Book excerpt: "The Mind of the Traveler is a panoramic excursion through these transformations of passage. Eric Leed explores the great travel traditions of the West: heroic travel, as in the adventures of Odysseus and the chivalric exploits of medieval knights; sacred travel, as in the holy pilgrimages of penance and purification; and philosophic travel in search of knowledge, wether social, as in Marco Polo's itineraries of the East, or scientific, as in Darwin's discoveries aboard the Beagle". --Publisher.