Apodemics is more than the art of travel – it is also a discipline. Starting in the 17th century, early apodemic treatises formulated codes of prevention and restriction regulating a traveler’s chosen journey – from the point of departure (“when,” “where to”) to the company he or she kept (“with whom”).
Source: wiktionary
Apodemics was closely related to the emergence of ‘Statistiks’ in the Germanies, and to colonizing projects. One of its goals was to train the traveller to become a reliable observer who, when dispatched on long journeys to foreign lands in the service of the sovereign, could return with useful intelligence.
Source: wiktionary