pWhy do we travel Ostensibly an act of leisure, travel finds us thrusting ourselves into jets flying miles above the earth, only to endure dislocations of time and space, foods and languages foreign to our body and mind, and encounters with strangers on whom we must suddenly depend. Travel is not merely a break from routine it is its antithesis, a voluntary trading in of the security one feels at home for unpredictability and confusion. In iBewildered Traveli Frederick Ruf argues that this confusion, which we might think of simply as a necessary evil, is in fact the very thing we are seeking when we leave home.ppRuf relates this quest for confusion to our religious behavior. Citing William James, who defined the religious as what enables us to front life, Ruf contends that the search for bewilderment allows us to point our craft into the wind and sail headlong into the storm rather than flee from it. This view challenges the Eliadean tradition that stresses religious ritual as a shield