Ibn Battutah, the best traveler of the pre-mechanical age, set out in 1325 from his native Tangiers on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Arabic scholar and award-winning travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smith retraces the first stage of the Moroccan's eccentric journey, from Tangiers to Constantinople, traveling both in Ibn Battutah's footsteps and in the footnotes of his text.