In his autobiography, The Royal Road to Romance, Richard Halliburton, a famous 20th Century adventurer and travel writer, recounts the world travels in which he embarked upon after graduating from Princeton in 1921. This book is made up of a collection of mini-stories that Halliburton reveals to the reader in the order in which they happen. Through his writings, one truly gets a sense of Halliburton’s adventurous, romantic, and sometimes arrogant character. On his road to romance, Halliburton experiences several ethical conflicts, but brings many upon himself by lying to advance himself and his travels.
When the month of May rolled around, and his studies at Princeton were commencing, Halliburton was itching for adventure—a romantic adventure. He wrote, “I hungered for the romance of the sea, and foreign ports, and foreign smiles. I wanted to follow the prow of a ship, any ship, and sail away, perhaps to China, perhaps to Spain, perhaps to the South Sea Isles, there to do nothing all day but lie on a surf-swept beach and fling monkeys at the coconuts.” If it was romance Halliburton wanted, it was romance he would seek. After turning down a “luxe trip” around the world offered by their parents as a graduation gift, he and his former Princeton roommate, Irvine, opted instead for a more adventurous means of venturing abroad: they found work on a freighter and sailed out of New York, heading for Hamburg.
Halliburton’s first big adventure overseas consisted of climbing the Matterhorn, a 14,692-foot mountain located along the border of Italy and Switzerland. Having no prior mountaineering experience, or viable gear, this could have been an extremely dangerous feat, especially since climbing season was coming to a close. However, after blatantly lying about their extensive climbing background, Halliburton and Irvine convinced two guides to accompany them on their expedition. This was not Halliburton’s only brush with dishonesty during his travels. He went to pretty much any length to get what he wanted, or go where he wanted.
His dishonesty got him into some serious trouble while visiting Gibraltar. Of his beloved destination, Halliburton wrote, “Were this a guide-book, which it is not, or were it a travel book, which it is only incidentally, the author would state that any one traveling in Spain who did not visit Gibraltar would miss the last word in interesting places.” During his stay, Halliburton had a “sudden and intense desire” to summit the “majestic rock” that existed on Gibraltar and photograph the city from its vantage point. Halliburton snuck past two warning signs, a spiked fence, and a sentry box with a guard to reach the summit. Although photography on the rock was strictly forbidden, as Halliburton was made aware a number of times, he began furiously snapping pictures. He was caught in the middle of his illegal photography session and was consequently arrested and sentenced to a short stint in a Gibraltar jail. However, Halliburton still managed to leave the country with a roll of film, taken from the summit, which had not been confiscated.
Halliburton’s habit of dishonesty did not stop there. When funds were low he skipped out on a tea bill in Monte Carlo, snuck into the garden of the Taj Mahal after closing hours, shorted a hotel bill in Punjab, and jumped numerous trains. He also used his title as a journalist in an attempt to secure discounted prices for travel. When learning that a visit to Ladakh would cost him and a travel companion 75 dollars each, he said, “We are journalists and wish to take this trip in search of copy. Our accounts will be published in several newspapers so that we are in a position to advertise ‘Civil and Military Agency’ to a large number of readers in America—that is, if it were worth our while.”
All this is not to say that Halliburton was completely dishonest all of the time. He lied when he felt there was no other way to achieve his romantic adventure, although this sometimes meant disrespecting foreign cultures. When funds were available to him, he happily paid for meals and transportation. He even revisited restaurants and railways to pay back bills he had previously skipped out on.
Several of Halliburton’s writings were published in various newspapers and magazines, so he did not use his journalistic title in a blatantly deceitful manner. Halliburton was simply a youthful, adventurous, intelligent man who did whatever it took to keep himself on the winding, unpredictable, sometimes-dangerous-but-always-exciting road to romance.
