Everybody loves traveling. Some more than others but the idea of “seeing something else”, of experiencing something that differs from the everyday life, is the idea or even the expectation behind traveling. There are two types of traveling: “Traveling” itself which describes the movement from A to B, sometimes C, but highly probable in the end you will come back to A. Likely the movement is planned before beginning the trip and it is confined to a certain amount of time. A person moving in this way is a “tourist”. They carry the amount of clothes that they can fit into a piece of luggage (or two) and that is usually matched / adapted to the climate of their destination. Nowadays it is not even the cultural difference which brings people to travel to other countries but only the possibility to have their normal life in another place (have you ever been at a camping site where people sit in their RVs watching TV? It’s like, dude, take a walk! Do something else as you are used to!). They get the same food and talk the same language, but all that next to a beach. Sadly modern tourism businesses are more and more specialising in this kind of traveling. “Nomading” on the other hand refers to a roaming way of traveling. You start in A but then you go kuku. There is no final point B and no return point A, there is no time limit and often there is not even a plan. Logically these persons are called “nomads”. You are likely to carry all or most of your belongings with you. You are not having a place others call “home”.

In social and cultural anthropology the term “nomad” describes a group of people with a certain economical and political organisation. There are hunter and gatherers but also pastoral nomads who follow their livestock. Usually they have a seasonal base but not necessarily. These days due to change of lifestyle or border closures there are not so many traditional nomads any more. So here we will talk about “modern nomadism”.