Dromomania

Dromomania, also called travelling fugue, is a psychological condition in which people spontaneously depart their routine, travel long distances and take up different identities and occupations. Months may pass before they return to their former identities.

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The most famous case was that of Jean-Albert Dadas, a Bordeaux gas-fitter. Dadas would suddenly start travelling, on foot, and come to as far away as Prague or Vienna or even Moscow with no memory of his travels. A medical student, Philippe Tissie, wrote about Dadas in his doctoral dissertation in 1887.

Jean-Martin Charcot presented a similar case he called automatisme ambulatoire.

Only a handful of cases were ever documented, nearly all in France in the late nineteenth century.

See Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses by Ian Hacking (ISBN 1-85343-455-8)