American Way: What are some of the most awe-inspiring places you've visited?
Le Bon: People always ask me that. They expect me to recount this awesome scene in the Himalayas or some fantastic South American waterfall. That's not the way I look at it. I remember emotions. What inspires me internally, at that particular moment. It may be a very ordinary place, but if you have a great feeling about it, that changes it instantly.

American Way: An example?
Le Bon: One time we were in the Algerian Sahara doing a camel expedition. We came to a small oasis and there was an old ruined fort where a big battle had been waged a hundred years earlier. I climbed up there by myself early in the morning and I just sat there for half a day meditating. In the middle of the Sahara, with these awe-inspiring vistas of nothing really - sand and rocks and a few palm trees here and there. I'm thinking, Here I am in the middle of the Sahara, by myself in a place from another world, with nothing around me for hundreds and hundreds of miles. You have a tremendous feeling of just being, and being so elated you feel almost like you rise above the Earth. It's hard to explain. But those emotional highs stick with you.

American Way: What have your travels taught you about humankind?
Le Bon: There are two kinds of people: Those who live in a modern society, the travelers, and those who live in the primitive societies where we like to go - the Bedouins in Arabia, or the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara, or the Bushmen in South Africa. But basically we're all the same. Excepting cultural differences, we really are all alike.

American Way: What does a lifetime of exotic travel bring to a man?