“Travelling for working, and working for travelling†German Wandergesellen are journeyman craftsmen who have been undertaking the same rite of passage for the last 800 years. Having completed an apprenticeship, young men and women set out on foot with just a couple of coins in their pocket and a few bundled belongings. Without a steady home, they are not allowed to pay for accommodation and for coming forth. They are thus obliged to get in contact with the local people: while walking through woods and villages, hitch-hiking, when they are helped and hosted, and, when the money is over, looking for a job directly knocking at a master's door. They are a closed group keeping alive handed-down rituals and rules, sharing the aura given by their garb and by the ancient tradition they embody. Part of the traditional guilts, these become their new family where they support each other and share values of loyalty and honesty during their trip and for their whole life after. Journeymen-women learn, with the Walz, not only new, and old, handcrafts techniques they keep alive, but also how to get by on their own in life: without mobile phone, free, at their own rhythm, they willingly experience a de-escalation. The Walz is a journey, out of every present scheme, which allows a deeper insight into other people's life and self. Wandergesellinnen and Wandergesellen travel as far as their craft might take them but cannot come within 50 kilometres of home, until their Walz of three years and a day is over and they return richer, not of good and chattels, as guildswomen and men. Interested in the social aspect of the tradition of Wanderschaft today and the process of identity building on the road, I also observed the place women have in the craftmanswolrd and as travelling journeywomen. I came along with Wandergesellen during their travelling, learning, working, changing. Wandertage is a romantic modern tale of adventure and hope.
