Larkin scholarship has, for decades, orientated its criticism of the poet's work around a tacitlyaccepted set of norms connected to the poet's attitudes towards travel. Such opinionative norms predominantly uphold an image of the poet as a sort of recluse; a caricature of a hermit, whose undying attachment to the Humber Estuary and its environs is somehow inextricably linked to, and a prerequisite for, a proper understanding of the poet's voice and personae. While Larkin did voice a 'hatred of abroad' as early as 1936 (Booth21), critical attempts to move beyond his often throwaway denunciation of 'the foreign' have invariably galvanised a mode of scholarly approach which remains doggedly insensitive to the subtle array of agendas and allegiances towards travel which sit deep within his poetic. In this article, I attempt to explore these allegiances, arguing that the image of Baudelaire's fl�neur develops a motivic significance throughout the poet's middle-era work. Equally, I argue that travel for Larkin was an attempt to indulge auto-erotic proclivities, as well as to engage in the attendant critical discourses connected with travel, popularised both before and after the turn of the 19th century.