"Does the boat go to Europe, France?"

—Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

When in 1871 James Gordon Bennett, owner of the New York Herald, sent Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to find the missing David Livingstone, who was suffering from that incurable disease wanderlust, a new type of serial travel journalism was born: the journey as journal. Stanley sent dispatches from the field that were received with great enthusiasm by readers, who got a rare glimpse into an unfolding adventure in a land far away and unfamiliar.

"Well-Traveled" brings the seed of Bennett's conceit to the 21^st century, dispatching some of the world's finest writers to distill the spirits of places little known and pouring the concoction onto our digital pages. Today, thanks to satellite technologies and the Internet, we can stretch the bar of the imagination, break the tyranny of distance, and publish our correspondents' spontaneous musings, insights, images, and audio within hours. There is an honesty and rawness to this format not found in the well-tuned pages of travel magazines, and our hope is that we will inspire and illuminate travel in a uniquely satisfying way.

So, join us as we lace the boots, box the compass, and set sail for Europe, France, and ports betwixt and beyond, on the routes less-traveled by our well-traveled band.

And be sure to check out our trips to Kashmir, Zambia, and the Outlaw Trail.

—Richard Bangs, Producer

What is Well-Traveled?

Scandinavia: Design and architecture.

Costa Rica: Exploring Eco-tourism with Natalie Angier.

"Mission to Galápagos": Ruffling feathers in paradise.

"The Blues Highway": Exploring the routes of the blues.

"The Outlaw Trail": tracking the robberies and roosts of Butch and Sundance from Wyoming to Mexico.

"Into the Heart of Africa": the source of the Congo, a journey through Zambia.

"The Road to Kashmir": a trundle through India's Ladakh region on the Tibetan plateau.

Other trips

For our first "Well-Traveled" journey, we trundle through the Ladakh region of Kashmir on the Tibetan plateau. The 12-day trip takes us from Leh, a city of butter lamps and prayer wheels, to the hill station of Manali, to the plains city of Chandigarh. We negotiate an ancient caravan route billed today as the world's highest motorable road—18,380 feet at the pass—and traverse the sharp blade of territory adjacent to borders disputed by India and Pakistan. Bunkered between the world's great ranges, the Himalaya and the Karakoram, it is a land of monasteries and mosques, of lamas and mountain gods, of palaces and tea houses, and of giant glaciers and vast deserts. Often called "Little Tibet" or "Land of the Pure," this quarter of the high world has always been a hidden paradise for the well-traveled, but today even the cognoscenti are away. Join our team as it surveys this Shangri-La and shares the sights, sensations, observations, and interpretations of a frontier intersection of cultures, religions, and politics on the front lines of adventure travel.

The trip

Seth Stevenson, often found shopping for Slate, recently filed a "Diary" from Bangkok.

Jonathan Chester, our field producer, is an expedition photographer and author who has traveled extensively to report on extreme travel. His latest book is The Young Adventurers Guide to Everest, From Avalanche to Zopkio.

Stan Armington, our guide, is one of the pioneers of Himalayan trekking and the author of several definitive guides to the region. He is a director of the American Himalayan Foundation, a member of American Alpine Club, and a fellow of the Explorers Club and Royal Geographical Society.

The team

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Longitude: 77.11 E
Latitude: 32.14 N
Altitude: 6,370 feet
Today's audio update

A hotel-room's-eye view of a dawn goat jamThis morning, we drive through a river of sheep and goats. They plug the road for 50 yards, jamming it from side to side (some goats even teeter at the edge of the switchback cliff). But after much chuffing and whistling and banging of their crooks on the pavement, the herdsmen manage to push all the sheep and goats out of harm's way. We roll by the unimpressed animals, who baa a little and slowly blink their dull eyes. One mile later, we meet another large herd and repeat the process.

Our next sight on the Leh to Manali road: bicyclists. They pedal with ease through the barely there air, hardly breaking a sweat. As the road angles up, they downshift serenely. My God, who are these people? At 16,000 feet, I'm pretty sure I'd pass out playing foosball.

People from Bihar melting tar to pave roadsAs you may have deduced, altitude and I are not good friends. But after the Rohtang pass, the rest our journey is (literally) all downhill. I'm not surprised to see that the pass itself is a dystopian scene. This jibes with my current conviction that hell is an unpaved, high-altitude roadway. Thick clouds descend and mist swirls. We can't see more than 20 yards in front of us. Somber work crews emerge from the gloom, stoking a barrel of flames. (They're melting tar, thereby creating a paved, high-altitude roadway—which may be purgatory, but I haven't decided yet.)

And then at last we descend. Down and down, all the way to a very reasonable, sub-8,000 feet. We have reached Manali.

Lately, Manali is a hub of domestic tourism. Why, you ask? Because Indian tourists are way too smart to go anywhere near where we've been—where there's danger and stuff, and really, who needs that?—so they hang out here. When Kashmir's tourism wilted, Manali's bloomed. No wonder: It's got beautiful mountains for hiking and skiing right next to the middle of town, and it's quite a refreshing change if coming from Delhi. Cooler. Greener. And a bit less throat-smoldering pollution.

Your basic Indian tourist in Manali does something like this: arrive; rent fake-fur coat (they own no warm clothing); go into mountains for day to ride horseback or paraglide; return to lovely hotel and enjoy stunning view. How touristy is it? At the base of each waterfall here, there is a snack stand.

Manali is a hectic placeIt's not at all the sort of travel we were enjoying in Ladakh. In Ladakh, we knew we'd gone somewhere. Partly it was the overwhelming presence of Tibetan Buddhism—which lends a starkly different feel to the region. (Manali is Hindu.) Partly it was the emptiness of Ladakh. (There are no empty spots in Manali—they're all filled up by well-dressed Indian tourist children nagging their parents.) Manali does still have donkeys meandering the streets. But compared to where we've been, it feels like Toronto. There are taxis here and plumbing. Our hotel has a pingpong table.

So it's both a relief and a letdown to rejoin the civilized world. Yes, travel in Ladakh was far from easy. It's a harsh place, as locals will tell you. But our efforts were rewarded by sights that few Westerners ever see. Ladakh has a scale and solitude that Manali just can't capture. Ladakh has no paragliding. Ladakh has prayer wheels and monks and the wonderfully peaceful vibe that Tibetan Buddhism seems to foster.

On the other hand, Manali has kind bud. It's known as the head shop of India—Amsterdam at 7,000 feet. We've heard that in some of the guesthouses, just outside town, before you can drop your bags they've rolled you a j-bird. And on our drive here, we saw dozens of 8-foot-tall pot plants right by the road. Wild weed. If only we were staying here a few more days, and I wasn't working …

When next we talk, we'll be at our journey's end. Offering closure, tying the bow. And summing up thousands of years of northern Indian culture in just three paragraphs. Maybe two! Be sure not to miss it!

Check back Monday for the final dispatch from Kashmir.

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Seth Stevenson, often found shopping for Slate, recently filed a "Diary" from Bangkok.

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