Travel by proxy, anyone?

I had this crazy idea in bed last night.

I love to travel, but don’t enjoy doing it as a job. I want to travel purely for the experience, to explore the culture and history of the places I visit. But I can’t afford to travel like this unless I somehow come into a lot of money. Playing the lottery regularly isn’t proving to be profitable and I don’t have any rich relatives. It struck me, though, that if there are people gullible enough to spend a fortune on all the scams going around on the Internet (okay, so most of them play to people’s greed) then maybe there are enough philanthropic people out there who’d be prepared to donate a few pounds each to fund my travel. I wouldn’t be fleecing anyone. I could be quite upfront about it: Lot’s of people making a small donation could make enough for me to go somewhere, write about it and photograph the experience for the enjoyment of my sponsors.

I have thought about trying to become a travel writer – but that would be travelling for a job, to a deadline, with pressure behind it. It wouldn’t be travel purely to expand my mind and have the experience.

In the past I’ve had my travel blogs complimented and I wonder if people would be prepared to pay for me to write them – or at least pay to fund the travel that would let me write them.

I haven’t worked out the details yet – or indeed worked out whether I’ve totally gone off the deep-end and no one would be stupid enough to buy into it. But surely it’s worth a try. There’s an awful lot of vicarious enjoyment of other people’s lives on the Internet. I don’t have the body to do porn or fashion modelling. I’m not a movie star or a sporting idol. Maybe writing about far away places will be my thing.

Do you think I could sell it? Travel – by proxy.