Penniless walker sets off

YOU’VE got to hand it to Mark Boyle, a former dotcom entrepreneur turned “community pilgrim” from Bristol, who is trying to prove you can live without money, even in this most materialistic of decades.

Boyle, who is of Irish ancestry and goes under the alias “Saoirse” (pronounced sear-shuh), which means freedom in Gaelic, intends to walk 9,000 miles (14,000kms) from Bristol, in England, to India. But the 28-year-old will take no cash, traveller’s cheques, credit or debit cards. Indeed, he is carrying nothing but his faith in humanity and a small backpack.

Boyle is confident he’ll be able to rely on the kindness of strangers he meets along the way, as well as doing building and gardening work to earn his keep. He is the founder of the “Freeconomy” movement, whose website  claims it aspires to bring about a transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society.

“The more we accumulate wealth, the more it leads to a breakdown of community,” says Boyle. “We need to get back to a more communal way of living.”

Walking between 15 and 45 miles a day, Boyle will walk his way through France, Italy, eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and expects the journey will take him about two and a half years.

Boyle intends to end his “pilgrimage” at Porbanbar on India’s west coast — the birthplace of, Mahatma Gandhi, the lawyer turned activist who became the  leader of the Indian independence movement. 30 January, the day he set off, was the 60th anniversary of Gandhi’s death.

“I’ve got some sunscreen, a good knife, a spoon, a bandage … no Visa card, no travellers’ cheques, no bank accounts, zero. I won’t actually touch money along the way,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday.

“I will start writing a new chapter in my life. From this point on I endeavour to never touch money again,” Boyle wrote on his blog, which can be found at the www.justfortheloveofit.org. He says he wants to demonstrate that what he terms a “harvest philosophy” can work in practice.

This is a form of communitarianism, in which people live by sharing their skills rather than using cash. “My mum and dad always speak about a time in Ireland when people came together and took in the harvest together, and no money changed hands.”

Boyle believes that his mendicant approach to travel will work out fine in Asia but expects it might meet with more resistance in the UK and continental Europe. He acknowledges that he may struggle to persuade cross-channel ferry operators to give him a free passage. However, Boyle intends to be persistent.

He told Today: “I’m going to walk up the guy behind the counter and just explain what I’m doing, and say it as passionately as I can to him and show him how much I really care about what I’m doing.”

If that fails — like Robert The Bruce before him — Boyle will simply try, and try, and try again. “If I’ve got spend two and a half years to show one person the conviction of what I’m doing, then it’s two and a half years well spent,” he said.

This blog post was published on 2 February 2008