T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom inspired me to travel. The book and the movie. Not because it made me want to retrace Lawrence’s campaign, but because it made me long for the desert he was forever trying, and failing, to leave behind. When I stood in Wadi Rum and later wandered through Petra, I was looking as much for an idea as for a place: the immense silence, the unforgiving beauty, the romance that David Lean later painted onto the screen, and the melancholy Lawrence himself could never quite escape. He returned to England, but part of him remained among the Bedouin beneath that endless sky. I suspect every meaningful journey leaves us with the same quiet burden: coming home while knowing that, in some sense, we never entirely did.

© Dominik Alexander / 2026