring, these various dimensions and social interactions combine, resulting in unexpected unique trajectories that intersect with their inherent heterogeneities (Massey 2005, p. 9). Additionally, detoured places and movements are constantly “under construction”, evolving and being created, never reaching a state of completion or closure.

Detouring mandates an openness to exploration and play, facilitating unforeseen possibilities through relatively unrestricted movements. This concept of placed detouring is akin to Foucault’s notion of “heterotopia” (Foucault 1984)—alternative spaces with more layers or latent meanings, complexities, and relationships that transcend the immediately visible. Heterotopias challenge conventional understandings of space and time, opening up imaginative explorations that question and contest the spaces we inhabit.

In the context of mobility and related to the concept of “othering”, this idea can be termed as “heterotouropia”. Within the complex ambiguous interplay of space, place and embodied movement, “heterotouropias” simultaneously reference, reflect, incorporate, and challenge other traditional forms of touring, offering individuals an opportunity to embody and emotionally immerse themselves in varied spatiotemporal configurations. These refer to a multiplicity of transformed places and rhythms or alternative methods of becoming emplaced and paced. Thus, the diversity of routes and cadences achievable through detouring fosters alternative perspectives, uniqueness, and transformation (Lean et al. 2014).

One illustration of a “heterotouropian” experience in nature might be a guided hike that evolves into a sensory experience, prompting participants to deeply engage with the natural environment through all senses. This might involve listening intently to the sounds of the forest, feeling diverse textures, and meditating at scenic spots. Such sensory immersion transforms the trail into a “heterotouropic” place, where natural rhythms and personal reflection disrupt the conventional objective of a structured guided nature tour. In urban settings, heterotouropian experiences might involve exploring abandoned buildings or overlooked areas not featured on tourist maps, turning these spaces into sites for creative interaction, photography, and exploration. By navigating through these forgotten spaces, conventional urban narratives are disrupted, uncovering layers of history and hidden stories. Thus, this detour becomes a heterotouropic experience by challenging and redefining the traditional understanding of urban spaces and their uses.

Another instance of a “heterotouropian” event might involve a traveller encountering a community art installation that invites active participation. This event transforms the place into a living canvas, with each participant altering the narrative through personal contributions. The installation thus becomes a “heterotouropia” by dynamically evolving through active engagement, embodying a multiplicity of artistic viewpoints and processes.

Similarly, spontaneous gatherings for yoga or musical jam sessions in public parks create temporary and transformative environments. By participating, individuals alter their perception of the place, turning it into a collaborative space of creativity and relaxation—transforming it into a “heterotouropia” that defies standard park-use conventions. Furthermore, themed walking tours in cities focusing on lesser-known historical narratives, like women’s history or LGBTQ+ stories, reveal hidden aspects and marginalized voices. Such detours might reclaim parts of urban histories, providing new more nuanced interpretations of familiar places.

These examples demonstrate how detouring encourages a celebratory exploration of the unexpected and underexplored aspects, promoting fresh insights into the diverse interplays of place, time, and identity, which might foster a reflective and enriched touring experience. In this sense, detouring might also allow flirting with space and experiencing landscape relationally as one form of performative expressive poetics of spacing, which enables an always emergent dynamic relationality between representation, practices, and identities (Crouch 2010a, 2010b).

By breaking away from the dominant order of necessity and utility, detouring allows for temporary journeys of creative exploration, play and imagination. However, for it to have a meaningful and profound impact, detouring must also be linked to re-touring to the original tour or everyday life itself also not static, which reflexively may involve reframing or reclaiming values, voices and vocabularies and providing other representational modes. In this way it is reconstructing perspectives and developing re-orientational practices of touring.

Detouring challenges the dominant paradigm of necessity and utility, allowing for temporary journeys of imaginative exploration and play. However, to have a meaningful and profound impact, this creativity must still be linked to re-touring—that is, to the original tour or everyday life, themselves never static—through reframing or reclaiming values, voices, and vocabularies and offering alternative modes of representation. This process involves reconstructing perspectives and developing reorientational touring practices that takes steps towards thresholds towards places and moves in other, indirect ways.

4. Thresholding Towards “Other-Placing” and “Other-Moving”: The Wisdom of Indirection

Understanding the interplay between de- and re-touring can foster a transitional dance on the threshold (Küpers 2011), delving into experiences of different places and movements. In this way, de- and re-touring may act as transitional moves and transformative actions, emerging out of liminal spaces and times, characterized by being betwixt and between (Turner 1967, 1982). These transitional moments and moves through zones of liminality and liminal landscapes have been used and remapped in relation to spatio-temporal dimensions in travel, tourism, and pilgrimage (Andrews and Roberts 2012). Correspondingly, the temporary and spatial nature of de- and re-touring, although seemingly superfluous, useless or non-specific, carries changeful potentials distinct from conventional ordinary experiences, as a multitude of transformative events and encounters can arise during these liminal moments (Lean et al. 2014).

The bodily processes associated with de- and re-touring are intrinsically mediated and embodied, incorporating a rhythm that diverges metronomic beats with its fixed tempo and lack of pauses and transitions. This rhythmicity is marked by intervals and transitional movements occurring amidst a journey. Temporal and spatial transitions interrupt the linearity of clock time, disrupting the continuous flow and creating new routes and opportunities. These time-space configurations of in-between in de- and re-touring offer abundant potential for unique and transformative connections.

Transitioning from a detour to a re-tour serves as a connector between distinct times, spaces, and places. By disrupting the linearity of time and flatness of space, re-oriented transitions in relationally placed de- and re-touring, open pathways unhindered by prescribed touring purposes. This process enables individuals to encounter diverse connections and patterns, promoting a sense of oscillation and resonance. These qualities are central to the concept of “in-direction” by Jullien (1999), advocating for a process-based, self-organized, continual, and immanent transformation. The indirect and meandering character of de- and re-touring facilitates a circuitous yet effective journey, leading to “materio-socio-cultural” differences in outcomes.

One example could be cultivating awareness and patience by participating in a traditional tea ceremony, where the focus is on the meticulous process rather than simply drinking tea. The ceremony’s slow, deliberate movements emphasise patience and awareness. Participants are encouraged to embrace the ceremony’s rhythm, savouring each step in brewing and serving the tea, paralleling Jullien’s idea of “in-action” and allowing the experience to unfold naturally without rushing to the “end goal” of consuming tea. As outlined before, travellers who spend time exploring a small village not listed in guidebooks, perhaps prompted by a local artisan’s shop or a scenic viewpoint only accessible via by-roads, are flexible and responsive to a travel style with in-direction. These practices all connect with the idea of allowing experiences to reveal themselves, fostering unexpected opportunities for cultural exchange and deeper understanding. This very “in-direction” embraces indirect, process-based engagement while travelling and can lead to deeper and more meaningful experiences, as it allows situations to unfold naturally in a cultured way, confirming the value of remaining open to the inherent potential within transitional and seemingly insignificant moments, as advocated by Jullien (1999, 2000).

In line with Jullien’s “active in-action” (1999), this process nurtures the latent potential within convenient occurrences by stepping back from direct action, such as enforcing an itinerary or adhering strictly to a plan. The efficacy of this non-doing lies in activating situational potentials inherent in de- and re-touring. This non-action may not be immediately noticeable but flows with the flux of events, drawing on the latent energy and momentum within situations. By allowing things to unfold and circumstances to mature naturally, without force or manipulation, goals are achieved organically.

Contrary to planned and efficient navigational routines, moving between identified points, moving indirectly involves wayfinding initiatives by which traveller navigate spaces and times using various strategies beyond direct, linear paths (Montello 2005). These moves are animated and guided by environmental sensitivity and spatial awareness, facilitating detours, including lingering, and directional changes. Unlike direct touring, which reflects pre-established knowledge and coherent paths through rapid, decisive navigation, indirect moves often entail uncertainty and a sense of importunity, disrupting established orders.

Indirect detouring enables the perception of the gradual effects of nuanced changes over time, fostering dynamic adaptation in contrast to a predetermining and goal-oriented approach of travelling that aims at stable end states and arrivals. For such an indirect approach, sustainable success lies not in directly pursuing outcomes or arriving at destinations but in recognising and navigating implicit situational forces that influence the detour directions, sometimes independent of human intent. This strategy requires shifts in focus from active intervention to patient observation and learning, harnessing situational tendencies to evolve, and take shape while also realising and expanding personal potential and possibilities.

A historical example of indirect moving and detouring can be seen in the eccentric and exotic journeys of Théophile Gautier. These voyages were characterised by broken lines, zigzag, and twists and turns that correspond, in space, to the figure of the paradox which governs his work as a Bohemian artist, who also detoured from conventional narratives, advocating ‘l’art pour l’art’ or art for art’s sake (Hong 2022). His expeditions, like his “Voyage en Russie” (1867), often involved diversions from conventional routes and expectations, allowing him to explore the exotic and unconventional. Accordingly, Gautier’s travels were not always straightforward but rather practically indirect, as they involved exploratory side-trips, enabling him to immerse himself in unfamiliar cultures and landscapes. One instance of how he diverted from conventional routes to explore lesser-known regions and immerse himself in the local culture was during his 1843 journey to Spain. During that journey, he decided to visit Granada’s Alpujarras, a remote mountain region seldom included in the itineraries of traditional travellers. This detour allowed Gautier to experience the unique blend of Moorish and rural Spanish culture, offering insights and perspectives that were absent from mainstream travel accounts. Additionally, during his travels in Egypt, detailed in his 1869 book “Voyage en Égypte”, Gautier embraced unplanned excursions that took him beyond the expected Nile cruises and tourist sites, venturing instead into small villages and interacting with local communities. This approach provided him a richer, more nuanced understanding of Egyptian life and landscapes beyond the conventional narratives typically shared with Western audiences.

Unlike journeys completing a closed, immutable circle which is stable yet potentially paralysing, the process of de- and re-touring revolves in an ever-expanding spiral6 constantly decentralising and never returns to its starting point. In contrast to static and fixed circular patterns, spirals embrace dynamic, generative, and fluid transformations, constantly diverging like movements that shift off course, as described by Ingold (2011b). Ingold highlights the value of movement—whether physical, social, or conceptual—diverging from intended paths.

These reflections on detouring revolve around the seemingly trivial all too easily stated wisdom of knowing and enacting that the journey itself is the ultimate “goal”. Once one embarks on a detour, the process of “pathing” becomes the very goal, complete with its joys and challenges and all its bliss and blisters. The poetic and creative wandering that comes with taking a detour is more significant than arriving, reaching a specific destination or finding a complete resolution at the end point.

This idea of discovering one’s path through creative detouring moves is eloquently captured and beautifully expressed by Antonio Machado in his poetry of “Campos de Castilla” (Machado [1912] 2002), with the famous line: “there is no road, but the road is made by walking”. Similarly, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke encourages detouring in his “Book of Hours” (Rilke [1905] 1996, p. 59): “Go to the Limits of Your Longing. Embody…” to fully embrace desires and journeys, as meaning and paths are formed through experiential living. Like these European artists, Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” (Whitman [1856] 2024) also celebrates freedom and self-creation, emphasizing the journey’s spontaneity and openness along the way—“afoot and light-hearted”.

However, the wisdom of detouring also entails a critical and twisting aspect. It involves adapting and responding to the demands of changing, ambiguous, and multifaceted or polyvalent situations, requiring moving with vigilance, alertness, and sensitivity. Detouring demands awareness of subtle, diverse, and seemingly minor occurrences that can lead somewhere else or to unexpected outcomes. Its elusive and nuanced nature necessitates imaginative leaps, oblique thinking, and occasionally subversive actions. Consequently, the acts of de- and re-touring ultimately challenge and deconstruct traditional notions of touring, questioning what tours can be.

Through this process, de- and re-routing can reveal what remains unseen, dormant, or latent—what has yet to be sensed, felt, thought, spoken, or enacted. The deliberate deranging, disruption, or reordering of established pattern through these exploratory movements, fosters the emergence of new configurations. This implies a conscious unsettling of conventional understandings, enabling novel ideas, perspectives, and developments to surface. The ambivalence of detouring comes from its potential for displacement, bringing feelings of unease, discomfort, disorientation, and disconnection or loss through the interruption of familiar spatial contexts and physical presences. Like a strategy without design (Chia and Holt 2009), detouring involves embracing uncertainty, ambiguity, and the unknown. It is about creating space, not confined but refined for what can disclose revealingly that is “… making room, the limits of which are not boundaries, but the edges, where things begin their essential unfolding” (Chia and Holt 2009, pp. 210–11). Detours deliberately move towards and temporarily dwell in clearings as places of encounters with phenomena on the way. This allows for the disclosure of things that may be overlooked or disregarded in a pre-organised, linear touring approach. Whereas conventional touring often follows pre-paved, linear paths on a level path, like smooth moves on the surfaces of flattened, ordered streets, de- and re-touring may offer different experiences They facilitate movement towards interstitial experiences that delve deeper or ascend higher and explore hidden sides, especially when guided by enacting a letting go and engaged releasement or “Gelassenheit”, as outlined in the next section.

5. Touring in the Spirit of Letting Go (“Gelassenheit”) as Relational Placing Practice of Mobility

In exploring the interconnectedness of place, embodiment, movement, and mobility within an increasingly hypermobile world, the concept and practice of “Gelassenheit” may prove insightful. Originating from the German language, “Gelassenheit” can be translated as “release”, “letting go”, “serenity”, “composure”, or “detachment”, and it embodies a philosophy of active, ongoing passivity. This entails embracing a disposition that allows one to relinquish habitual, representational, and controlling or manipulating inclinations, opting instead to let things exist in their vital nature (Heidegger 1969, 1993; Dalle Pezze 2006).

Notably, this approach does not suggest disinterest, indifference or apathy; rather, it promotes an engaged approach to allowing things to be. Entering a state of “letting-be” involves cultivating a receptive attitude characterised by patience and attentiveness—an embodiment of active non-doing as an alternative to the prevalent urge to continually exert control over outcomes. Such a stance advocates for departure from calculative and representational paradigms in favour of a more poetic relationship and contemplative interactions within the world. By resisting the constant drive for activity and consumption, particularly apparent in certain forms of tourism, the adoption of “Gelassenheit” facilitates the evolution of a wise form of active receptiveness and responsiveness. This involves immersing oneself in the experiential flow of movement, gradually assimilating its insights and lessons. This calm, meditative receptiveness, permits the rational, calculating mind to temporarily recede, allowing bodily engagement with animating phenomena. Instead of hastily traversing from point A to B, one practicing detouring engages in a leisurely exploration of the intermediary space, appreciating the scenery and surroundings. Such journeys are characterised by a relaxed traversal of the winding paths of embodied experience, integrating perception, sensation, thought, and action. Movement guided by “Gelassenheit” fosters the emergence of new perspectives and possibilities. Approaching travel with “Gelassenheit” necessitates a present, responsive, and ethical disposition and attitude towards encountered people and places, fostering positive and transformative relations with place, time, and identity. It encourages continuous and full engagement in the present, resisting detachment or disconnection with what is going on. By maintaining attentiveness to the material, social, and cultural environments they inhabit, individuals can actively participate in the co-creation of their worlds (Küpers 2015). As a genuine expression of mobility and detouring, “Gelassenheit” embraces the unfolding of the present moment as one moves and resides within their environment, forming the foundation of mindful travel (Iacob et al. 2021). This perspective recognises the significance of embodied and emplaced temporalities, such as slowness, waiting, and active non-doing, as crucial components of a comprehensive sensuous “geo-bio-socio-graphy” of movement and dwelling. The navigation of embodied, kinesthetic, and sensory environments is deemed essential for the human experience (Dant 2004; Jensen 2012) and as intertwined with nature. An illustration of this is “Forest Bathing”, where individuals immerse themselves in nature to enhance physical and spiritual well-being. This practice involves consciously avoiding popular trails in favour of exploring lesser-known paths, engaging in mindful slow walks, deep breathing, and employing all senses to foster a profound connection with the natural world (Li 2018). Here, the focus shifts from covering extensive ground to appreciating the sensory experience of being present in the forest

Religious and spiritual travellers’ often take detours to visit less known but spiritually significant sites, thereby creating spiritual and reflective journeys (Timothy and Olsen 2006), while detouring in contemporary pilgrimage is often realised under socio-culturally ambiguous conditions of late modernity (Howard 2012). One example is walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, where pilgrims travel on foot for weeks, engaging in contemplation and letting go of the rush and distractions of modern life. Along the way, they might detour into small villages and interlude, experiencing a deep sense of place and serenity (Frey 1998; Brumec et al. 2023).

A perspective grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s relational ontology highlights the significance of transitional moments where movement is interrupted or decelerated sometimes even stopped—as essential for cultivating a deeper understanding of our interactions with the world. Engaging with these transitions through practices like engaged releasement fosters an appreciation of both the positive and challenging aspects of detours without mere mindless appropriation, discouraging superficial organisation, excessive consumption, and exploitative tendencies.

Developing a more liberating relationship with what emerges during detours does not mean rejecting the use of mobility technologies and devices such as mobile phones and computers, which have become ubiquitous in the age of the “digital matrix” (Howard and Küpers 2017) impacting various forms of mobility and immobility through the compression of time and space. Instead, it means cultivating a sustainable perspective and finding a balance in their usage, rather than being entirely defined and controlled by them (Conway and Timms 2010, 2012).

An orientation towards detours with the described spirit of “Gelassenheit”, encourages not only a thoughtful, reflective openness to technology’s potential, without allowing it to ‘enframe’, digitalise, or dictate human existence (Feenberg 1999, 2017). Rather, it can also contribute to a more qualitative development of travel (Hall 2010) and create sustainable futures in tourism (Gössling et al. 2009). In a practical sense, this orientation of engaged releasement could manifest in shorter trips, in terms of travel distances or longer stays, rejecting air travel for less environmentally damaging overland transport. This approach not only reduces ecological impact but also enriches the travel experience itself (Dickinson and Lumsdon 2010; Dickinson et al. 2011). Consequently, a new form of well-being, referred to as “dwelling-mobility” (Todres and Galvin 2010), emerges within sustainable travel or fostering sustainable futures in tourism (Gössling et al. 2009). Adopting the mindset of “Gelassenheit” may redefine unsustainable travel as unfashionable, challenging the glorification of fast mobility and long-distance consumption while promoting alternative notions and orientations. The letter ones may refer, for example, to what global, good ecological citizenship and stewardship (Bourbon 2023; van Steenbergen 1994) mean, including valorising slowness, stillness, pausing, and local focus as part of pro-environmental behaviour, thereby potentially reshaping cultural values and symbols.

Despite this potential, the activation of resistive performative movements and the influence of influencer and celebrity endorsements on societal norms play an important influence (Higham et al. 2013, p. 7; Harish et al. 2024; Kilipiri et al. 2023; Marković et al. 2022). Relatedly, the use of digital platforms and social media such as Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Facebook and Reddit, especially by the Generation Z (born after 1995), can have potential to disrupt conventional travel patterns (Vancia et al. 2023) or de-influencing travel (Kılıç and Polat 2024) and support sustainable ways of travelling (Butnaru et al. 2022; Salinero et al. 2022). Enacting the ethos of ‘Gelassenheit’ can also inform responses to political issues, and conflicts of mobility and its distribution, querying who benefits from what kind of mobility or being demobilised and under what circumstances such states are desired, imposed, or interconnected (Urry 2007, p. 25).

Broadening the understanding of detouring as a form of bounded mobility challenges the traditional dichotomy between sedentarism and nomadism (Cresswell 2006, p. 25). An approach rooted in “engaged letting-go” involves mediating diverse life experiences and realities and exploring “Gelassenheit”-inspired relationally placed movements could yield insights into materialities, rhythms, forces, and atmospheres (Merriman 2012). These phenomena, closely tied to embodied experiences, can be articulated through poetic and narrative expressions, as moving through stories spaces (Brewer and Dourish 2008) with “Gelassenheit” acknowledges the performative nature of wayfaring and wayfinding. This process of “knowing as you go” occurs within a dynamic, evolving tangle of intersecting paths, forming a meshwork that is elaborately unfolding (Ingold 2011a, pp. 69–70; Ingold 2015).

6. Conclusions: Implications, Problems, and Perspectives

In this paper we have explored and moved through an analytical space to foster an enhanced understanding of mobility and travel that is dynamic and processual in nature. Through a phenomenological approach, insights were gained into the embodied aspects of placing and moving. Drawing from a relational perspective, we interpreted place and mobility as interconnected phenomena, that can serve responsive and responsible travel practices. The idea of detouring was proposed and discussed as both a metaphor and a methodological tool, guiding the adoption of an ethos of engaged release—or “Gelassenheit”—encouraging sustainable and mindful travel that benefits the traveller, the local communities, and the environment.

By concluding, several unresolved questions and future research directions arise, particularly regarding shifting traditional epistemological stances related to space and mobility and new challenges and implications identified critically. As a discipline organises an analytical space (Foucault 1977, p. 143), there is a need for a multidisciplinary, inter- and transdisciplinary, and even meta-paradigmatic journey. Such cross-disciplinary and meta-perspectives enable researchers to transcend reductionist approaches, embracing diverse bodies of knowledge and employing a variety of innovative research methods, which include corresponding methodological “positions” and “moves”. This holistic approach involves exploring the places and movements related to touring and tourism from multiple perspectives, including those of the first, second, and third person, with an emphasis on both singular and collective modes of action-inquiry (Torbert 2004). By incorporating these diverse viewpoints, researchers can foster a more nuanced understanding of the complex and interconnected processes underpinning human movement and experience.

Methodologically, analysing place and movement relationally requires transitioning from an external observational view to immersive engagement. According to Shotter (1993, p. 20), this involves understanding through contact and touch, highlighting the importance of being contextually situated. Rather than maintaining a detached perspective and an uninvolved standpoint, the negotiated processes of research on touring and travel within specific conditions and their everyday embedment in localised travel contexts needs to be acknowledged. Relatedly, conceptual approaches like Lefebvre’s three-dimensional understanding of space as a lived one and as perceived and conceived space (Lefebvre 1991) can be used for further research on detouring.

In our increasingly digital age, the prevalence of travel and mobility may be linked or underscores a growing need for tangible engagement, non-representational relationship with places and affective, personal connections (Thrift 1996, 2007). This shift suggests a desire for embodied experiences and genuine interactions and movement in presence also while travelling.

However, the (re-)idealisation of embodied place and travel poses risks, potentially leading to retro-romantisation—a regressive yearning for or over-nostalgia for a supposed idyllic pre-modern lifestyle. Such re-enchanting views may constrain or limit perspectives, reviving pastoral myths and promoting outdated and provincial attitudes towards place and movement. A craving for a simpler, tribal way of life, characterised by close-knit communities and a slower pace may inadequately address or respond the complexities of contemporary society and diverse global dynamics. It may also hinder exploration or stifle opportunities of new and alternative pathways for living and organising. Hence, it is imperative to not oversimplify or essentialise notions of place, the body, or (de-)touring and transformative travel experiences also as proposed in this paper. Doing so would neglect or disregard the inherent intricacies and dynamic nature of these concepts and related practices. Rather than seeking metaphysical centres or unified positions related to embodied place and movement, a more fitting approach would be to consider the delicate and subtle relational networks and processual, evolving relationships among them.

The following list outlines open questions and pertinent issues within the expansive research area of post-industrial mobility:

• How can studies on the dynamic and embodied experience of post-industrial mobility and detour elucidate the balance between proximity and distance, and between the immediacy of physical presence and the mediated nature of tele-presence? Addressing this question necessitates exploring touring practices that require oscillating between locating and dislocating, placement and displacement, thereby challenging and redefining boundaries and meanings.
• In what ways can we deconstruct the relationally placed movement of touring and detouring to achieve both stable, secure settlement and orientation, such as housing habitation, as well as disruptive dishabitualisation that can disorient or disorganise, promoting flexibility, while creatively unsettling? To address this nexus, research must not only focus on the physical movement of objects and the embodied touring of people but also consider imaginative, virtual, and communicative forms (Urry 2007).

These forms can both enable and coerce individuals to lead mobile lives (Elliott and Urry 2010). Additionally, understanding the relational atmosphere (inter-spheres) of touring, where individuals can enjoy the “pleasures of space” (Tschumi 1994, p. 84) and movement without exacerbating unsustainable consumption, is essential.

• Several questions arise:

• How can we organise these relational worlds to enhance consumer satisfaction and economic viability while also ensuring environmental, social, and cultural sustainability?
• What is the role of intermediaries and hybrid entities, such as sociotechnical systems or human–material hybrids as “actants” as active elements of mobility systems, in the context of touring, and how do they support specific mobility regimes (Kitchin and Dodge 2011)?
• How do various forms of mobility influence professional relationships, commitments, attachments, and (dis-)identifications among stakeholders like service providers and consumers? Furthermore, how do intersecting mobilities—multiple forms of travel occurring simultaneously—impact movement dynamics? Additionally, what are the implications of bounded mobilities, restricted movements, and issues of inclusivity/exclusivity, inequality, and power asymmetries on societal mobility demands and practices?

To comprehend this complex landscape of mobility fully, a political economy of touring needs to be developed, critically examining the relationship between local and global “power-geometries” (Massey 1993). This involves exploring the politics and poetics of mobility (Adey 2013; Cresswell 2012; Cresswell and Merriman 2011) and acknowledging that not all individuals engage with mobility as a resource equally (Skeggs 2004, p. 49). Consequently, research must analyse power dynamics, the impact of mobility discourses and practices in relation to stasis, as well as the factors that facilitate or impede movement and contribute to the unequal distribution of network capital (Elliott and Urry 2010) and socio-spatial motility differences (Kaufmann et al. 2004, p. 750). This even more relevant as tourists increasingly emerge from middle classes in the non-Western regions of the world. Furthermore, these critical issues are best to be contextualised within a world inclining toward deglobalisation, a retreat from liberal cosmopolitanism, and the resurgence of right-wing isolationism in advanced industrial societies affecting tourism and travel.

As Cohen and Cohen (2019, p. 16) recently stated: “Bounded entities, like countries, borders and nationalities, which still mobilise people’s emotions, even if they were dissolved by postmodernist theories on mobilities and the death of master narratives, are in resurgence, and could lead to increased suspicion and animosity towards foreigners, which might, among else, also affect tourism”. Indeed, if the “end of tourism” (Urry 1995) is forthcoming, this hyperbolic vision might occur more plausibly under processes of securitisation and isolationism, rather than through the de-differentiated flows of global capitalism.

Finally, or perhaps initially:

• How might we implement a deliberate letting go as “Gelassenheit”, as a form of mindful engagement, within our fast-paced world often perceived to lack time and patience for such practice? More importantly, how can this engaged releasement be linked to an enacted art of practical and transformational wisdom (Küpers 2013, 2024) related to traveling and detouring?

The significance of places and forms of (de-)touring movement is crucial to our embodied participation in the physical, ecological, social, and cultural realms. Thus, our knowledge and actions are shaped by the places, ways of placing and movements we experience or are influenced by, also in detouring. This highlights the importance of reawakening our attention towards places and moves by mindfully re-engaging with them, emphasising sensory and bodily orientation. Considering the “political life of embodied sensation” (Panagia 2009) and the reconfiguration of the share of the sensible (Rancière 2004, 2010) that defines emplacement, mobilities can challenge hierarchical and exclusionary systems and distributions, facilitating exploration of alternative forms of arranging movement and performative practices (Spicer et al. 2009, pp. 545–54).

Overlooking the socio-ethical-political dimensions of embodiment (Beasley and Bacchi 2007) and lacking mindful mobility impoverishes both human and non-human or “more-than-human” (Abram 1996) existence and obscures the interconnection between ideology and politics regarding body, place, and movement. This neglect could potentially lead to both biological and cultural extinctions (Gruenewald 2003). Therefore, reimagining places, bodies, and movements as performative mobility and engaging in detouring opens up a multitude of possibilities, inviting new ways of practice. It is hoped that the ideas and discussions presented here will inspire new methods, approaches, and experiences in uncharted territories by harnessing and exploring the realms of embodied movement through relationally placed ways of travelling, with the spirit of “Gelassenheit” being well appreciated and put into action.