Vagabond tourism and a non-colonial European gaze: Kazimierz Nowak’s bicycle journey across Africa, 1931–1936

ABSTRACT From November 1931 to November 1936, the Polish citizen Kazimierz Nowak traversed the African continent, from Libya to Cape Town to Algiers, primarily by bicycle and almost entirely without using motorised transportation. With no major sponsors or state support, Nowak paid for his journey by sending numerous photographs and dispatches back to Poland for publication. This article argues that his critical gaze on colonialism and capitalism in those dispatches arose due to his method of travel as a poor, vagabond tourist and because of his position as a European from a country without colonies in Africa.