One of my favorite activities is to travel to visit friends and lovers. I also travel to further projects and to meet new friends and lovers. Favorite destinations are festivals. Over the years I have attended dozens of festivals and conferences. And I like going back to the same festival year after year. I have attended The Edinburgh International Festival every year since 1957. And have every intention of attending the next fifty years or so. I attended the Cannes Film Festival for over 25 years (until my wonderful hotel was demolished to make way for a newer and more expensive one.)

The most exciting festival in the world during the 80s was the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree. I have participated in the Belgrade October Meeting, the Lahti Writers' Reunion, a UNESCO Conference on Experimental Education in Hamburg, a UNESCO Conference on Drugs in Paris, a conference on Love & Attraction in Swansea, the Copenhagen Sex Fair, the New Orleans May Fest, the Problems of the Small Theatre in Florence, a Conference entitled "Doom of the Book?" in Zürich, a festival in Århus (where I organized a telephone-happening) and Russ Weis' Conference on Alternative Lifestyles in Manhattan (where he and I started our friendship). And film festivals in Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Gdynia, Budapest, and Telluride. And I have organized festivals, including The Wet Dream Film Festival in Amsterdam. Every October finds me in Frankfurt/Main for the Frankfurt Book Fair where I also organize a party to which anyone may attend. A new festival I attend is the Calcutta Film Festival. Having attended in 2006, I was asked by the Director, Nilanjan Chatterjee, to serve as a consultant. Attended again in 2007, plan to continue in 2008 and beyond.

I also want an excuse to visit the Ukraine and to meet people in Lvov, Kiev and Odessa. It is an unfulfilled ambition to sail from Constanza in Romania to Odessa. Needless to say, I like boat trips. I once traveled from Moscow down the Volga to Nizhni Novgorod. I have crossed the Atlantic a half dozen or more times by freighter, by tanker and once by the French Line, Le Flandre. Another exciting trip was from Porto La Cruz (Venezuela) to Portland, Maine by tanker. I was the only passenger. It took 8 days and I was charged $2 per day. This was in the early 50s. Trains are another favorite form of transport and I use them constantly. Recently I left Paris for Munich (where I had breakfast with Patricia Engelhorn and lunch with Sabine & Rainer Kölmel), continued to Budapest (where I had dinner with Dora Puszta & Zsuzsa Czobor, then stayed the night with Dora), continued to Timisoara (where I attended a Goran Bregovic concert and dined with him and Maria Rankov afterwards), continued to Cluj (where I attended another Bregovic concert and stayed with Liana Baciu & Virgil Mihaiu), back to Budapest (more visits with friends), on to Milano (where I stayed with Aleksandar Stefanovic) and then home to Paris. Exactly the kind of trip I like. One of these days I just might organize a trip down some river somewhere in the world. Would you like to come?

Jim Haynes, 2008